Impact On William Wilberforce

From the time he was a child, religion had a profound impact on William Wilberforce’s life, controlling his relationships with family and the entire course of his childhood. In 1759, Wilberforce was born into a family of wealthy merchants who made their money through Baltic trade in the large port town of Hull, Northern England. However, when he was still a child, William’s father died and his mother sent him to live with relatives in London. The nonconformist beliefs of these relatives appealed to the young William and he began to form new beliefs. Not only was he introduced to religion, but “religion with enthusiasm,” a concept unlike anything he had encountered before, being brought up in a traditional Anglican family. Exposed to different
At this point, William had acquired an expensive taste and was the heir to his family’s fortune left after both his grandfather and uncle passed away. For his first few years at school, he accomplished little, listened to lectures, and allowed himself to be dissuaded from true learning by everyone including his tutor on the grounds that he was too wealthy to worry himself with simple learning, but should instead enjoy what Cambridge and life had to offer a man of his status. He began to feel exasperated at the fact that no one took a true interest in his learning or potential for a successful carreer, remarking, “as much pains were taken to make me idle as were ever taken to make anyone else studios.” Although he did not take part in all aspects of student life at Cambridge, William’s participation in activities on campus served as distractions from his previous religious intensity while he was at University. Again, due to his charisma, talents, and wealth, students were drawn to him and William was the center of social circles at Cambridge. It was there that he met many people who would later help him in a long struggle to abolish the slave trade in the British empire, including William Pitt, a man who would become a lifelong friend to Wilberforce and the youngest prime minister in British history. Friends such as Pitt allowed William to expand the social circles that he later transformed into political
He did not want to return to his hometown of Hull to lead his family’s trading, so William left the job to his mother’s new husband, Abel Smith. He also no longer had complete faith in the Catholic Church after what he had been taught in his time with the Methodists in London, so a sacred job was not on the table during that point in his life. Furthermore, due to his lack of academic motivation whilst at Cambridge, Wilberforce could not become a lawyer. Luckily for him, William still possessed the charisma and incredible speaking abilities he discovered during his childhood, and keeping that in mind, wrote in his journal, “At this time I knew there was a general election coming on and at Hull the conversation often turned to politics and rooted me to ambition,” deciding to become a member of