British parliamentarian and social reformer William Wilberforce (1759–1833)
was renowned for his high principles and great personal charm. His life’s work
was as parliamentary leader of the abolitionist movement. Having campaigned
tirelessly for twenty years to end the slave trade, declaring to Parliament in
1791 that ‘never, never will we desist till we ... extinguish every trace of
this bloody traffic’, Wilberforce’s Bill was eventually passed with a standing
ovation in 1807. He then campaigned for the total abolition of slavery, dying
one month before the Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833.
This portrait was begun in 1828, after Wilberforce, suffering from extreme
skeletal degeneration, retired from Parliament on account of ill health. His
constant discomfort helps explain the awkward pose and unfinished state of this
painting. With only one sitting, Sir Thomas Lawrence captured both ‘the
intellectual power and winning sweetness of the veteran statesman’.
National Portrait Gallery, London
Given by executors of Sir Robert Harry Inglis, 2nd Bt, 1857
© National Portrait Gallery, London
