Whisper Of Wilberforce

A centenary with particular resonance for Sierra Leone inspired one of the finest colonial issues of the 1930s, even if the key protagonist was barely acknowledged

- John Winchester

As providence would have it, it was as the anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce lay dying in July 1833 that he learned that his dearest project, the Slavery Abolition Act, would soon pass into British law.

The great philanthropist had also been strongly behind the campaign to settle freed slaves in west Africa, and Sierra Leone duly became the colony which received the largest number of liberated slaves.

As the centenaries of both the act and his death drew close, therefore, it was fitting that plans should be made for a commemorative stamp issue from Sierra Leone in 1933.