On the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery, it would be right to ask just what has Uxbridge done to celebrate one of its greatest citizens ???William Wilberforce lived in Uxbridge between 1824 to 1826 at the Chestnuts, an 18th-century house which still stands in Honeycroft Hill.
Frederick Douglass, former slave and revolutionary US abolitionist in a speech delivered in Paisley, Scotland, 17 April 1846
“When Wilberforce came forward, public attention became directed to the matter.
.“Ten times did he introduce a bill for the abolition of the slave trade, and ten times was it doomed to defeat – parliament sometimes laying the matter on the table, and at other times giving it an indefinite postponement.
“Convinced that justice, that humanity, that all nature was on his side, believing that by perseverance he would succeed, he went on with his good work.
“And what do we see take place within half a century? We see the slave trade, which was sanctioned by all Christians, is now nearly regarded as not only improper, but as piracy, and the men caught at it are hung up at the yard-arm.”
