William Wilberforce was a British politician and philanthropist who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A deeply religious man, he was persuaded to take up the cause by abolitionists like Thomas Clarkson. For twenty years, Wilberforce tirelessly introduced anti-slavery motions in Parliament, eventually resulting in the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which prohibited the slave trade in the British Empire. He continued to campaign for the total abolition of slavery until his health failed. Just three days before his death in 1833, he was informed that Parliament had passed the Slavery Abolition Act, which abolished slavery in most parts of the British Empire. His legacy is one of the most successful examples of sustained humanitarian activism.