The Chains Will Fall: The Ballad of William Wilberforce

He was a rich young MP with a gift for song and a taste for the gaming tables. Then he met God, and he spent the rest of his life fighting the British slave trade. This folk ballad tells the true story of William Wilberforce (1759–1833), from the docks of Hull to the floor of the House of Commons. It follows his spiritual "Great Change" while travelling Europe in 1785, and the counsel of John Newton, the former slave-ship captain who wrote "Amazing Grace" and urged Wilberforce to stay in politics. It covers his journal entry of 1787, where he wrote that God had set before him "two great objects": ending the slave trade and reforming the morals of his nation. For twenty years he lost vote after vote. He faced death threats, failing health and the fury of powerful interests. He kept going, held up by prayer and by his friends in the Clapham Sect. In February 1807 the Commons voted 283 to 16 to abolish the British slave trade, and the House rose to its feet to cheer him while he sat with his head in his hands, weeping. Even then his work wasn't finished. In July 1833, old and frail, he heard that the Commons had voted to end slavery across the British Empire. "Thank God that I have lived to witness" it, he said. Three days later he died. This song honours a man who believed faith must be lived out loud. It also remembers the millions of enslaved Africans whose courage, testimony and resistance helped win their freedom. Credits: Music generated with Suno AI Artwork: AI-generated illustration (not a historical photograph)