Amazing Grace

Background

William Wilberforce
- 1759-1833
- Long time Tory Member of Parliament
- After experiencing religious conversion, he campaigns for an end to the slave trade
• Finally succeeds in 1807

Influences on Wilberforce
- Hannah More
• More was an and Christian reformer involved in opposing the slave trade
- William Pitt the Younger
• Pitt became Tory prime minister at 24 in 1783
• Was in power almost continuously until his death in 1806
- The Rev. John Newton
• d. 1807
• A slave trader turned minister
• Had a great influence on Wilberforce
• He wrote “Amazing Grace”
- Olaudah Equiano
• d. 1797
• a Nigerian who had been enslaved and then worked for his freedom
• Also had a great influence on him

 The Opponents
- The Duke of Clarence
• Son of King George III and future king, William IV
• He preceded Queen Victoria
- Lord Tarleton
• Famed for his fierce tactics used against the American rebels in the southern campaign
- VA and the Carolinas

Slave Trade Abolished

- England abolished it in 1807
• America followed suit in 1808
- Amazing Grace was produced in 2007 to mark the bicentennial
- Important Note!
• The abolition of the slave trade did not bring about the end of slavery

 Amazing Grace
Film Summary
William Wilberforce was born into the age of the Great British Empire, when the
country’s influence around the globe was at its most powerful. It was, however, an age when the
rumblings of social discontent were emerging and a time when reformers faced an uphill struggle
to be heard.

A good friend and staunch colleague of England’s youngest ever Prime Minister, Pitt the
Younger, Wilberforce was entrusted with the policy for the Abolition of Slavery. Torn between a
life of spirituality and a career in politics, he was inspired to take his desire for the equality of all
mankind into the House of Commons. Seeking the advice of John Newton, a former slave trader
who turned to the Church in order to atone for his earlier life, Wilberforce became the rallying
voice in Parliament for a fragmented group of like-minded people to fight for the cause and make
the people of Britain, and ultimately the world, acknowledge the horror of the Slave Trade.

Amazing Grace follows Wilberforce’s career through his 20’s and 30’s, when he and his
fellow humanitarians made the issue of slavery a talking point, not only in political circles, but
also throughout the country. They waged the first modern political campaign, using petitions,
boycotts, mass meetings and even badges with slogans to take their message to the country at
large. Wilberforce steered this cause through the corridors of power and ultimately opened the
way for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. His success came after decades of
fighting when Parliament finally passed the first anti-slavery bill in 1807.

The film begins with Wilberforce severely ill and taking a holiday in Bath, Somerset,
with his cousin, Henry Thornton. It is here that he is introduced to his future wife, Barbara
Spooner. Although he at first resists, she convinces him to tell her about his life. The story
flashes back 15 years to 1782, and William recounts the events that led him to where he is now.
Beginning as an ambitious and popular Member of Parliament (MP), William was persuaded by
his friends William Pitt, Thomas Clarkson, Hannah More and others to take on the dangerous
issue of the British slave trade which led him to become highly unpopular in the House of

 Commons amongst the Members of Parliament representing vested interests of the trade in the
cities of London, Bristol and Liverpool.

Exhausted, and frustrated that he was unable to change anything in the government,
William becomes physically ill (the diagnosis in the film is colitis, most commonly known today
as Crohn's disease), which brings the story back to the present day. Having virtually given up
hope, William considers leaving politics forever. Barbara convinces him to keep fighting because
if he does not, no one else is capable of doing so. A few days afterward, William and Barbara
marry; and William, with a renewed hope for success, picks up the fight where he had previously
left off, aided by Thornton, Clarkson and James Stephen. In time, after many attempts to bring
legislation forward over twenty years, he is eventually responsible for a bill being passed through
Parliament in 1807, which abolishes the slave trade in the British empire forever.