Who was William Wilberforce?

Standard / non-member rates

For groups of 15 or more children
2-hour experience – £8.02 per child

For groups of fewer than 15 children
2-hour experience – £120.30 per group

Magical Museums member rates (academic year 2024-25)

For groups of 15 or more children
2-hour experience – £4.36 per child*

For groups of fewer than 15 children
2-hour experience – £65.40 per group

*If available, your member school's free hours will be used first.

Magical Museums member rates (academic year 2025-26)

For groups of 15 or more children
2-hour experience – £4.52 per child*

For groups of fewer than 15 children
2-hour experience – £67.80 per group

*If available, your member school's free hours will be used first.

Please note: SEND groups are charged at our Standard per-child rate.

Wilberforce House was the birthplace of William Wilberforce, Hull’s famous anti-slavery campaigner. Now a historic museum, our galleries expose the realities of the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies. Due to their subject matter, some of the galleries upstairs contain images and content that may be particularly distressing for some people or inappropriate for younger audiences.  This is primarily on the first-floor galleries within the main house.

The Plantation Life Gallery features content, including graphical descriptions and images of the treatment inflicted on people. It is at the lead teacher/group leader's discretion if your group visits this gallery.

What to expect from your Experience Day

Learn about William Wilberforce and why he’s a significant figure locally and nationally. This experience includes a tour of Wilberforce House Museum – the former family home of the anti-slavery campaigner – and an object handling session. The session will help pupils to understand who William Wilberforce was, his life, campaigning, and legacy.

The led session includes:

• Introduction to the site and setting the scene about the session. Our staff member will also set expectations for the session, including the use of appropriate vocabulary and how to handle the artefacts used sensitively. 
• Learning about William Wilberforce's life and why we remember him, through a digital timeline 
• Handling original artefacts and reviewing source material linked to key themes of who Wilberforce was and why we remember him; what he campaigned about, including focus on what the Transatlantic Slave Trade was, and how he campaigned.
• Taking part in a tour and on-gallery activities in key areas of the Wilberforce House Museum to help deepen pupils’ knowledge and understanding about his life, the Abolitionist Campaign and contemporary slavery issues
• Plenary and evaluation

Group size

We can accommodate up to two groups from your school per available date – with a maximum of 35 pupils per group. If you’d like to bring more than two groups (70 pupils), please book additional days.

Timings

We deliver sessions from 10am–12pm for the first group, and 12.30–2.30pm for the second group. If you’re bringing two groups to/from the museum at the same time, we strongly recommend you book in self-directed time (you can find out more about this below!)

Make a full day of your visit

When making your booking through Eventbrite, you’ll be asked if you want to book a space for lunch and self-directed time, too.

Self-directed time is essentially a booking to explore the museum in a large group. You need to book it in so we know we can accommodate your class alongside other visitors. It does not include any activities led by museum staff – so please plan your time accordingly.

Where schools/groups bring two classes, we strongly encourage you to avoid the William Wilberforce and Legacies of Slavery galleries on the ground floor and the West African Culture and Abolition Display galleries on the first floor as these will be used during the tour element of the session.

To support with your self-directed element of your day, your group(s) are also welcome to book into the other museums in the Museums Quarter (Streetlife Museum and the Hull and East Riding Museum of Archaeology) via the website here: Self-directed visits – Hull Museums and Galleries

Pre-visit info

Hull Museums & Gallery is one of six museums across the UK that is part of the Understanding Slavery Inititative (USI). The USI is a national learning project supporting the teaching and learning of transatlantic slavery and its legacies using museum and heritage collections. The USI website features guidance and resources for teaching slavery with primary-aged children, including a useful set of FAQs for how to support the delivery of this subject matter: Teaching Slavery FAQs. Understanding Slavery Initiative

To make the most of your visit, make sure you download and read the following documents. These include detailed information on what to expect from the day. For example: timings, locations, T&Cs and hazard information.

A link for these will also be included on your confirmation email and ticket.

Book the Who was William Wilberforce? Experience Day for your school

We are currently using Eventbrite for bookings while we move over to new system. Any reference to FREE on the Eventbrite system relates only to not being charged at the point of booking. These sessions are NOT free – all schools will be invoiced following your visit based on the booking details you provide. Prices are listed above.

Cancellation policy

If you accept this visit but are unable to attend, please cancel your visit via Eventbrite by logging into your account and cancelling your booked ticket. We ask that where possible, this is done within 4 weeks (28 days) of the visit as another school may be able to book the slot.

Cancellations will be charged on a sliding scale:

• If you fail to cancel your visit and do not attend your booked visit, you will be charged 100% of the full workshop fee.
• Cancellations within one week (7 days) of the workshop date will be charged 50% cost of the full workshop fee.
• Cancellations within two weeks (14 days) of the workshop date will be charged 25% cost of the workshop fee unless the workshop is rescheduled.
• If you reschedule your workshop within two weeks (14 days) of the original delivery date to another day within the same term, then you will incur an additional charge of £50 on top of your new booking fee to cover administrative costs.

If you need to reschedule your booking, please feel free to visit Eventbrite to check alternative availability, or please email museums@hcandl.co.uk. You can make changes to your booking by logging into your Eventbrite account.

If we (Hull Museums & Gallery) have to cancel your visit due to unforeseen circumstances, your school won’t be charged.