The scale of the financial system’s involvement in enslavement is greater than previously known or acknowledged. Composite: Guardian/Diana Ejaita View image in fullscreen The scale of the financial system’s involvement in enslavement is greater than previously known or acknowledged. Composite: Guardian/Diana Ejaita Enslaving nation Slavery Slave-trade wealth was embedded in Britain’s financial system, research finds Dozens of Bank of England directors and founding subscribers invested in trafficking of enslaved Africans
The Bank of England and the British financial system were for centuries deeply involved in the enslavement and transatlantic trafficking of millions of African people, according to new research on Britain’s slavery history.
Research by historians compiling the Register of British Slave Traders has found that the scale of the financial system’s involvement in enslavement is greater than previously known or acknowledged. The Bank of England, the central bank owned by the government since nationalisation by Clement Attlee’s Labour administration in 1946, had dozens of financiers involved in its foundation who were also significant investors in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.
Dr Michael Bennett of the University of Sheffield, who has conducted extensive research on the Bank’s historical involvement in enslavement, has found that 24 directors were investors in the trafficking of enslaved African people. Four were among the London elites who were founding directors of the Bank in 1694. The other 20 were in office at Threadneedle Street over the next century.
The last, Christopher Puller, was a shipper of weapons for the slave trade and co-owner of a 1786 voyage that trafficked enslaved people from the Gambia to Jamaica, according to the register. Puller was a director for 11 years before he died in 1789. Nine of the 24 were also governors of the Bank.
View image in fullscreen Wealth generated from the slave trade formed part of the Bank of England’s initial capital, according to Dr Michael Bennett. Photograph: Alexander Spatari/Getty Images Bennett also researched the founding subscribers to the Bank of England, finding that at least 30 invested in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans. At their head were the king and queen of the day, William III and Mary II, who held shares in the Royal African Company. It is clear, Bennett said, that wealth generated from the slave trade formed part of the Bank’s initial capital.
“Slave traders and their wealth were firmly embedded within Britain’s, especially London’s, private banks and financial corporations during the 17th and 18th centuries. They shaped the development of the financial system,” he said. “Banks and other institutions, like insurers, provided the financial services that supported, and made great wealth from, the transatlantic slave economy.
“The Bank of England supported this system throughout, and directly provided financial services to the slave trade. Its clients included the Royal African Company and the South Sea Company.”
An archetypal example of a Bank of England director in the register is John Rudge, the MP for Evesham . He was a director of the Bank between 1699 and 1740, and governor in 1713-15. Rudge was also a shareholder and assistant (director) in the RAC and deputy governor of the South Sea Company.
The findings of the register add to the research carried out by historians behind the Legacies of British Slavery (LB…