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ON NOW : Today
23/05/2013

Today Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk and Thought for the Day.

ON NEXT : 09:00 In Our Time
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This episode will be available soon

Wilberforce

Duration:
45 minutes
First broadcast:
Thursday 22 February 2007

Please note: this edition cannot be made available as part of the In Our Time archive because of rights issue

In an unusual edition of In Our Time, marking the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade, Melvyn Bragg leaves the studio to examine the life of William Wilberforce.

In Wilberforce's time, he was seen as both saint and sinner for championing a moral cause which many felt undermined British imperial interests. Subsequently, however, some critics have pointed at the slow pace of his anti-slavery campaign as well as his conservatism towards the conditions of workers in Britain itself.

But is it now time to hand him back his laurels and to accept that he really was one of the great men of history?

  • Further Reading

    John Piper, Amazing Grace in the Life of William Wilberforce (Paperback), (Crossway Books, 2007)

    William Hague, William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-slave Trade Campaigner (HarperPress, 2007)

    John Pollock, Wilberforce (Kingsway Publications, 2007)

    D. Bingham, The Freedom Fighter: William Wilberforce (Trailblazer) (Paperback) (Christian Focus Publications Ltd, 2005)

    David Vaughan, Statesman and Saint: The Principled Politics of William Wilberforce (Nashville, Tennessee: Cumberland House, 2001)

    Robin Furneaux, William Wilberforce (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1974, reprinted 2006)

    William Wilberforce, Practical View of Christianity(Hendrickson Christian Classics) (Hardcover)

  • William Wilberforce

    William Wilberforce

    Portrait of William Wilberforce (1759-1833) Aged 29 (Getty Images)

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