[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] Jasper Jolly (The Guardian) writes in regards to the exhibition “Slavery & the Financial institution,” which reveals that the Financial institution of England owned 599 slaves in 1770s. Jolly says, “Analysis commissioned by Financial institution within the wake of Black Lives Matter uncovers grim historical past of colonial Grenada.”
Within the late 18th century Britain’s Caribbean island colony of Grenada was a spot of growth and bust. A hurricane, a plague of ants, and Britain’s wars towards France and American revolutionaries made for risky commerce in its fundamental commodities – sugar, espresso, and slaves.
Amid the turmoil, property modified palms often amongst Britain’s monetary elite, however within the early 1770s the possession of two plantations and 599 folks handed to an uncommon new proprietor: the Financial institution of England.
The Financial institution has already apologised for its position within the slave commerce, however revelations of the establishment’s direct possession of the folks have been uncovered in new analysis commissioned within the wake of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020.
The analysis has been introduced in a brand new exhibition that opened this week on the Financial institution’s museum in its headquarters on London’s Threadneedle Road. The names of the 599 slaves, acquired by the Financial institution within the 1770s, take a central place within the free exhibition.
In the course of the protests the Financial institution apologised for the 25 governors and administrators who had owned slaves. It eliminated eight work and two busts of the slave house owners from public show, though the exhibition consists of some reproductions.
It has been a part of a reassessment of historic hyperlinks to slavery and imperialism by establishments starting from most of the UK’s large excessive avenue banks – Barclays, HSBC, NatWest Group and Lloyds Banking Group – to the insurance coverage market Lloyd’s of London and the brewer Greene King, in addition to the Nationwide Belief and English Heritage, the custodians of British nation homes that had been in lots of circumstances constructed utilizing colonial or slave wealth.
Regardless of the important thing position that slavery performed within the British imperial economic system, that reassessment has grow to be a delicate topic. The Nationwide Belief specifically has confronted a barrage of criticism from components of the Conservative occasion and campaigners who complained that acknowledging hyperlinks to slavery and colonialism would “give nation home visits a political and racial dimension”.
The Financial institution of England was itself criticised this month for supposedly “woke” insurance policies after it modified the flag depicted on its brand from the English flag of St George to the Union flag, to higher mirror the central financial institution’s position serving the entire of the UK.
A Financial institution of England spokesperson mentioned: “In 2021, the Financial institution of England commissioned a researcher to discover its historic hyperlinks to transatlantic slavery, working with the Financial institution of England museum and archive. “This analysis discovered that within the 1770s the Financial institution made loans to a service provider firm referred to as Alexander & Sons. When the enterprise defaulted on these loans, the Financial institution got here into possession of two plantations in Grenada which had been pledged as safety for the loans. Our analysis has discovered that 599 enslaved African folks lived and labored on these plantations. The Financial institution subsequently offered on the plantations.”
The analysis was led by Michael Bennett, a specialist within the historical past of early trendy Britain and Caribbean slavery, and adopted work by a small group of volunteers from throughout the Financial institution, together with members of its ethnic minorities community.
Michael Taylor, a historian whose 2020 ebook The Curiosity confirmed how the British institution resisted abolition, mentioned it might be troublesome to seek out any UK monetary establishment of a comparable age that was not concerned ultimately with the slave commerce. “For the century earlier than the abolition of the slave commerce in 1807-8, Britain was the world’s main slave energy,” he mentioned. “Furthermore, slave-grown sugar, espresso, and cotton had been among the many most useful commodities in world markets. Collectively, these elements meant that the slave economic system was completely important to Britain’s wider prosperity. [. . .]
[Image above: James Baillie, his wife and their four children, painted by Thomas Gainsborough. The Bacolet and Chemin plantations were sold in 1790 to James Baillie.]
For full article, see https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/apr/15/bank-of-england-owned-599-slaves-in-1770s-new-exhibition-reveals
The exhibition:
Slavery & the Financial institution
Financial institution of England Museum, Bartholomew Lane, London, EC2R 8AH
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/museum/whats-on/slavery-and-the-bank
The Financial institution of England Museum: Slavery and the Financial institution exhibition
Caroline Powell, Six within the Metropolis, April 25, 2022
https://sixinthecity.co.uk/information/2022/04/bank-of-england-museum