Westminster Abbey politicians, doctors and scientists such as Isaac Newton, buried on 4 April 1727, Charles Darwin, buried on 26 April 1882, and Stephen Hawking, buried on 15 June 2018. Another was William Wilberforce who led the movement to abolish slavery in the United Kingdom and the Plantations, buried on 3 August 1833. Wilberforce was buried in the north transept, close to his friend, the former Prime Minister, William Pitt. During the early 20th century it became increasingly common to bury cremated remains rather than coffins in the abbey. In 1905 the actor Sir Henry Irving was cremated and his ashes buried
Slavery in Britain slave could be forcibly removed from Britain. This case was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law, and emancipated the remaining ten to fourteen thousand slaves or possible slaves in England and Wales, who were mostly domestic servants. However slavery elsewhere in the British Empire was not affected. Joseph Knight's case in 1778 established a similar position in Scots law. Slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, with exceptions provided for the East India Company, Ceylon, and Saint Helena. These exceptions were