Wilberforce

In Freetown you cannot help run into the name Wilberforce.  There is Wilberforce Street in the downtown area and a village of that name.  In years gone by, as in London, villages would have been separate entities but as the city has grown the villages have merged together. 

The sign above is on Old Railway Line marking Wilberforce on a short branch railway of 5.5 miles length built in 1903 from Freetown to Hill Station, at 748 feet  above sea level. The line allowed Europeans to live in the healthier hills area above Freetown, but with competition from motor cars it closed in 1929.

Wilberforce Village is one of my favourite places in Freetown.  I walk through often as it’s a short cut between Old Signal Hill and Spur Road.  I especially love the atmosphere around 6.30am as the village wakes and people walk to fill Gerry cans and other containers from the communal stand pipes.  There is a mix of housing from the lovely old Krio buildings to the half-finished.  I would have pictures but I always feel guilty snapping people’s houses as I wouldn’t care for strangers coming to snap my flat in Surbiton.  I did however get one of the church.

Judea WAM Church, Wilberforce

So Wilberforce?  Why that name?  This is in honour of William Wilberforce the British politician philanthropist and a leader of the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.

Wilberforce is very important to the history of Freetown so in recognition of that there is a statue to his honour next to the Wilberforce cotton tree.  A well looked after monument.

William Wilberforce