Legacies of British Slave Ownership

I've just picked up an interesting tweet from none other than the Labour Party's Diane Abbott MP (thanks to a retweet from Pam Smith!), about an online resource from University College London called Legacies of British Slave-Ownership. The site has a searchable database of former slave owners from Britain - from the home page:

"Colonial slavery shaped modern Britain and we all still live with its legacies. The slave-owners were one very important means by which the fruits of slavery were transmitted to metropolitan Britain. We believe that research and analysis of this group are key to understanding the extent and the limits of slavery's role in shaping British history and leaving lasting legacies that reach into the present. The stories of enslaved men and women, however, are no less important than those of slave-owners, and we hope that the encyclopaedia produced in the first phase of the project, while at present primarily a resource for studying slave-owners, will also provide information of value to those researching enslaved people."

You can search the database by individuals or firm's names, or by info on addresses or within notes. The site is freely accessible at www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/.

I've just checked, and have found 72 slave owners from Glasgow, 3 from Belfast and 35 from Dublin - London returns 689 names.

(With thanks to Diane Abbott and Pam Smith)

Chris

Pre-order my new book, Tracing Your Irish Family History on the Internet, through Pen and Sword (30 April 2013), or purchase early at Who Do You Think You Are Live 2013 in London. For my other genealogy books, please visit  http://britishgenes.blogspot.co.uk/p/my-books.html; whilst for my online Scottish based genealogy courses please visit the Pharos Teaching and Tutoring Ltd site.