Britain’s challenges during the lifetime of William Wilberforce

William Wilberforce was born on 24 August 1759 in Kingston upon Hull, England. The British society of his time confronted the challenges resulting from the advent of the First Industrial Revolution; particularly, the transformation of the British mercantilist economic model that  relied on the exploitation and trade of African slaves destined as workforce for hand production in the colonies of America, to an industrialized model of production relying on machines and the mechanization of the factory system. At the social level, the First Industrial Revolution also determined massive migratory flows, exploitation of workers, poverty, and rampant inequality, as well as a substantial increase in the consumption alcohol, gambling, adultery and prostitution. From the environmental point of view, it was also the time of one of the darkest pages in the history of the degradation of the air, waters and soil of Britain resulting from coal burning, as well as the production of metals and basic chemicals. The high levels of overall environmental pollution of Britain during this period are generally associated with epidemics of cholera, typhoid, respiratory and intestinal diseases.