William Wilberforce and abolition

"The Society of Friends (or Quakers) campaigned against the transatlantic slave trade for many years... In 1787, along with Thomas Clarkson and Granville Sharp, [they] helped found the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade... In spite of some initial reluctance, William Wilberforce, MP for Hull, took up the campaign, and he made his first anti-slavery speech on 12 May 1789."