William Wilberforce - Memorials

Memorials

Wilberforce's life and work have been commemorated in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In Westminster Abbey, a seated statue of Wilberforce by Samuel Joseph was erected in 1840, bearing an epitaph praising his Christian character and his long labour to abolish the slave trade and slavery itself.

In Wilberforce's home town of Hull, a public subscription in 1834 funded the Wilberforce Monument, a 31-metre (102 ft) Greek Doric column topped by a statue of Wilberforce, which now stands in the grounds of Hull College near Queen's Gardens. Wilberforce's birthplace was acquired by the city corporation in 1903 and, following renovation, Wilberforce House in Hull was opened as Britain's first slavery museum. Wilberforce Memorial School for the Blind in York was established in 1833 in his honour, and in 2006 the University of Hull established the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation in a building adjoining Wilberforce's birthplace. A student think tank at the University of Cambridge, The Wilberforce Society, is named in his honour.

Various churches within the Anglican Communion commemorate Wilberforce in their liturgical calendars, and Wilberforce University in Ohio, United States, founded in 1856, is named after him. The university was the first owned by African-American people, and is a historically black college. In Ontario, Canada, Wilberforce Colony was founded by black reformers, and inhabited by free slaves from the United States.

Amazing Grace, a film about Wilberforce and the struggle against the slave trade, directed by Michael Apted and starring Ioan Gruffudd was released in 2007 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Parliament's anti-slave trade legislation. On the heels of Amazing Grace, PBS released a documentary about Wilberforce, entitled "The Better Hour" in 2008. This documentary was created by The Wilberforce Project.