David
Cameron's ancestors were among the wealthy families who received generous
reparation payments that would be worth millions of pounds in today's money
Independent,
Sanchez Manning, 24 February 2013
 |
Slavery on
an industrial scale was a major source of the wealth of the
British empire
|
The true
scale of Britain's involvement in the slave trade has been laid bare in
documents revealing how the country's wealthiest families received the modern
equivalent of billions of pounds in compensation after slavery was abolished.
The
previously unseen records show exactly who received what in payouts from the
Government when slave ownership was abolished by Britain – much to the
potential embarrassment of their descendants. Dr Nick Draper from University
College London, who has studied the compensation papers, says as many as
one-fifth of wealthy Victorian Britons derived all or part of their fortunes
from the slave economy.
As a
result, there are now wealthy families all around the UK still indirectly
enjoying the proceeds of slavery where it has been passed on to them. Dr Draper
said: "There was a feeding frenzy around the compensation." A John
Austin, for instance, owned 415 slaves, and got compensation of £20,511, a sum
worth nearly £17m today. And there were many who received far more.
Academics
from UCL, led by Dr Draper, spent three years drawing together 46,000 records
of compensation given to British slave-owners into an internet database to be
launched for public use on Wednesday. But he emphasised that the claims set to
be unveiled were not just from rich families but included many "very
ordinary men and women" and covered the entire spectrum of society.
Dr Draper
added that the database's findings may have implications for the
"reparations debate". Barbados is currently leading the way in
calling for reparations from former colonial powers for the injustices suffered
by slaves and their families.
Among those
revealed to have benefited from slavery are ancestors of the Prime Minister,
David Cameron, former minister Douglas Hogg, authors Graham Greene and George
Orwell, poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and the new chairman of the Arts
Council, Peter Bazalgette. Other prominent names which feature in the records
include scions of one of the nation's oldest banking families, the Barings, and
the second Earl of Harewood, Henry Lascelles, an ancestor of the Queen's
cousin. Some families used the money to invest in the railways and other
aspects of the industrial revolution; others bought or maintained their country
houses, and some used the money for philanthropy. George Orwell's
great-grandfather, Charles Blair, received £4,442, equal to £3m today, for the
218 slaves he owned.
The British
government paid out £20m to compensate some 3,000 families that owned slaves
for the loss of their "property" when slave-ownership was abolished
in Britain's colonies in 1833. This figure represented a staggering 40 per cent
of the Treasury's annual spending budget and, in today's terms, calculated as
wage values, equates to around £16.5bn.
A total of
£10m went to slave-owning families in the Caribbean and Africa, while the other
half went to absentee owners living in Britain. The biggest single payout went
to James Blair (no relation to Orwell), an MP who had homes in Marylebone,
central London, and Scotland. He was awarded £83,530, the equivalent of £65m
today, for 1,598 slaves he owned on the plantation he had inherited in British
Guyana.
But this
amount was dwarfed by the amount paid to John Gladstone, the father of
19th-century prime minister William Gladstone. He received £106,769 (modern
equivalent £83m) for the 2,508 slaves he owned across nine plantations. His son,
who served as prime minister four times during his 60-year career, was heavily
involved in his father's claim.
Mr Cameron,
too, is revealed to have slave owners in his family background on his father's
side. The compensation records show that General Sir James Duff, an army
officer and MP for Banffshire in Scotland during the late 1700s, was Mr
Cameron's first cousin six times removed. Sir James, who was the son of one of
Mr Cameron's great-grand-uncle's, the second Earl of Fife, was awarded £4,101,
equal to more than £3m today, to compensate him for the 202 slaves he forfeited
on the Grange Sugar Estate in Jamaica.
Another
illustrious political family that it appears still carries the name of a major
slave owner is the Hogg dynasty, which includes the former cabinet minister
Douglas Hogg. They are the descendants of Charles McGarel, a merchant who made
a fortune from slave ownership. Between 1835 and 1837 he received £129,464,
about £101m in today's terms, for the 2,489 slaves he owned. McGarel later went
on to bring his younger brother-in-law Quintin Hogg into his hugely successful
sugar firm, which still used indentured labour on plantations in British Guyana
established under slavery. And it was Quintin's descendants that continued to
keep the family name in the limelight, with both his son, Douglas McGarel Hogg,
and his grandson, Quintin McGarel Hogg, becoming Lord Chancellor.
Dr Draper
said: "Seeing the names of the slave-owners repeated in 20th‑century family naming practices is a very stark reminder about where those families saw
their origins being from. In this case I'm thinking about the Hogg family. To
have two Lord Chancellors in Britain in the 20th century bearing the name of a
slave-owner from British Guiana, who went penniless to British Guyana, came
back a very wealthy man and contributed to the formation of this political
dynasty, which incorporated his name into their children in recognition – it
seems to me to be an illuminating story and a potent example."
Mr Hogg
refused to comment yesterday, saying he "didn't know anything about
it". Mr Cameron declined to comment after a request was made to the No 10
press office.
Another
demonstration of the extent to which slavery links stretch into modern Britain
is Evelyn Bazalgette, the uncle of one of the giants of Victorian engineering,
Sir Joseph Bazalgette and ancestor of Arts Council boss Sir Peter Bazalgette.
He was paid £7,352 (£5.7m in today's money) for 420 slaves from two estates in
Jamaica. Sir Peter said yesterday: "It had always been rumoured that his
father had some interests in the Caribbean and I suspect Evelyn inherited that.
So I heard rumours but this confirms it, and guess it's the sort of thing
wealthy people on the make did in the 1800s. He could have put his money
elsewhere but regrettably he put it in the Caribbean."
The TV chef
Ainsley Harriott, who had slave-owners in his family on his grandfather's side,
said yesterday he was shocked by the amount paid out by the government to the
slave-owners. "You would think the government would have given at least
some money to the freed slaves who need to find homes and start new
lives," he said. "It seems a bit barbaric. It's like the rich
protecting the rich."
The
database is available from Wednesday at: ucl.ac.uk/lbs.
Cruel trade
Slavery on
an industrial scale was a major source of the wealth of the British empire,
being the exploitation upon which the West Indies sugar trade and cotton crop
in North America was based. Those who made money from it were not only the
slave-owners, but also the investors in those who transported Africans to
enslavement. In the century to 1810, British ships carried about three million
to a life of forced labour.
Campaigning
against slavery began in the late 18th century as revulsion against the trade
spread. This led, first, to the abolition of the trade in slaves, which came
into law in 1808, and then, some 26 years later, to the Act of Parliament that
would emancipate slaves. This legislation made provision for the staggering
levels of compensation for slave-owners, but gave the former slaves not a penny
in reparation.
More than
that, it said that only children under six would be immediately free; the rest
being regarded as "apprentices" who would, in exchange for free board
and lodging, have to work for their "owners" 40 and a half hours for
nothing until 1840. Several large disturbances meant that the deadline was
brought forward and so, in 1838, 700,000 slaves in the West Indies, 40,000 in
South Africa and 20,000 in Mauritius were finally liberated.
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