Good reading about William Wilberforce and Hannah More's Clapham Sect

WORLD Magazine’s annual Roe v. Wade issue includes an interview with Karen Swallow Prior, author of an excellent new book about Hannah More, William Wilberforce’s partner in pushing for the abolition of slavery and other evangelical goals. The two of them were leaders in the Clapham Sect, named for the Clapham neighborhood in London, where many Christian leaders lived.

Young Christians are searching these days for ways to apply their faith to issues of injustice and social oppression. Wilberforce, More, and others in the Clapham Sect can be role models for today’s Christians desiring to help the poor and needy. Below are links to several books (unfortunately, some out of print but available through used booksellers) for those wanting to learn more.

Saints in Politics: The “Clapham Sect” and the Growth of Freedom by Ernest Howse (1952) explains the Clapham Sect and the group’s massive contributions to modern civilization. More recently, Stephen Tomkins gave a similar but more detailed overview in The Clapham Sect: How Wilberforce’s Circle Transformed Britain (2010), along with William Wilberforce: A Biography (2007).

John Wesley Bready gives an excellent overview of this era in England: Before and After Wesley. The Evangelical Revival and Social Reform (1938). He reviews some of the same history in This Freedom-Whence? (1942), which covers not only John Wesley but also the entire generation of great evangelists, such as George Whitefield and John Newton, as they sparked the Great Awakening and the first generation of the Clapham movement.

Wilberforce himself has inspired so many biographies in recent years. John Pollock wrote the modern classic in 1977, Wilberforce. Like many British writers, he assumes his readers have a reasonable grasp of British history and know the differences between Whigs and Tories. Garth Lean published a more popularized and readable biography in 1980, God’s Politician: William Wilberforce’s Struggle.

Several North Americans have come up with their own versions of this great man’s story. Kevin Belmonte captures the man’s character in William Wilberforce: A Hero for Humanity (2002), and Canadian Murray Andrew Pura approaches the great British emancipator with a more topical approach in Vital Christianity: The Life and Spirituality of William Wilberforce (2004).

Eric Metaxas came to his biography of Wilberforce, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery (2007), with some healthy American enthusiasm. His book accompanied the film Amazing Grace.

In 2008, a Conservative Party leader in the British Parliament, William Hague, offered his own biography of Wilberforce, William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner, who sometimes had to turn his back on his Tory friends, in a time when his solo opposition could bring down the government and require an election. Hague, with his inside perspective on Parliament, is more sensitive than American biographers to the challenges Wilberforce faced from King George III and the higher echelons of English society.

Several historians have gone beyond Wilberforce to other key players in the Clapham Sect. Adam Hochschild wrote an overview of the abolition campaign with emphasis on the Quaker researcher Thomas Clarkson, Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (2005), which gives more attention to a number of influential contributors to this movement.

Another key player in the Great Awakening was Lady Huntington, who inspired a solid biography by Faith Cook, Selina: Countess of Huntingdon: Her Pivotal Role in the 18th Century Evangelical Awakening (2001).

The Apostle Paul wrote, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.”

Paul left room for exceptions, including the Clapham Sect. The Great Awakening started with the conversion of the poor people of England. The Holy Spirit worked conversions in the second and third generation with some who were wise by human standards and of noble birth. We take the social results for granted today: freedom from slavery, healthcare for the poor, education for children instead of factory work.

We rightly honor military veterans who fought for political freedom. We also owe honor to the Clapham Sect for modern political and social liberty.