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Memoir of Henry W. Wilberforce
Henry William Wilberforce, the subject of this Memoir, was the youngest son of William Wilberforce, well known as the friend of Pitt and Member of Parliament for Yorkshire, and still more distinguished for his persevering and successful resistance in Parliament to the Slave Trade and Slavery, and for his high Christian character in a time of general religious declension.
He was born at Clapham on September 22, 1807. When nine years old, he was entrusted to the care of the Reverend John Sargent, the friend and biographer of Henry Martyn, and Rector of Graffham, Sussex, one of whose daughters he eventually married. With Mr. Sargent, who educated him with one of his own sons, he remained till he was fifteen, when he was transferred to the Reverend F. R. Spragge, who took pupils at Little Boundes, near Tunbridge Wells, and had charge of him till the time came for his going to the University. He was entered at Oriel College, Oxford, and came into residence in Michaelmas Term, 1826.
I well recollect my first sight of him, on his presenting himself before the tutors of his college,—when the lectures had to be arranged for the Term, and his place in them, as a Freshman, determined. He was small and timid, shrinking from notice, with a bright face and intelligent eyes. Partly from his name, partly from his appearance, I was at once drawn towards him; and, as he subsequently told me, he felt a corresponding desire to know me; and, in a little time, though I was not formally his college tutor, and only had relations with him as with other undergraduates in my lecture room, we became very intimate. He read with me, as his private tutor, during a portion of four long vacations—at Hampstead in 1827, at Nuneham in 1828, at Horsepath in 1829, and in Oriel in 1830. In Michaelmas Term, 1830, he went up for his B.A. examination, and was placed by the examiners in the first class in classics, and in the second in mathematics.
At Oxford he remained after taking his degree of B.A. for several years; at least to the year 1833, when he gained the Ellerton Theological Prize, and took his Master’s degree. His chief associates in his own college during his Oxford residence were, besides his elder brother Robert, and the Reverend R. Hurrell Froude, at that time Fellows and Tutors of Oriel, Mr. Frederic Rogers, now Lord Blachford; Mr. S. F. Wood, brother to the present Lord Halifax; Mr. George Ryder, son of the Bishop of Lichfield; Mr. Robert F. Wilson, at present examining chaplain to the Bishop of Salisbury; Mr. William Froude, F.R.S.; and Mr. Thomas Mozley, Rector of Plymptree, Devon. I am not able to name any of his friends outside of his college besides the late Mr. John Rogers, and the present Archbishop Manning, both of Balliol, and Mr., now Sir Thomas, Acland, of Christ Church. He had a large acquaintance in the University, while an undergraduate, in consequence of the interest he took in the University Debating Society, called the Union. Of this Society he was at one time President, and for several years he took a prominent part in its debates. One speech, or rather act, of his, while he occupied the Chair, made a sensation at the time, and remains on the minds of some of his contemporaries even now. In the midst of a debate, a member, I am told, entered under the influence of wine, and began an address to the meeting so incoherent and noisy, and with so ludicrous a mixture of sense and nonsense, as to throw the room into extreme confusion. It seemed hopeless to restore order, when the President rose, and looking round on the members, simply asked, ‘Has the noble Lord no friends here?’ These words had their effect at once; friends came forward, the offender was removed, and the debate proceeded.
In 1836, after he had left the University, he gained the Deniers Theological Prize by an essay on ‘Faith in the Holy Trinity.’
In the same year he took a prominent part in the proceedings at Oxford which followed upon Dr. Hampden’s promotion to the Regius Professorship of Divinity.
His talents were of a character to ensure distinction, whether in a University or in a public career. He had a singularly quick apprehension, a clear head, a largeness and sobriety of mind, a readiness in speech, and that sense of humour and power of repartee which makes a man brilliant in conversation and formidable to opponents. But he chose for himself another course. His tastes and habits, his affectionateness, his tenderness of conscience, his love of quiet and the country, his dislike of pomp and display, of routine toil, and of tyrannous obligations, turned him towards a domestic life and the pastoral charge. He liked to be master of his own time and his own movements; and though never idle, whether in mind or body, he had no wish to work under the lash. He used to tell me that it was my doing that he took Orders instead of following the Law. Perhaps it was; we are blind to the future, and are forced to decide, whether for ourselves or for others, according to what seems best at the time being. Certainly he had an oratorical talent so natural and pleasant, so easy, forcible, and persuasive, as to open upon him the prospect of rising to the foremost rank in his profession, had he been a lawyer. On the other hand, the legal disabilities, to which his Anglican Orders subjected him, became a great embarrassment to him when he found himself a Catholic. However, it may reasonably be doubted whether, humanly speaking, he would ever have been a Catholic but for his clerical profession, which, in the studies and enquiries to which it introduced him, served to place his mind and affections in the direction of the Catholic Church. And anyhow, he made an excellent parish minister, with a heart devoted to his Divine Master and to the cure of souls; and his love for his work was ennobled by the prompt obedience with which he gave it up when His Master called upon him for that great sacrifice.