Updated 08/02/21
The removal of the statute of the Bristol merchant and slave trader Edward Colston has focused public attention on the historic connections between places in Britain and the combined histories of slavery and imperialism. Physical legacies of the past - some, but not all, memorials - have become touchstones for debating this controversial legacy. This guide is intended to document resources that may help people research these connections. Leicester’s traditional strengths in local and urban history mean that the David Wilson Library’s collections have a strong focus on the history of places, the built environment and public heritage. Hopefully this guide will allow you to answer questions like: who does this statute represent? Or what were there links between a town and the slave trade?
Note: there are a number of print books listed here. Hopefully, these will become more accessible as we come out of lockdown. For our current services, please see our website. Free online resources
Mary Wills with Madge Dresser, The Transatlantic Slave Economy and England’s Built Environment: A Research Audit, Report number 247/2020 (Historic England, 2020).
"In early 2020 Historic England commissioned a research audit of how this transatlantic slave economy is reflected in England's built heritage. It brings together the work of historians, heritage organisations, local and community researchers, and BAME research networks which has identified the tangible presence of England’s slavery past in buildings, houses, streets, industrial heritage, urban fabrics and rural landscapes."
Legacies of British Slave-ownership
This online database allows users to identify British people who owned slaves, primarily in the British Caribbean, during the period 1763-1833. It includes so-called ‘absentee’ owners who lived largely, or only, in the British Isles. You can search by name, personal details, and place. You can also browse the records using the maps of Britain, Barbados, Jamaica and Grenada. In the Legacies section, contributors have been collecting further information on the many histories that lie behind the database. There is a section for Physical Legacies that includes information on country houses, public buildings, estates and monuments associated with slave-owners.
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database
https://slavevoyages.org/voyage/database
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database comprises 36,000 individual slaving expeditions between 1514 and 1866. The database provides information about vessels, routes, and the people associated with them, both enslaved and enslavers. You could use this to find information on voyages that started or finished from British ports, and on British ship-owners and ship captains.
The National Heritage List for England (NHLE)
https://historicengland.org.uk/listing
This is the register of all nationally protected historic buildings and sites in England, run by Historic England. The list includes: listed buildings, scheduled monuments, protected wrecks, registered parks and gardens, and battlefields. Historic England’s image collections are a good resource for historic buildings and landscapes https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/photos/
British History Online
This large digital library contains many primary and secondary sources for British History. Particularly useful are the Survey of London, the multi-volume guide to the capital’s buildings, and the Victoria County History, the long-running history of England’s places and people. We also have the print volumes of both series in the local history section on the third floor of the Library.
Liverpool as a Trading Port
Database of over a million records relating to Liverpool residents from 1704 to 1860, and 32,917 voyages from or to Liverpool, 1759 to 1809. Part of a wider project to understand Liverpool's role in the industrialisation of the North-West of England. David Wilson Library
Databases
Slavery and Anti Slavery: A Transnational Archivehttps://www2.le.ac.uk/library/find/databases/s/SlaveryandAntiSlaveryTransnationalArchive
Large database of primary and secondary sources focusing on the transatlantic slave trade, how the system of plantation slavery functioned, the movement for the abolition of slavery, and the dynamics of emancipation.
Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture and LawA HeinOnline collection of essential legal materials on slavery in the United States and the English-speaking world.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
The leading resource for researching the lives of prominent people in British history, including its empire and commonwealth. It has entries for Edward Colston and around 32 other slave traders and owners.
Books and journals: general
---------, The Buildings of England (1951 - onwards). LOCAL HISTORY H942.2 BUI/-
This famous series of books, organised by county, aims to document all noteworthy buildings across England. We have most of the volumes published in the original series, and many from the revised series. We also have some of the related Pevsner Architectural Guides to individual cities.
---------, Church monuments: journal of the Church Monuments Society. PER 942 C4635.
Chater, Kathleen, Untold histories: black people in England and Wales during the period of the British slave trade, c.1660-1807 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009). 942.07089 CHA.
Tattersfield, Nigel, The forgotten trade: comprising the Log of the Daniel and Henry of 1700 and Accounts of the slave trade from the minor ports of England, 1698-1725 (London: Pimlico, 1998). 909.09821 TAT .
