KS3 / KS4 History: British slave owners in the 1830s

DAVID OLUSOGA:'These are Britain's forgotten slave owners.'

DAVID OLUSOGA:'These Georgian terraces in the heart of London conceal a forgotten chapter in Britain's history. A new study of a forgotten archive from the 1830s reveals that many of these houses were once the homes of British slave owners. Researchers at University College London have used these documents to create a database of each and every one of the slave owners who lived in Britain. They reveal that thousands of them lived all over the country.'

DAVID OLUSOGA:This is Bryanston Square in central London. This is number eight. This was the home of Tully Higgins. He has 328 enslaved people on plantations in Demerara which is in the British colony of Guyana. At number 12 we have Nathaniel Snell Chauncy. Now he owned slaves in Guyana, in Grenada, in Antigua, and on the islands of St. Vincent and Tobago. In all, he owned 3,000 slaves.

DAVID OLUSOGA:'When the 1833 abolition of slavery act was passed these slave owners slipped quietly into obscurity.

DAVID OLUSOGA:'For almost two centuries, these documents, these ledgers and letters, have been here in the archives. And for the most part, they've just been forgotten about. Even by historians.'

DAVID OLUSOGA:These files tell us the name of every British slave owner. They tell us who they were, where they lived, and how many slaves, how many men, women and children they owned.

DAVID OLUSOGA:And most chillingly, they give us the value of those slaves. In pounds, shillings and pence.

DAVID OLUSOGA:'At the point of abolition, there were over 40,000 slave owners, who laid claim to 800,000 individual slaves across the Caribbean, South Africa, and the island of Mauritius.'

DAVID OLUSOGA:Here is a record for George Hibbert and his brother, William Hibbert, of Portland Place, in London. For the 360 enslaved peoples on one of their plantations, in the parish of St. James in the county of Cornwall, on the island of Jamaica. And for those 360 people, they're paid the sum of 6,244 pounds, four shillings and five pence. And that's not their only plantation. The Hibberts own 16 plantations, just on Jamaica.

DAVID OLUSOGA:At the other end of the spectrum, in this ledger there's an entry here for Agnes and Martha Montgomery of Perthshire. Now we think that they're probably sisters and between them, they own one slave. That one individual is valued at 63 pounds, 19 shillings, and three pence. From the Reverend James Hamilton, for 216 slaves on his plantation. Here is a record for Steven Isaacson, who was living in Dorset…

DAVID OLUSOGA:'These records reveal just how widespread slave ownership was in Britain. How so many thousands grew rich on the proceeds of slave labour, and how this money laid the foundations for the British Empire and Britain's modern economy.'

DAVID OLUSOGA:Just beneath is another of their plantations, on which there are another three hundred… Steven Isaacson.