Samuel Wilberforce (7 September 1805 – 19 July 1873) was an English bishop in the Church of England, and the third son of William Wilberforce.
Wilberforce combined a religious vocation with significant influence in the theological, political, and scientific circles of Victorian Britain. He is regarded as one of the greatest public speakers of his day. A high church cleric, he served successively as Bishop of Oxford (1845–1869) and Bishop of Winchester (1869–1873). He is now best remembered for his opposition to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution at a debate in 1860.
He was born at Clapham Common, London, the fifth child of William Wilberforce, a major campaigner against the slave trade and slavery, and Barbara Spooner; he was the younger brother of Robert Isaac Wilberforce. He had an Anglican education, outside the English public schools. This was the "private and domestic" pattern of instruction chosen for his sons by William Wilberforce. It concentrated on a traditional teaching of the classics, but in a clerical home environment.
Samuel Wilberforce was from 1812 under Stephen Langston, and then Edward Garrard Marsh. With Henry Hoare of Staplehurst and others, he was a pupil in 1819 at Stanstead Park, near Racton in Sussex, of George Hodson, at that time chaplain to Lewis Way. Hodson was tutoring Albert Way, but gathered a small class of six boys, who included also James Thomason. In 1820 Hodson moved to Maisemore near Gloucester as a curate, taking pupils with him. Wilberforce was schooled under Hodson in Gloucestershire until 1822, when he required coaching for university entrance. For that he went, with his younger brother Henry, to Francis Roach Spragge at Bidborough.
In 1823 Wilberforce entered Oriel College, Oxford. In the United Debating Society, the forerunner of the Oxford Union, he demonstrated some Whig views. His friends included William Ewart Gladstone and Henry Edward Manning, and were nicknamed the "Bethel Union" for their religiosity. Wilberforce's student recreations included riding and hunting. He graduated in 1826, taking a first-class degree in mathematics and a second in classics.
Wilberforce in late 1826 tried and failed for a fellowship at Balliol College. He spent the summer and autumn of 1827 touring the continent. He married Emily Sargent, daughter of the rector of East Lavington, West Sussex in 1828. After his marriage a college fellowship was no longer possible. He was ordained deacon in the Church of England. In 1829 he was ordained priest and appointed curate at Checkendon, near Henley-on-Thames.
In 1830, Wilberforce was presented by Charles Sumner, Bishop of Winchester, to the rectory of St Mary's Church, Brighstone, in the Isle of Wight. In November 1839 he was installed archdeacon of Surrey, in August 1840 he was collated canon of Winchester, and in October he accepted the rectory of Alverstoke.
In January 1841, Wilberforce was made chaplain to Prince Albert, an appointment he owed to an anti-slavery speech he had made some months previously. He was chosen as that year's Bampton lecturer, but his wife Emily died on 10 March, and he withdrew. In October 1843, he was appointed by the Archbishop of York to be sub-almoner to the Queen. Later, his part in the revival of the powers of Convocation lessened his influence at court.
In March 1845 Wilberforce accepted the position of Dean of Westminster and, in October the same year, was appointed as the Bishop of Oxford by Sir Robert Peel. This year, also, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. He set up a Diocesan Church Building Fund. This gave small grants intended to act as a lever for more substantial funding from other sources, a successful fundraising approach. In 1850 Wilberforce appointed George Edmund Street as architect to the diocese of Oxford. Street built or improved 113 churches there during his tenure. In 1854, Wilberforce opened a theological college at Cuddesdon, now known as Ripon College Cuddesdon, which later was the subject of some controversy over its alleged Romanist tendencies.
After twenty-four years in the diocese of Oxford, Wilberforce was translated by Gladstone to the bishopric of Winchester in 1869.
From an evangelical background and upbringing in line with Clapham Sect orthodoxy, Wilberforce began to develop into a High Churchman and High Tory in the early days of his priesthood. His ideas developed with broader contacts, and the politics of Catholic Emancipation.
Although a High Churchman, Wilberforce held aloof from the Oxford Movement. In 1838 his divergence from the Tractarian writers became so evident that John Henry Newman declined further contributions from him to the British Critic.
In 1847 Wilberforce, at Newman's suggestion, became involved in the Hampden controversy. He signed the remonstrance of 13 bishops to Lord John Russell against the appointment of Hampden, accused of heretical views, to the bishopric of Hereford. He wished to obtain some assurances from Hampden; unsuccessful in this, he withdrew from the suit against him. His handling of process and change of mind marred his intervention, and although he made a public statement of error, Charles Greville expressed a widely-held view that "Sly Sam" had made himself look ridiculous.
In 1850 Charles Blomfield, the Bishop of London, proposed the upper house of a revived Convocation as a court of last resort for the ecclesiastical courts of the Church of England. Wilberforce took up the suggestion, and campaigned with Henry Hoare of Staplehurst that the dormant assemblies of Convocation should be put to use. They won the argument, over a few years.
In 1867 Wilberforce framed the first Report of the Ritualistic Commission, in which coercive measures against ritualism were undermined by the use of the word "restrain" instead of "abolish" or "prohibit." He also tried to soften some resolutions of the second Ritualistic Commission in 1868, and was one of the four who signed the Report with qualifications. He was strongly opposed to the disestablishment of the Irish Church, but when the constituencies decided for it, he advised that no opposition should be made to it by the House of Lords.
Wilberforce took part in the famous 1860 debate concerning evolution at a meeting of the British Association on 30 June. Richard Owen and Thomas Henry Huxley had already clashed on man's position in nature two days previously; on the Saturday, at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, Wilberforce got his chance to criticise Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection, especially the implication that humans and various species of apes share common ancestors.
In 1979, JR Lucas argued that "Wilberforce, contrary to the central tenet of the legend, did not prejudge the issue". He criticised Darwin's theory on scientific grounds, arguing that it was not supported by the facts, and he noted that the greatest names in science were opposed to the theory. Nonetheless, Wilberforce's speech is generally only remembered today for his inquiry as to whether it was through his grandmother or his grandfather that Huxley considered himself descended from a monkey. Huxley is said to have replied that he would not be ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth. Darwin was not present, but several of his friends replied, with Huxley perhaps the most effective. The popular view may be that Huxley had the better of the exchange; but there is a consensus view of historians that this account of the debate involves later fabrication, and that the outcome was moot. "Reports from the time suggest that everybody enjoyed himself immensely, and all went cheerfully off to dinner together afterwards".
Wilberforce wrote a review of On the Origin of Species for the Quarterly Review. In it, he disagreed with Darwin's reasoning.