James Walvin, Slavery and British society 1776-1846 (London: Macmillan, 1982). 941.073 SLA .
Wood, Marcus, Blind memory: visual representations of slavery in England and America, 1780-1865 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). 704.949 WOO.
Bristol and the West Country
---------, Bristol, Africa and the eighteenth-century slave trade to America. Parts 1-4, (Gloucester: Alan Sutton Publishing for the Society, 1986-1996). LOCAL HISTORY 942 GLO /BRI/RS/47
Dresser, Madge, Slavery obscured: the social history of the slave trade in an English provincial port (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016). 306.362094 DRE. A study of Bristol's involvement in the salve trade.
Gray, Todd, Devon and the slave trade: documents on African enslavement, abolition and emancipation from 1562 to 1867 (Exeter: Mint Press Devon County Council, 2007). LOCAL HISTORY 942 DEV /GRA.
Pares, Richard, A West-India fortune (London: Longmans Green, 1950). 972.973 PAR. A history of the Pinney family who were Bristol merchants and sugar planters. Charles Pinney was Mayor of Bristol, 1831–1832.
Liverpool and the North-West
---------, Liverpool and slavery: a reprint of the volume first published in 1884 (Newcastle upon Tyne: Graham, 1969). LOCAL HISTORY 942 LAN/LIV /LIV.
Crow, Hugh, The memoirs of Captain Hugh Crow: the life and times of a slave trade captain (Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2007). 306.362092 CRO.
Dawson, Greg, Arwe: the story of Arrowe, Pensby and the Liverpool slave trade (Irby: Dawson Publishing, 1994). LOCAL HISTORY F 942 CHE/ARR /DAW.
Eaglesham, Nancy, Whitehaven and the tobacco trade (Whitehaven: Friends of Whitehaven Museum, 1979). LOCAL HISTORY 942 CUM/WHI /EAG .
Hollett, D., From Cumberland to Cape Horn: the complete history of the sailing fleet of Thomas & John Brocklebank of Whitehaven and Liverpool - 'The world's oldest shipping company': and the early history of their associated company Robert & Henry Jeffersons of Whitehaven, plantation owners, merchants and shipownwers. Established 1734 (London: Fairplay Publications, 1984). AB 650 BRO/HOL.
Mackenzie-Grieve, Averil, The last years of the English slave trade: Liverpool 1750-1807 (London: Frank Cass, 1968). D42.3 MAC.
Richardson, David et al., Liverpool and transatlantic slavery (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007). 306.362 LIV.
Sharples, Joseph and Richard Pollard, Liverpool (London: Yale University Press, 2004). LOCAL HISTORY 942 LAN/LIV /SHA.
Williams, Gomer, History of the Liverpool privateers and letters of marque: with an account of the Liverpool slave trade (New York: A. M. Kelley, 1966). D42.09 WIL.
London and the South-East
---------, Representing slavery: art, artefacts and archives in the collections of the National Maritime Museum, Slavery (Aldershot: London: Lund Humphries in association with the National Maritime Museum, 2007). 941.07 REP.
Blackwood, John, London's immortals: the complete outdoor commemorative statues (London: Savoy Press, 1989). LOCAL HISTORY F 942 LON /BLA .
Byron, Arthur, London statues: a guide to London's outdoor statues and sculpture (London: Constable, 1981). 731.76 BYR.
Fuller, John, The Fuller letters, 1728-1755 : guns, slaves and finance (Lewes: Sussex Record Society, 1991). LOCAL HISTORY 942 SUS /SUS/76. Explores the links between Sussex and the slave trade.
Fuller, Stephen, The correspondence of Stephen Fuller, 1788-1795: Jamaica, the West India interest at Westminster, and the campaign to preserve the slave trade (Chichester, West Sussex: Wiley Blackwell for The Parliamentary History Yearbook Trust, 2014). 306.362097.
Freeman, William, The letters of William Freeman, London merchant, 1678-1685 (London: London Record Society, 2002). LOCAL HISTORY 942 LON/LON/36. Freeman was a sugar planter and slave trader who operated between the Caribbean and London.