It is referenced in the 2006 film Amazing Grace, which highlights Newton's influence on the leading British abolitionist William Wilberforce.

William Wilberforce saw the poor conditions of the locals when he visited Cheddar in 1789.

Evangelicals were also concerned with social reform during this period — in England the Clapham Sect included figures such as William Wilberforce who successfully campaigned for the abolition of slavery.

A number of reformers, such as William Wilberforce in Britain, worked towards the abolition of slavery.

Many young churchmen and others enquiring about their faith visited him and sought his advice, including such well-known social figures as the writer and philanthropist Hannah More, and the young Member of Parliament, William Wilberforce, who had recently undergone a crisis of conscience and religious conversion as he was contemplating leaving politics.

Newton became an ally of his friend William Wilberforce, leader of the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade.

William Wilberforce received much of the credit although the groundwork was an anti-slavery essay by Thomas Clarkson.

Wilberforce was also urged by his close friend, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, to make the issue his own, and was also given support by reformed Evangelical John Newton.

* July 29 – William Wilberforce – British Politician and Abolitionist ( b. 1759 )

* May 30 – William Wilberforce marries Barbara Ann Spooner.

* April 21 – Barbara Ann Spooner Wilberforce, Wife of British Abolitionist William Wilberfoce ( b. 1777 )

* December 24 – Barbara Ann Spooner Wilberforce, Wife of English Abolitionist William Wilberforce ( d. 1847 )

* August 24 – William Wilberforce, British abolitionist ( d. 1833 )

Freestanding statues and plaques commemorate College benefactors such as James Wood, Master 1815-39, as well as alumni including William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson and William Gilbert.

* Henry William Wilberforce ( 1807 – 1873 ), the youngest son of William Wilberforce, Catholic convert, journalist and author

* Lionel Robert Wilberforce ( 1861 – 1944 ), British physicist, great-grandson of William Wilberforce and inventor of the Wilberforce pendulum

* Richard Wilberforce, Baron Wilberforce ( 1907 – 2003 ), great-great-grandson of William Wilberforce, famous Law Lord

When Quiney and William Parsons wrote to Greville in 1593 asking his consent in the election for bailiff, they sent the letter to Mr. William Sawnders, attendant on the worshipful Mr. Thomas Bushell at Marston.

He wrote eloquently to William James that impartial history was not only impossible but undesirable.

Schiller later wrote the play William Tell romanticising Swiss independence.

In addition to his battle against moral decay, Alan wrote a work against Islam, Judaism and Christian heretics dedicated to William VIII of Montpellier.

After his arrival, Hasan Ali Shah wrote to Sir William Macnaghten, discussing his plans to seize and govern Herat on behalf of the British.

Critic William Kuhn argued that much of his fiction can be read as " the memoirs he never wrote ", revealing the inner life of a politician for whom the norms of Victorian public life appeared to represent a social straitjacket – particularly with regard to his allegedly " ambiguous sexuality.

Morton wrote the column until 1975 ; it was revived in January 1996 and continues today, written by William Hartston, though the name " By the Way " has been dropped in favour of simply " Beachcomber ".

" However, his looks proved to be an asset in his personal and political relationships, as his law partner William Herndon wrote, " He was not a pretty man by any means, nor was he an ugly one ; he was a homely man, careless of his looks, plain-looking and plain-acting.

Rebuffed by William Thiselton-Dyer, the Director at Kew, because of her gender and her amateur status, Beatrix wrote up her conclusions and submitted a paper On the Germination of the Spores of the Agaricineae to the Linnean Society in 1897.

William Cowper wrote a popular poem, " Boadicea, an ode ," in 1782.

More recently, William D. Rubinstein, Professor of Modern History at Aberystwyth University, Wales, wrote that Conservative politician and pro-Zionist Leo Amery, as Assistant Secretary to the British war cabinet in 1917, was the main author of the Balfour Declaration.

William Shawcross, however, wrote that the US bombing and ground incursion plunged Cambodia into the chaos Sihanouk had worked for years to avoid.

His imposing contemporaries William James and Josiah Royce admired him, and Cassius Jackson Keyser at Columbia and C. K. Ogden wrote about Peirce with respect, but to no immediate effect.

In 1902 William Crossing wrote that he had been told by an old moorman that some of the granite blocks from the tomb's pedestal had also been used to make a clapper bridge across a stream flowing into the River Swincombe near the farm.

The Scottish poet William Soutar also wrote over one hundred American Cinquains ( he labelled them Epigrams ) between 1933 and 1940.

William Stoughton, Mather wrote Wonders of the Invisible World written during the trials and published in 1693.

Whilst awaiting trial, Kidd was confined in the infamous Newgate Prison and wrote several letters to King William requesting clemency.

English had, however, been used as a literary language for centuries before Chaucer's life, and several of Chaucer's contemporaries — John Gower, William Langland, and the Pearl Poet — also wrote major literary works in English.

In despair, he wrote to William Paterson the London Scot and founder of the Bank of England and part instigator of the Darien scheme, who was in the confidence of Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford and Earl Mortimer, leading minister and spymaster in the English Government.

Retired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General John Shalikashvili and former Senator and Secretary of Defense William Cohen opposed the policy in January 2007: " I now believe that if gay men and lesbians served openly in the United States military, they would not undermine the efficacy of the armed forces " Shalikashvili wrote.

William Bright, then editor of Language: Journal of the Linguistic Society of America, wrote of Ethnologue that it " is indispensable for any reference shelf on the languages of the world.

The first published use of the term " evangelical " in English was in 1531 by William Tyndale, who wrote " He exhorteth them to proceed constantly in the evangelical truth.

Sir William Blackstone wrote that felony " comprises every species of crime, which occasioned at common law the forfeiture of lands or goods.

Bacon's personal secretary and chaplain, William Rawley, however, wrote in his biography of Bacon that his inter-marriage with Alice Barnham was one of " much conjugal love and respect ", mentioning a robe of honour that he gave to her, and which " she wore unto her dying day, being twenty years and more after his death ".