My ancestors were slaves on Cumberbatch plantation
WITH a powerful performance as a slave owner in the Oscarnominated 12 Years a Slave, Benedict Cumberbatch has been wowing cinema-goers.
But for a newly elected New York city official, the film resonates on a more personal level.
Stacey Cumberbatch, chief of administrative services to the city’s mayor, revealed an unlikely family link when she spoke to reporters.
She claims that her ancestors were owned by the Sherlock star’s family way back in the 18th century on a sugar plantation on Barbados.
The 37-year-old actor has previously told how his great-great-great-greatgreat grandfather, Abraham Cumberbatch, built the family fortune with a plantation on the Caribbean island.
Born in Bristol in 1726, the slave owner came from a family of merchants and adventurers and died in 1785.
Cumberbatch has said that his surname became common among families in the Caribbean as slaves often used to take the name of their masters.
Miss Cumberbatch was born in the gritty New York borough of Queens, graduated as a lawyer and has spent a long career in city and US state government. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said that her heritage ‘ has driven her to excellence’.
In contrast, Cumberbatch was raised in Kensington in London and educated at Harrow. He has complained of being a victim of ‘ posh-bashing’ and threatened to move to America to escape being ‘castigated as a moaning, rich, public-school b******, complaining about only getting posh roles’.
He has insisted that he is middle class and ‘ wasn’t born into land or titles, or new money or an oil rig’.
His role in 12 Years a Slave isn’t the first time he has chosen a film that harks back to his family history.
He played William Pitt the Younger in the 2006 film Amazing Grace, which told the story of William Wilberforce’s fight to eliminate slavery in the British empire.
Cumberbatch said the role was a ‘sort of apology’ for his ancestor. He previously revealed that his mother, actress Wanda Veltham, had warned him against using the family name professionally because it might prompt descendants of the family’s slaves to seek compensation.
Last night Cumberbatch had not responded to the latest revelations.
Fourteen Caribbean countries are suing Britain, France and the Netherlands for billions of pounds in reparations for slavery.