WORKMEN AND HEROES WILLIAM WILBERFORCE O759-1833) W 'illiam Wilberforce, whose name a heartfelt, enlightened, and unwea- ried philanthropy, directing talents of the highest order, has enrolled among those of the most illustrious benefactors of man- kind, was born August 24, 1759, m Hull, England, where his ancestors had been long and successfully engaged in trade. By his father's death he was left an orphan at an early age. He received the chief part of his education at the grammar school of Pockington, in Yorkshire, and at St John's College, Cambridge, of which he became a fellow-commoner about 1 776 or 1777. When just of age, and apparently before taking his B.A. degree, he was re- turned for his native town at the general election of 1 780. In 1 784 he was returned again, but being also chosen member for Yorkshire he elected to sit for that great county, which he continued to repre- sent until the year 181 2, during six successive Parliaments. From 1812 to 1825, when he retired from Parliament, he was returned by Lord Calthorpe for the borough of Bramber. His politics were in general those of Mr. Pitt's party, and his first prominent appearance was in 1783, in opposition to Mr. Fox's India Bill. In 1786 he introduced and carried through the Commons a bill for the amendment of the criminal code, which was roughly handled by the Lord Chan- cellor, Thurlovv, and rejected in the House of Lords without a division. At the time when Mr. Wilberforce was rising into manhood, the inquiry into the slave trade had engaged in a slight degree the attention of the public. To the Quakers belongs the high honor of having taken the lead in denouncing that unjust and unchristian traffic. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, dur- ing the life of Penn, the Quakers of Pennsylvania passed a censure upon it, and from time to time the Society of Friends expressed their disapprobation of the deportation of negroes, until, in 1761, they completed their good work by a reso- lution to disown all such as continued to be engaged in it. Occasionally the question was brought before magistrates, whether a slave became entitled to his liberty upon landing in England. In 1 765 Granville Sharp came forward as the protector of a negro, who, having been abandoned and cast upon the world in
