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Acland, Thomas Dyke, 10th Baronet British politician and baronet. Acland was a supporter of the anti-slavery movement in Britain and was friends with William Wilberforce (1759-1833) and Hannah More (1745-1833). He also had links to Samuel Ajayi Crowther (c. 1809-91), who was the the first African Anglican bishop of West Africa. Acland's third son, Charles Richard Dyke Acland (1793-1828), was captain of HMS Helicon between 1825 and 1828, which made visits to the East African coastline. The Acland family's broad connections to global and imperial histories are the subject of ongoing research by the National Trust and partners. -
Albert Prince consort of the United Kingdom (1840-1861) -
Albert I King of the Belgians (1909-1934) -
Alexandra of Denmark Queen consort of the United Kingdom (1901-1910) -
Anne Queen of Britain and Ireland from 1702 to 1714 -
Ascroft, Robert British politician and lawyer of the nineteenth century. Ascroft was a Lancashire-based solicitor and member of the Conservative party; he served as Member of Parliament for the constituency of Oldham. In 1899, Winston Churchill considered joining him as the second Conservative candidate from Oldham; the plan was discarded because of Ascroft’s death. Ascroft acted as a legal advisor to the Association of Operative Cotton Spinners, which was founded in 1870. While Ascroft’s role in securing workers’ rights has been remembered positively in Britain, the British cotton textile industry itself had deep colonial associations. In the late nineteenth century, the British cotton textile industry was supplied with raw materials from India and Egypt. In 1895, for instance, Ascroft actively opposed Indian import duties in Parliament, which could have offered some tariff protection to the new Indian industries. This became politically controversial in India as politicians, such as Dadabhai Naoroji and R. C. Dutt, complained of the ‘deindustrialisation’ of the country and its use as a source of cheap raw materials as well as a captive market for mass-produced goods. From the 1920s, M.K. Gandhi led campaigns of boycotting Lancashire-produced goods and a promotion of Swadeshi or Indian-made goods for Indian consumers. -
Aske, Robert English philanthropist, merchant, haberdasher, and investor in the slave-trading Royal African Company in the seventeenth century. -
Astor, Nancy First woman seated as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Plymouth Sutton from 1919 to 1945. Astor was the daughter of American railroad industrialist Chiswell Langhorne (1843-1919), whose family owned enslaved people and plantations in Lynchburg, Virginia prior to the American Civil War. Langhorne briefly fought in the Confederate Army and later worked in tobacco auctioneering during the war. Astor's mother Nancy Witcher Keene (1848-1903) also came from a slave-owning family. Born in 1879, fourteen years after the end of the war and the abolition of slavery, Nancy spent her teenage years in an environment firmly shaped by the legacies of American slavery at the “Mirador” family home in Virginia in the 1890s. The Langhornes were one of many white American families whose domestic life rested upon the bedrock of white supremacy. According to her biographer Christopher Sykes, all of the Langhorne’s servants at Mirador were black and many had been formerly enslaved. While Nancy romantically reminisced about these black servants being “part of the family”, there were clear racial and class tensions within this family environment, with Sykes noting a number of conflicts between her father Chiswell and the family’s domestic workforce. A controversial figure both during her life and in historical memory, Astor has also attracted critical scrutiny for her antisemitism and alleged sympathies with Nazi Germany. -
Attlee, Clement Major British statesman and Labour Party politician in the twentieth century. In 1927, Attlee was one of the members of the Simon Commission sent to India to examine the possibilities of self-rule in Britain's largest colony. During the Second World War, Attlee was Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1942 to 1945, as well as briefly serving as the Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs from 1942 to 1943. As Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, Attlee oversaw Britain's postwar transition and the beginning of decolonisation. Major events included the arrival of the Windrush generation who migrated from the Caribbean to Britain (1945-1960), the Partition of India (1947), the independence of Myanmar and Sri Lanka (1948), Britain's withdrawal from Palestine (1948), and the Malayan Emergency (1948-1960). -
