William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce was the son of a wealthy merchant in Hull, England. He was elected to Parliament at twenty-one and became a close friend of William Pitt the Younger, who was soon prime minister. In 1785 he went through a deep religious conversion and considered leaving politics, but the former slave-ship captain and hymn writer John Newton encouraged him to stay. Persuaded by abolitionists such as Thomas Clarkson, Wilberforce made ending the British slave trade his life's work. Beginning in 1789, he brought bills before Parliament year after year and was defeated again and again, while the campaign gathered petitions, boycotts and evidence from witnesses. At last, in 1807, Parliament passed the act abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire. Wilberforce then worked for the end of slavery itself and for many other causes, including schools, help for the poor and the reform of manners. Ill health forced him to retire in 1825. He died in July 1833, days after hearing that the bill to abolish slavery in most of the British Empire would pass.

Faith: Leader of the evangelical party in the Church of England. Source: Dictionary of National Biography (1885–1900) (via Wikisource)