‘Horrible’ historical truth is that we led the fight against slavery

THE skit lambasts Britain’s role in the slave trade but fails to mention that it was abolished in 1833, four years before Queen Victoria came to the throne.

The sketch depicts Victoria in the mourning clothes she wore after Prince Albert’s death in 1861 – which suggests she was still consuming slave-produced sugar at least 28 years after the practice was abolished.

Of course, British merchants had grown rich on the profits from cruelly shipping African slaves to the Americas, but almost all European colonial nations took part, too.

In fact, this country was the first nation to abolish slavery, with campaigners led by William Wilberforce turning public opinion against the trade. ‘Let us put an end at once to this inhuman traffic,’ he begged Parliament. ‘Let us stop this effusion of human blood.’

Spain and Portugal followed — albeit after being bribed — but France resisted, holding out until 1848.

The Horrible Histories also condemn Britain’s colonial rule in India. It is accepted that partition of the Raj last century was a colossal human tragedy, but the early colonialists were considered by some as humane men.

Historian Lawrence James has said: ‘The British Empire was a force for good and should be a source of national pride. It provided an interlude of stability in which countries divided by race and religion could develop and, in the case of India, discover a national identity.’