Slavery Abolition Act 1833 British Parliament held two inquiries. The results of these inquiries contributed greatly to the abolition of slavery with the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. The Act had its third reading in the House of Commons on 26 July 1833, three days before William Wilberforce died. It received the Royal Assent a month later, on August 28, and came into force the following year, on 1 August 1834. In practical terms, only slaves below the age of six were freed in the colonies. Former slaves over the age of six were redesignated as "apprentices", and their servitude was abolished in two stages:
Burials and memorials in Westminster Abbey also "insisted" that he be cremated before. His widow however declined and so Hooker's body was buried in the churchyard of St Anne's Church, Kew. The majority of interments at the Abbey are of cremated remains, but some burials still take place – Frances Challen, wife of the Rev Sebastian Charles, Canon of Westminster, was buried alongside her husband in the south choir aisle in 2014. Members of the Percy family have a family vault, "The Northumberland Vault", in St Nicholas's chapel, within the Abbey. The ashes of physicist Stephen Hawking were interred in the Abbey on 15 June 2018,