William Wilberforce later took on the cause of abolition in 1787 after the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in which he led the parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade in the British Empire with the Slave Trade Act 1807. He continued to campaign for the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Interestingly, one of his principal arguments was economic inefficiency.

The last known form of enforced servitude of adults (villeinage) had disappeared in Britain at the beginning of the 17th century.