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Reviews
| William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner, by William Hague. New York: Harcourt, 2008. 608 pages. $35.00, cloth.
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| This book is a biography of British parliamentarian William Wilberforce, who is best known for his decades-long campaign against the slave trade. Born into a rich Yorkshire merchant family in 1759, Wilberforce eschewed the family business after attending Cambridge and sought a life in politics. Entering Parliament at age 21, he became a close friend of William Pitt the Younger and the two of them joined the hedonistic society of the eighteenth-century rich in London. Wilberforce was a welcomed member of this crowd of heavy drinkers and gamblers because of his natural charm and eloquence, characteristics that also served him well inside Westminster. However, a summer of soul searching in 1785 brought about a conversion experience that was not uncommon for the period, transforming him, at age 26, into an evangelical Anglican. Thereafter, he devoted his life to the furtherance of his religion through political action. This took the form of the pursuit of the moral improvement of his fellow Englishmen, the defense of the Church of England, and the abolition of the slave trade. His fight against the latter lasted twenty-two years, ending in 1807. Wilberforce, who had always been sickly, finally was forced by poor health to resign from Parliament after forty-five years of membership, dying in 1833. |
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In telling the story of Wilberforce's career, Hague takes us deep into the political world of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England, making it a great read for students of British politics. Running roughly from the loss of America to victory over Napoleon, the book covers aspects of the life and times of the political elite not usually seen in textbooks, such as the personal aspects of high politics, electioneering, constituent relations, and Parliamentary maneuver. However, the book is not meant for those new to the world of British political history. Hague assumes a lot of knowledge on the part of the reader. He refers to topics such as pocket boroughs, freeholders, William Cobbett, and Catholic emancipation without much clarification. As such, this book is really for advanced students studying British politics. |
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Hague also provides background on the slavery question and the tactics used to take on powerful interests in the House of Commons. However, he is light on the economics behind the slave trade, including its impact on England's various port towns. Still, students with some prior knowledge of the slave trade would gain from Hague's evenhanded approach to the debates and the players involved as well as his detailed look at the political tactics used in the battle over abolition. |
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This is a well-written political biography that, however, largely takes Wilberforce at his word and does not delve deeply into other aspects of his life. Beyond his religious musings that motivated his political actions, we read little of the psychological motivation of Wilberforce. What drove this stooped, sickly Yorkshireman from the merchant class to transform himself and become a giant in the world of London politics, Anglicanism, and philanthropy—in sum, to act the role of a landed aristocrat while not having the land or title? We also understand little of his relationship with his family. He adores his children, but little is related about his wife or life in the Wilberforce household. All we know is that Wilberforce is not really interested in women until he marries a woman eighteen years his junior after a six-week courtship at age 37. What are we to make of this marriage to a merchant's daughter who is regarded as shy, whiny, and self-righteous? Lastly, Hague does not seem to acknowledge the existence of class prejudice in his tour of Wilberforce's life. Hague argues that Wilberforce is never offered a cabinet post because he is too disorganized. The fact that he was a nouveau riche, smelled of the docks of Hull, and possessed no title seemingly had nothing to do with the situation. Hague also defends Wilberforce's support of the Peterloo Massacre and disregard for the English laboring poor as stemming from his religious imperatives—class prejudice is not even considered. |
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In short, Hague's biography of Wilberforce tells a good story, giving us the colorful life and times of a righteous reformer and politician in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century England. It is great, old-time political biography in the spirit of Macaulay that steers clear of the psychological, sexual, or sociological. As such, it is an unbalanced account that has to be used with care in the classroom. This fact, along with its length and presumption of knowledge about English politics, makes the book unsuitable for the British history survey course. However, it may be used judiciously with advanced students. |
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| Historical Resource Center, Bureau of Engraving and Printing |
Franklin Noll |
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