the church of England alone occupied his best thoughts. He was, as he said, ‘no party man,’ but a churchman of the type of Hooker and Cosin, and had no sympathy with those whose love for ceremonial led them to favour ritualistic innovations on the suggestion of Roman doctrines. ‘I hate and abhor the attempt to Romanise the church of England’ were almost the last words spoken by him in the House of Lords four days before his death, and the words formed a fitting summary of the policy which he had unfalteringly pursued throughout his life. At the same time, he was quick to see in the Anglo-catholic movement a means of infusing life into a church which had not yet shaken off the apathy of Georgian times. Hence he was long hated by the evangelical party, who saw their hitherto dominant position every day slipping from them, while the firm though kindly hand with which he ruled his diocese stirred up against him many jealousies. Yet he lived down the feeling against him, and came to be recognised as in a peculiar way the representative of the English episcopate, and the prelate to whom Scottish, colonial, and American bishops naturally resorted for advice and counsel. He transformed by his example the popular idea of a bishop, who is now expected to be, as he said, ‘the mainspring of all spiritual and religious agency in his diocese.’ In Burgon's ‘Lives of Twelve Good Men,’ he is called ‘the remodeller of the episcopate.’ It has fallen to few men to work such a complete change as Wilberforce wrought during his life, and, in the words of one who had peculiar opportunities of following his career, ‘few would deny that he was the greatest prelate of his age.’
Apart from his two-volume edition of the ‘Journals and Letters of Henry Martyn’ [q. v.], his share in the ‘Life’ of his father (abridged in 1868, 8vo), and numerous separately issued speeches, addresses, sermons, charges, prayer-manuals, and the like, Wilberforce was the author of:
- ‘Note-book of a Country Clergyman,’ London, 1833, 12mo, a collection of short stories, ‘intended to illustrate the practical working of the Anglican parochial system’ (see Athenæum, 1833, p. 650).
- ‘Eucharistica [a Manual for Communicants]; with an Introduction,’ London, 1839, 32mo; numerous editions.
- ‘Agathos, and other Sunday Stories,’ 1840, 18mo; numerous editions in England and America, and versions in French and German.
- ‘The Rocky Island, and other Parables,’ 1840, 18mo; (a so-called 13th edition appeared in 1869).
- ‘History of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America,’ 1844, 8vo; New York, 12mo (see Quart. Rev. and New York Hist. Mag. 1856, p. 206).
- ‘Heroes of Hebrew History,’ 1870, 8vo.
The bishop's contributions to the ‘Quarterly Review’ included an indictment of Darwin's ‘Origin of Species’ in July 1860 (see Quarterly Review, April 1874, 332 sq.). ‘Maxims and Sayings [from the devotional manuals] of Samuel Wilberforce’ was dedicated to the bishop's ‘lifelong friend’ Archdeacon Pott in 1882 by C. M. S. (Edinburgh and London, 1882).
A portrait of Wilberforce in episcopal robes, by George Richmond, R.A., is now in the Theological College at Cuddesdon, and another in academical dress, by the same artist, in Lavington House, Sussex. A replica of the last is in the Diploma Gallery of the Royal Academy.
[Life of Samuel Wilberforce, 3 vols. 1879 (1st vol. by Canon Ashwell, 2nd and 3rd by the bishop's son, R. G. Wilberforce); The Life of Samuel Wilberforce, by his son, R. G. Wilberforce (revised from the above, with additions), 1888; Thomas Mozley's Reminiscences, 1882; Letters of J. B. Mozley, 1885; Life and Letters of Dean Church, edited by his daughter, 1895; Liddon, Johnston, and Wilson's Life of E. P. Pusey, 1893; Burgon's Twelve Good Men, 1888, with portrait; family information.]
WILBERFORCE, WILLIAM (1759–1833), philanthropist, born in the High Street, Hull, on 24 Aug. 1759, was the only son of Robert Wilberforce by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Bird of Barton, Oxfordshire. Of three other children a daughter alone reached maturity. The family had long been settled in Yorkshire, and took their name from the township of Wilberfoss, eight miles east of York. A William Wilberforce (the first who adopted that spelling) was engaged in the Baltic trade and was twice mayor of Hull; he also inherited a landed estate from his mother (born Davyes). Robert, the younger of this William's two sons, was partner in the house at Hull. Robert's son, William, a very delicate child, was sent at the age of seven to the Hull grammar school. Isaac Milner [q. v.], who became usher at the school in 1768, reports that Wilberforce used to be put on a table to read aloud as an example to other boys. In 1768 his father died, and he was afterwards sent to his uncle William, who had a house at Wimbledon. Thence he attended a school at Putney which ‘taught everything and nothing.’ His mother brought him back to Hull upon hearing that his aunt, a sister of John Thornton, was perverting him to
