Church and Bank of England apologise for historic links to slavery
THE Church of England and Bank of England last night apologised for their historic links to slavery through vicars, bishops and governors who benefited from the trade in the 19th century.
The Church said it was “a source of shame” that scores of churches, clergymen and even a bishop could have been funded by compensation paid to plantation owners following abolition.
Analysis of a database held by University College London found nearly 100 Church of England clergymen benefited from slavery. Six governors and four directors of the Bank are named as beneficiaries or claimants of compensation. They include Sir John Rae Reid, governor from 1839 to 1841 and director of the West India Company, who was paid the equivalent of £7.1million in today’s money for his stake in 17 Caribbean plantations, which had 3,100 slaves.
The Bank last night said it would stop any images of these former leaders being displayed on its premises and described the trade as “an unacceptable part of English history”.
UCL has been logging the details of the 47,000 people who received some of the £20million – £2.4billion today – given in compensation under the terms of the 1833 Abolition of Slavery Act. Yesterday three of the world’s biggest finance companies pledged to pay sums thought to total hundreds of thousands of pounds to projects benefiting black and ethnic minorities after their roles in the slave trade were uncovered.
Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking Group and RSA Insurance said they would make payments or were considering them after being linked to the database. That came after Greene King, the pub chain, and Lloyd’s of London said they would donate to BAME causes.
Layla Moran, the Lib Dem MP, said last night that such institutions “must use the controversy over Black Lives Matter to confront their past links to slavery and make amends”.
Research of the database shows that 96 Church of England clergymen were involved in claims that would total £46million in today’s money. The construction of 32 churches is linked to claimants. They include Holy Trinity in Barnstaple, which, according to British History Online, was “erected at an expense of nearly £10,000, defrayed almost wholly by the Rev John James Scott”. Scott was the main beneficiary from payouts for his father’s plantations in Jamaica worth more than £100,000 in today’s money.
A former bishop of Exeter, the Rt Rev Henry Philpotts, was named as executor of three claims over three plantations in Jamaica worth more than £1.5million today, though researchers said there was no evidence Bishop Philpotts personally owned slaves.
The cash was paid to individual clergy, not the Church itself. The
Church campaigned for abolition in the early 1800s and apologised for historic cases in 2006.
A Church of England spokesman said: “We are unfamiliar with this data, but slavery and exploitation have no place in society. While we recognise the leading role clergy and active members of the Church of England played in securing the abolition of slavery, it is a source of shame that others within the Church actively perpetrated slavery and profited from it.”
A Bank spokesman said: “As an institution, the Bank of England was never itself directly involved in the slave trade, but is aware of some inexcusable connections involving former governors and directors and apologises for them.”
A spokesman for RBS said it “will look at what more we can do as a bank and this includes looking at making contributions to BAME groups”.
A spokesman for Lloyds Banking Group said the bank was “building a plan to invest in BAME colleagues, communities and customers”.
A spokesman for RSA said it would be “making a donation to a charity”.
Tobias Ellwood, the Tory chairman of the Commons defence select committee, told today’s Chopper’s Politics Podcast that the revelations meant the UK was “finally having a conversation about our past, trying to better reflect it and understand it”.
♦ Download Chopper’s Politics Podcast today at art19.com/shows/chopper