[1] His grandfather was Reginald Wilberforce, who helped restore British order in Delhi, after the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

[1] From Sandroyd he went to Winchester College in 1920 where Monty Rendall, the headmaster, convinced him to drop Mathematics, in which he excelled, in favour of Classics, to broaden his career options.

[1] From Winchester, Wilberforce entered New College, Oxford, where he was a scholar, obtaining First Class Honours in both Classical Moderations (1928) and Literae humaniores (1930).

In 1932, on his third attempt, Wilberforce was elected a prize fellow of All Souls College; the two other successful candidates that year were Isaiah Berlin and Patrick Reilly.

At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Wilberforce volunteered for service in the British Army, though he was advised against it, and was commissioned into the Royal Artillery.

In 1940 he was aide-de-camp to Major-General Bernard Paget, who led the British expeditionary force during the Norwegian Campaign.

After Norway, Wilberforce held various staff appointments before being posted to the War Office where, as a lieutenant colonel, he was put in charge of Army entertainments.

After the German surrender, Wilberforce, by then a brigadier, headed the British legal section of the Allied Control Council.

In the 1950 election, he stood for Kingston upon Hull Central as the Conservative candidate, in the city formerly represented by his ancestor William Wilberforce, but lost to the incumbent Labour MP Mark Hewitson.