WILBERFORCE: SLAVERY, RELIGION AND POLITICS

Series One: The Wilberforce Papers from the Bodleian Library, Oxford

Part 1: The Papers of William Wilberforce (1759-1833) and Robert Isaac Wilberforce (1802-1857)

Part 2: The Papers of Samuel Wilberforce (1818-1873)

Part 3: The Papers of Samuel Wilberforce cont (1818-1873)

Publisher's Note

Articles, pamphlets, reviews, letters, letters that grew into books - William Wilberforce spent much of his life writing. He kept a diary for most of his adult life and filled various journals with his religious thoughts. Faced with a difficult decision he would set down both sides of the argument on paper. He wrote memoranda on different subjects, the most famous being his unfinished sketch of Pitt - but the sheer volume of his correspondence alone would have buried most men. He often wrote and received as many as twenty letters a day, and few of them were short. In addition to his own papers, two of his sons kept notes of his conversations in their commonplace books.

Here, in Wilberforce: Slavery, Religion and Politics, Series One, Parts 1-3, we are able to make available a complete microfilm edition of the Wilberforce Papers from the Bodleian Library, Oxford. This project unites the separate collections of William Wilberforce’s sons, Robert and Samuel, enabling us to piece back together the Papers of William, Robert and Samuel.

The Papers of William Wilberforce covered in Part 1 comprise:

• Diaries, 1779-1833 (including details of Wilberforce’s visit to France with Pitt in 1783, his Continental tour in 1785, his tour of the Lake District in 1779, and significant entries concerning slavery, religion and the political issues of the day throughout the entire period).

• Religious Journals, 1791-1826

• Manuscripts for his Autobiography

• Correspondence, 1771-1833 ( arranged alphabetically) Thomas Babington, Henry Brougham, Joseph Butterworth, George Canning, Thomas Chalmers, Thomas Clarkson, William Cookson, Charles James Fox, Revd Andrew Fuller, Thomas Gisborne, Baron Grenville, William Hey, Frederic Humboldt, Zachary Macaulay, Thomas Middleton - Bishop of Calcutta, Isaac Milner, John Newton, Sir John Pennington , John Ryland, Robert Southey, James Stephen, Henry Thornton, Robert Thorpe - Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, Barbara Wilberforce and Dorothy Wordsworth all feature prominently.
  
• Notes on Religion 1827, and an Essay on Duelling 1828, both possibly written for A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System (1829 edition).

• James Stephen’s manuscript copy of von Hogendorp’s pamphlet on slavery, 1796.
  
• An Address from the freeholders of the County of York upon Wilberforce’s resignation of his seat for Yorkshire, 1812.

• A List of People who applied to William Wilberforce for help.

• Family Correspondence, 1814-1873.

In Part 1 we also include the Correspondence of Robert Isaac Wilberforce (1802-1857).

Of particular importance are the letters both to and from his younger brother Samuel. Only a few letters between the brothers survive in Samuel’s own papers. These are now joined by some 700 letters, of which roughly 500 are by Samuel, over the period 1823-1856. They throw significant light on the thoughts and career of the Bishop of Oxford. Both brothers were influential men in the Anglican Church and their exchange of letters illustrates their differing attitudes to various religious controversies. Robert found himself more and more at odds with the part played by the secular authorities in deciding matters of discipline and doctrine in the established Church. He resigned his livings in 1854 and was received into the Roman Catholic Church. His correspondence with his brother Samuel charts his growing disillusionment. It is complemented by letters, 1830-1854, from his younger brother Henry, who also became a Roman Catholic. For the 1830s and 1840s there is also a strong sequence of correspondence with W E Gladstone, J H Newman and Edward B Pusey.

The Papers of Samuel Wilberforce make up Parts 2 & 3 of this microfilm edition, consisting of:

• Correspondence: An extensive alphabetical sequence and individual volumes of correspondence with Charles H J Anderson, Patrick Boyle, John W Burgon, William J Butler, C J Blomfield - Bishop of London, Lord Richard Cavendish, T V Fosbery, W E Gladstone, W F Hook - Dean of Chichester, Robert Gray - Bishop of Cape Town, John Keble, James E Austen Leigh, Edward King - Bishop of Lincoln, Henry Parry Liddon, Louisa Noel, John Henry Newman, Hugh Pearson - Dean of Windsor, Henry Philpotts - Bishop of Exeter, Edward Stanley - 14th Earl of Derby, Edward B Pusey, Sir James Stephen, Charles R Sumner - Bishop of Winchester, John B Sumner - Archbishop of Canterbury, Archibald C Tait - Archbishop of Canterbury and Richard C Trench - Achbishop of Dublin.

