William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce was born on the 24th August He lived in Kingston upon Hull on High Street and his house is now a museum.He campaigned to abolish slavery.

Ships left Britain with firearms, gunpowder, metals, alcohol, beads, knives, mirrors -- the sort of things which African chiefs did not have. These goods were exchanged for slaves.

The slaves were then packed tightly into the slave ships, so that they could hardly move. Often they were chained down; they were allowed little exercise and they were kept in horrendous conditions in the hold of the ship. By the middle of the eighteenth century British ships were carrying about 50,000 slaves a year.

British ships were carrying black slaves from Africa to the West Indies as goods to be bought and sold. They were they were sold like objects in a market and branded with the owners mark. Wilberforce began his campaign to abolish the slave trade in 1798.

In 1833 Wilberforce's efforts were finally rewarded when the Abolition of Slavery Act was passed. Wilberforce, on his death- bed, was informed of the passing of the Act in the nick of time. The main terms of the Act were:  all slaves under the age of six were to be freed immediately  slaves over the age of six were to remain as part slave and part free for a further four years. In that time they would have to be paid a wage for the work they did in the quarter of the week when they were "free"  the government was to give £20 million in compensation to the slave-owners who had lost their "property."

William Wilberforce is one of Hull’s most famous heroes. There is a statue of him in Queen’s Gardens as a celebration to his life’s work.