A coal merchant in Beverley, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, around 1900, courtesy of the East Riding Archives.
MORE striking still was the general mourning of the people of London and the respect shown to his memory both in this country and in the United States, especially among the coloured population who owed him so much. The reverence shown to Wilberforce by the public was indeed no new thing. He said of himself that the public treated him ‘as if he were some great person.’
Walking up a steep narrow street one day at Bath he saw a carter savagely ill-treating a horse which had fallen in trying to drag up a heavy load of coals. Wilberforce quickly stepped forward to intervene, horrified at the man’s cruelty, when the burly carter turned on him with a torrent of abuse and would have struck him had not his mate stopped him, and whispered who the gentleman was. In a moment the man was softened; his look of rage changed to one of reverence, and he apologised to Wilberforce for his rude violence.
Précis
The death of William Wilberforce in 1833 prompted an outpouring of grief that was not merely the emotion of the moment. Some time before, Wilberforce had stepped in to save a coal man’s horse from a beating; and such was Wilberforce’s reputation, the instant the offender learnt who had accosted him all indignation vanished, and he apologised handsomely. (57 / 60 words)
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