• Correspondence concerning the Church overseas, 1853-1873 - especially South Africa, Central Africa, North America, Australasia, Europe, Honolulu, India and the West Indies.

• Correspondence concerning the Church at home on diocesan matters.

• Diaries and Notebooks (including notes for speeches, conversations with his father, private meetings with bishops, committees of Convocation).

• Other Personal Papers (including school exercises, notes on various church matters, the ‘Colenso affair’ and a draft reply to an attack in the National Standard.

• Literary Papers (including Commonplace books, Sermon notes, verses, correspondence and accounts with publishers).

All sections of correspondence throughout this project are extremely rich in detail and interest. This source material is now far easier to use as the disparate sections of William’s letters, some formerly with one son, some with the other son’s archive are now brought together in Part 1.

Of William Wilberforce’s letters to and from Hannah More, 22 kept by Samuel and 21 ended up with Robert; of his correspondence with his brother-in-law, the barrister James Stephen, 25 letters survive with Samuel’s Papers and 26 with Robert’s.

The subject matter of the correspondence is wide ranging, and provides a wealth of evidence on contemporary events and concerns. Letters of politicians give interesting accounts of parliamentary proceedings. Many refer to foreign affairs, especially to slavery and the slave-trade. Sir Joseph Banks writes about Haiti; the Colonial Secretary, Henry Bathurst, about Sierra Leone; the Duchess of Beaufort about the Moravian missionary Latrobe in Cape Town; Shute Barrington about missions in India and Africa; the Duke of Wellington about the French slave-trade; Sir Sydney Smith about the white
slave-trade in North Africa; Lord Selkirk about trade with North America, and Lord Hastings about his experiences as Governor General of Bengal.

Domestic issues feature in other letters. Thomas Atkinson writes to William Wilberforce from Huddersfield about trade and politics in the West Riding. William Hey, a surgeon in Leeds, discusses Catholic emancipation in his letters and the effects of legislation on the manufacturing towns. Correspondence with dissenters - Baptists, Methodists, and Unitarians - shows Wilberforce’s open and friendly relations with them, his opposition to restrictions on them at home and his support for their missions abroad. Common concerns and the slave-trade feature in letters with Hannah More, Thomas Clarkson, and Zachary Macaulay. Letters of close friends provide glimpses of their view of Wilberforce’s own character and of his family problems. James Stephen chides him in one letter for being too ready to believe what he is being told, and in another urges him to be firmer and more methodical.

Further evidence about William Wilberforce’s character, and about his role in the parliamentary campaigns against the slave-trade and slavery, is provided in letters written to Robert Wilberforce by his father’s friends after his death.

Wilberforce: Slavery, Religion and Politics, Series Two (one part only) offers further papers of William Wilberforce, together with related slavery and anti-slavery materials, from Wilberforce House, Hull. This includes William Wilberforce’s Diary for February 1814 - January 1822, which is an essential complement to the diaries featured in Series One. There are also numerous letters, records of his parliamentary career and of his anti-slavery campaigns.

Scholars should also be aware of our companion series entitled Abolition and Emancipation. Part 1 of this related series covers the papers of Thomas Clarkson, William Lloyd Garrison, Zachary Macaulay, Harriet Martineau, Harriet Beecher Stowe & William Wilberforce from the Huntington Library, California. Parts 2 & 3 feature the Slavery Collections from the Merseyside Maritime Museum, Liverpool. Part 4 offers the papers of Granville Sharp from Gloucestershire Record Office. Part 5 covers the papers of Thomas Clarkson held at the British Library, London. Part 6 focuses on the papers of William Wilberforce, William Smith, Iveson Brookes, Francis Corbin and related records from the Rare Books, Manuscripts and Special Collections Library, Duke University.

Taken together these sources provide the scholar with a marvellous opportunity to explore the life and activities of William Wilberforce, the business of slavery and its opponents, the religious controversies of the nineteenth century, and the changing cultural framework from the Georgian to the late Victorian eras.

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