3-034-795 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

William Wilberforce, from the unfinished portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, in the National Portrait Gallery, 1871. 'The pernicious effects of [the slave trade] upon the native African tribes, its interference with the growth of a more useful commerce, and its demoralising influence upon the sailors employed in it, were exposed by Wilberforce...In 1791 he brought in a bill to prohibit the importation of African slaves into the colonies. It was supported again both by Pitt and by Fox, but was defeated by a majority of seventy-five against it...The bill, as it left the House of Commons, fixed the year 1796 for the termination of the slave trade. It was, however, thrown out by the House of Lords. Year after year, from 1794 to 1799, did Wilberforce persist in renewing his attempt, but seemed to encounter greater difficulties every year...At the Peace of 1814 the British Government, which had paid the cost of beating Napoleon, asked but one favour of the European Sovereigns - to join in putting down the Slave Trade. So now the slave trade is a thing of the past...The honoured subject of this Memoir died on July 29, 1833, in London, and was buried in Westminster Abbey'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.