Abstract

William Wilberforce is a particular kind of evangelical hero. His efforts to secure the abolition of the British slave trade mean he is held up as a paradigm for evangelical influence in politics and culture. Yet the use of idealised heroes in history teaching is morally problematic and leads to a distorting of history. Using the example of Wilberforce as our point of reference, this study demonstrates the need for historians to tell stories from the past that incorporate sufficient complexity and ambiguity. This does not mean we cannot celebrate Wilberforce’s testimony, instead it means recognising the surprising, and often unpredictable, ways positive social progress is created by means of a whole host of historical factors, only one of which is individual effort. By attending to all the historical data, history teachers enable students to better understand their own agency within a complex world.