I'm on the lookout for a Society for the Abolition of Anniversaries. I am heartily sick of this commemoration of the abolition of slavery, or more correctly, of British participation in the slave trade.
I know that, to some extent this is about black history, about admitting black people to their rightful place in the history of Britain, of the Empire, of the world. But look how we do it! We concentrate on the work of one white European. History as made by one person, complete distortion. This is history as told by Hollywood. History for the ignorant masses who must remain ignorant for fear that they might realise that, as a collective entity, they can change the course of history. No, we must wait for a great man to come along and strive on our behalf.
So the historians - in reality the hagiographers - set to work. Apparently Wilberforce's sons, in writing their father's biography, saw fit to blackguard the name and reputation of Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson, tireless worker for the emancipation of slaves, had to be belittled so that the Wilberforce star might shine more brightly. We may safely assume that Cobbet's verdict on the great man didn't feature in the hagiography; "... this swelled-up, greedy, and unprincipled puffer, who has been the deluder of Yorkshire for twenty years past." Wilberforce was MP for Yorkshire for most of his career, not for his native town of Hull, which position journalists continually claim for him. Radicals like Cobbet were angry at "... his alleged failure to acknowledge the extent of the deprivation and oppression suffered by the ‘free British labourers’ whose lot he had contrasted favourably with that of the slaves." (John Wolffe, DNB)
I have read in the past that W.W.'s philanthropy didn't extend to improving the condition of child factory workers, and that he opposed any moves toward reform in this area. I don't have a source for that so the charge must lay on the file for now.
Another casualty of the "Great Man" school of history and it's bulldozing methods is Olaudah Equiano. A black man who agitated for abolition does not fit well with the present discourse. Such people are supposed to wait patiently for their fair skinned saviour to ride in like the Lone Ranger. Black history has rescued Olaudah from the dust-covered archives , and brought him to the forefront of the abolitionist movement. Time to return to the shadow of the Great Man for a while, Olaudah. There you will be joined by the Quakers, the Sheffield cutlers, and the craftsmen and tradesmen of the London Corresponding Society, whose agitation for abolition finds no place in Hollywood-style history, or the potted, and gutted, version of history favoured by the media.