RAINBOW WARRIOR: William Wilberforce – “A Practical View, Professed Christians in the Higher & Middle Classes, Contrasted with Real Christianity”

Source – open.edu

– “William Wilberforce is perhaps the best known of the abolitionists, Wilberforce presented his Abolition Bill before the House of Commons in 1789. This speech, the most important of Wilberforce’s life to that point, was praised in the newspapers as being one of the most eloquent ever to have been heard in the house. Indeed, The Star reported that ‘the gallery of the House of Commons on Tuesday was crowded with Liverpool Merchants; who hung their heads in sorrow – for the African occupation of bolts and chains is no more”:.

– “A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country Contrasted with Real Christianity” (London: T. Cadell, jun. & W. Davies, 1797):

A Practical View is significant both as a kind of ‘manifesto’ by a prominent figure in a religious movement of rapidly expanding influence, and as part of an ongoing process of reflection on the state of British politics and society in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Wilberforce had been working on it intermittently for four years before its eventual publication on 12 April 1797. As a busy politician he struggled to find the time for sustained writing. He had initially had a pamphlet in mind, but the project grew in the making, and the book when it appeared was a substantial one of 491 pages. It has a somewhat rambling style: Wilberforce was prone to write as he talked, offering much eloquent rhetoric and lively insight, but he had neither the time nor the inclination for systematic and tightly structured thinking. Wilberforce’s underlying concern was to communicate what he believed to be the essential features of biblical Christianity to his contemporaries, first inspiring a commitment to ‘real Christianity’ in them, and thereby transforming the moral, political and social state of the nation. The work was an immediate success, selling 7,500 copies and being reprinted five times within six months of its publication. It went through nine English editions by 1811 and 18 by 1830. It was published in the United States in 1798, and translated into French in 1821 and Spanish in 1827.

In the opinion of Daniel Wilson, a prominent Evangelical clergyman in the next generation, ‘Never, perhaps, did any volume by a layman on a religious subject, produce a deeper or more sudden effect’ (‘Introduction to Wilberforce’s Practical View 1829, p. xvii). Its appeal was attributable in part to the prominence of its author, both as politician and as Evangelical leader, and in part to its offering of a vision for personal and national salvation at a time of considerable insecurity. In the spring of 1797 Britain found itself completely isolated in the war against France. Then, within a few days of the publication of A Practical View, a series of naval mutinies broke out in the fleets stationed in Spithead off Portsmouth and in the Thames estuary. In 1798 there was a rebellion in Ireland. These years were perceived by some at the time and since as a moment of real danger of revolution. In this context any book that offered a diagnosis of underlying national difficulties and a possible solution to them was likely to attract considerable interest.

Figure 5 Frontispiece of A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Higher and Middle Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity, 1797, British Library, London. Photo: by permission of the British Library, London (shelfmark 1608/3553 T/P)

Biography:

– William Wilberforce is perhaps the best known of the abolitionists. He came from a prosperous merchant family of Kingston-upon-Hull, a North Sea port which saw little in the way of slave trading. (His birthplace is now preserved as the Wilberforce House Museum.) At twenty-one, the youngest age at which one could be so elected, he was returned to Parliament for his native town. Four years later he was again returned to Parliament, this time for the county seat of Yorkshire which was large and populous, and which therefore required an expensive election contest. The advantage was that the election, being genuinely democratic, conferred a greater legitimacy to the two Members which that county returned to Parliament. Wilberforce’s early years in Parliament were not untypical for a young back-bencher. He was noted for his eloquence and charm, attributes no doubt enhanced by his considerable wealth, but he did not involve himself at first with any great cause. A sudden conversion to evangelical Christianity in 1785 changed that and from then onwards he approached politics from a position of strict Christian morality. In 1786 he carried through the House of Commons a bill for amending criminal law which failed to pass the Lords, a pattern which was to be repeated during his abolitionist career. The following year he founded the Proclamation Society which had as its aim the suppression of vice and the reformation of public manners. Later in 1787 he became, at the suggestion of the Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger, the parliamentary leader of the abolition movement, although he did not officially join the Abolition Society until 1794.

The story of Pitt’s conversation with Wilberforce under an old tree near Croydon has passed into the mythology of the anti-slavery movement. The result was that Wilberforce returned to London having promised to look over the evidence which Thomas Clarkson had amassed against the trade. As he did so he clearly become genuinely horrified and resolved to give the abolition movement his support. Working closely with Clarkson, he presented evidence to a committee of the Privy Council during 1788. This episode did not go as planned. Some of the key witnesses against the trade, apparently bribed or intimidated, changed their story and testified in favour. In the country at large abolitionist sentiment was growing rapidly. While the king’s illness and the Regency Bill crisis no doubt supplanted the slave trade as the chief topic of political conversation in the winter of 1788-9, by the spring the king had recovered and abolition was once more at the top of the agenda. It was under these circumstances that Wilberforce prepared to present his Abolition Bill before the House of Commons. This speech, the most important of Wilberforce’s life to that point, was praised in the newspapers as being one of the most eloquent ever to have been heard in the house. Indeed, The Star reported that ‘the gallery of the House of Commons on Tuesday was crowded with Liverpool Merchants; who hung their heads in sorrow – for the African occupation of bolts and chains is no more’.

