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William Wilberforce

More than a politician

WILLIAM WILBERFORCE
The life of the great anti-slave trade campaigner
By William Hague
Harper Press. 582 pages. £25.00
ISBN 978-0-00-722885-0

This is a well-researched and well-written political biography. It provides more information than previous biographies on both Wilberforce’s life and his political campaigns. It is chronological, showing that for much of his 45 years in Parliament, Wilberforce was engaged in seeking to bring to an end the slave trade, after as well as before 1807. Hague is ideal for explaining political processes, both then and now.

Hague is not politically partisan. He points out the Whig support of Fox, Grenville and Brougham, as well as Wilberforce’s close friend, William Pitt. Wilberforce was an Independent MP, assessing Tory and Whig policies according to his Christian moral convictions.

Hague does not ignore Wilberforce’s Christian conversion, convictions and activities. However, his assessment of Wilberforce in the closing pages of the book is mainly concerned with Wilberforce as a political speaker and campaigner. Hague is impressed with the consistency of Wilberforce’s Christian witness. ‘The fact that he managed to live according to his own principles, and constantly reflects his beliefs in his own character, is his crowning glory’ (p.514).

Wilberforce, as a sociable man who enjoyed God-given leisurely pursuits as well as being a dedicated worker in the service of God and country, is a good role model for Christians today, since it would win us the respect of fair-minded unbelievers. Wilberforce was a mature, balanced Christian involved in public life. He has much to teach us today.

Hague has learnt much from the earlier biographies of John Pollock and Kevin Belmonte. Chapter 4 on Wilberforce’s gradual conversion highlights what he would have imbibed from his reading of Doddridge’s Rise And Progress of Religion in the Soul. Part of chapter 11 gives some detail on Wilberforce’s evangelistic and apologetic ‘tract’, A Practical View. Many examples are given of Wilberforce’s personal faith, especially how he faced the deaths of Christian friends.

Chapter 1 could have been better if it had been pointed out that there was a diversity of evangelical groups following the Revival, and that John Newton’s moderate Calvinism within Anglicanism did not have some of the Wesleyan Methodist ‘excesses’ that frightened Wilberforce’s mother. I would have like more about Wilberforce’s many good causes outside Parliament, and on his doctrinal beliefs, having been mentored by John Newton and John Venn.

However, this is primarily a political biography and should be read by all Christians involved in political life, as well as their pastors.

David Hilton,
local preacher and recently retired civil servant, Welllingborough, Northamptonshire