The newspaper was premature in sounding the death knell of the slave trade. After the 1789 speech parliamentary delaying tactics came into play. Further evidence was requested and heard over the summer months and then, on 23 June 1789, the matter was adjourned until the next session. Wilberforce left town, holidaying at Buxton with Hannah More, confident that the next session would see a resolution of the debate and abolition of the trade. It did not and by January 1790 the question was deemed to be taking up so much parliamentary time that consideration of the evidence was moved upstairs (as parliamentary jargon has it) to a Select Committee. Evidence in favour of the trade was heard until April, followed by evidence against. In June Pitt called an early general election. Wilberforce was safely returned as a Member for Yorkshire, but parliamentary business was disrupted. Despite being behind schedule, Wilberforce continued to work for an abolition which it appeared the country wanted. News of the slave rebellion in Dominica reached Britain in February 1791 and hardened attitudes against abolition, but Wilberforce pressed on. After almost two years of delay the debate finally resumed and Wilberforce again addressed the Commons on 18 April 1791.

When, on the following night, the House divided on the question of abolition fewer than half of its Members remained to vote. Because of this or not, the Abolition Bill fell with a majority of 75 against abolishing the slave trade. Wilberforce and the other members of the Abolition Committee returned to the task of drumming up support for abolition both from Members of Parliament and from ordinary people. More petitions were collected, further meetings held, extra pamphlets published, and a boycott of sugar was organised. The campaign was not helped by news of the revolutions in France and Haiti. Perhaps sensing that a hardening of attitudes was becoming increasingly likely Wilberforce again brought the question of abolition before the House and, almost a year after the previous defeat, on 2 April 1792, once more found himself addressing the House of Commons. Every account we have of this speech shows that it was an intense and lengthy emotional harangue. Public feeling was outraged and, on this occasion, so was the feeling of the House. But not quite enough. Henry Dundas suggested an amendment to the Abolition Bill: the introduction of the word ‘gradual’. The bill passed as amended, by 230 votes to 85, and gradual abolition became law, the final date for slave trading to remain legal being later fixed at 1796. But this gave the ‘West India Interest’ – the slave traders’ lobby – room to manoeuvre. Once again parliamentary delaying tactics came into play, further evidence was demanded, and it became clear that gradual abolition was to mean no abolition.

A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country Contrasted with Real Christianity (London: T. Cadell, jun. & W. Davies, 1797)
A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Addressed to the Freeholders of Yorkshire (London: T. Cadell & W. Davies, J. Hatchard, 1807)
A Letter to his Excellency the Prince of Talleyrand Perigord on the Subject of the Slave Trade (London: J. Hatchard, 1814)
An Appeal to the Religion, Justice, and Humanity of the inhabitants of the British Empire: in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies (London: J. Hatchard, 1823)
Nominal and Real Christianity Contrasted (London: Religious Tract Society, 1830). An abridgement of A Practical View
Wilberforce’s many parliamentary speeches have never been collected into one place. Few exist in definitive versions. The most reliable versions can be found in: William Cobbett’s The Parliamentary History of England. From the Norman Conquest in 1066 to the year 1803, 36 vols (London: T. Curson Hansard, 1806-1820), and Parliamentary Debates From the Year 1803 to the Present Time: Forming a Continuation of the Work Entitled “The Parliamentary History of England From the Earliest Period to the year 1803” (London: Thomas Curson Hansard, 1812-1889). A modern reprint of one version of the 1789 speech is available in: Kitson, Peter, et al, eds, Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation: Writings in the British Romantic Period, 8 vols (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1999), 2, pp. 135-151. Countless other versions exist in contemporary newspapers and journals – extracts from two of them can be found in Carey, ‘William Wilberforce’s Sentimental Rhetoric’ (see below) and on this website.

Selected Secondary Works

Carey, Brycchan, British Abolitionism and the Rhetoric of Sensibility: Writing, Sentiment,and Slavery, 1760-1807 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005). I discuss Wilberforce at length between pages 156 and 193. Click here for more information
Carey, Brycchan, ‘William Wilberforce’s Sentimental Rhetoric: Parliamentary Reportage and the Abolition Speech of 1789’, The Age of Johnson: A Scholarly Annual, 14 (2003), 281-305. Click here to read this article
Coupland, Sir Reginald, Wilberforce: A Narrative (London: Collins, 1923)
Cowie, Leonard W., William Wilberforce, 1759-1833, a Bibliography (London: Greenwood Press, 1992)
Favret, Mary A., ‘Flogging: the Anti-Slavery Movement Writes Pornography’, Essays and Studies 1998: Romanticism and Gender, ed. Anne Janowitz (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1998), pp. 19-43
Furneaux, Robin, William Wilberforce (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1974)
Gurney, J.J., Familiar Sketch of William Wilberforce (Norwich: Josiah Fletcher, 1838)
Hague, William, William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-slave Trade Campaigner (London: HarperPress, 2007)
Lean, Garth, God’s Politician: William Wilberforce’s Struggle (London : Darton, Longman and Todd, 1980)
Pollock, John, William Wilberforce (London: Constable, 1977)
Wahrman, Dror, ‘Virtual Representation: Parliamentary Reporting and the Languages of Class in the 1790s’, Past and Present, 136 (August 1992), 83-113
Wilberforce, Anna Maria, The Private Papers of William Wilberforce (London: T.F. Unwin, 1897)
Wilberforce, Robert Isaac and Samuel Wilberforce, Life of William Wilberforce, 5 vols (London: John Murray, 1838)
Wilberforce, Robert Isaac and Samuel Wilberforce, The Correspondence of William Wilberforce, 2 vols (London: John Murray, 1840)