Baden-Powell, Robert British Army officer and founder of the worldwide Scout Movement. Baden-Powell fought in a number of colonial conflicts in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including the Anglo-Ashanti wars, the Second Matabele War, and the Second Boer War. During the Matabele War, Baden-Powell came under legal scrutiny when he was accused of illegally approving the execution of Uwini, the Matabele chief, who was being held as a prisoner-of-war by the British. Baden-Powell's conduct in the Second Boer War has also attracted controversy over his role in the deaths of Africans during the Siege of Mafeking, many of whom were denied rations. Baden-Powell's military experience from these colonial wars later inspired his work Scouting for Boys (1908), which lay the foundation stone for the worldwide Scout Movement. The movement played an important part in the imperial education of young boys and girls in twentieth-century Britain, and was shaped by contemporary debates around the role of race, gender, class, militarism, nationhood, and empire in constructing British citizenship. -
Beckford, William British-Jamaican slave-owner and politician in the eighteenth century. Born into a wealthy colonial family in Jamaica, Beckford owned a huge number of enslaved people as well as considerable amount of land in the colony. In Beckford's estate probate in 1774, for example, he was listed as the owner of a total of 1,356 enslaved people in Jamaica. Beckford's colonial wealth enabled him to become Lord Mayor of London in 1762 and 1769. -
Benson, George Elliott British colonial soldier who fought in Africa in the late nineteenth century. He died in October 1901 during the Second Boer War.
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Bentinck, George British politician in the nineteenth century. The Bentinck family had a number of ties to the British Empire. George Bentinck's uncle, Lord William Bentinck (1774–1839), served as Governor of Madras, Governor-General of the Presidency of Fort William, and Governor-General in India during the first half of the nineteenth century. Lord William Bentinck also made an unsuccessful claim for slavery compensation as a trustee. George Bentinck's great-great-grandfather, Henry Bentinck, 1st Duke of Portland (1682-1726) had been a slave-owner and colonial administrator in Jamaica, where he served as Governor-General from 1721 to 1726. -
Bernès-Cambos, François French colonial soldier who died during the Rif War in Morocco in 1925.
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Biggs, John Hosier and political reformer in the nineteenth century. The firm John Biggs and Sons was one of the largest hosiery firms in early nineteenth century Leicester, and exported goods to North America and Australia. -
Blake, Robert Naval officer and military commander of the Commonwealth of England in the seventeenth century. -
Boer War soldier -
Booth, Catherine Co-founder of The Salvation Army -
Booth, William Co-founder of The Salvation Army -
Bourke, Richard, 6th Earl of Mayo Chief Secretary for Ireland (1852, 1858–9, 1866–8) and 4th Viceroy and Governor-General of India (1869-1872) -
Bowes-Lyon, Elizabeth, The Queen Mother Queen of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth (1936-1952) and Empress consort of India (1936-1947) -
Brétignère, Amédée French colonial explorer, geologist and planter in Côte d'Ivoire in the nineteenth century.
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Bright, John British Radical and Liberal statesman in the nineteenth century. -
Britannia National personification of Britain, who appears as a helmeted female warrior holding a trident and shield -
Brockway, Fenner British socialist politician, humanist and campaigner for a wide number of causes, including pacifism, nuclear disarmament, anti-imperialism, and racial justice. After the Second World War, Brockway established the Congress of Peoples Against Imperialism and was a member of the Movement for Colonial Freedom in the United Kingdom. Brockway was a leading figure in protesting the British government's conduct during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya (1952-1960). -
Bruce, Henry Austin British politician in the nineteenth century. Bruce was a leading figure in the National African Company and its successor the Royal Niger Company from 1882 to 1895, as well as the founder of what is now Cardiff University. -
Buller, Redvers British army officer who fought in several colonial conflicts across the globe in the second half of the nineteenth-century, including China, Canada, West Africa, East Africa, and South Africa. -
Burgoyne, John Fox British Army officer who fought in a number of nineteenth century conflicts, including the Alexandria expedition in 1807 and Battle of New Orleans in 1815. -
Burke, Edmund Anglo-Irish statesman, political theorist and conservative philosopher in the eighteenth century. -
Campbell, Colin, 1st Baron Clyde British Army officer and Commander-in-Chief of India from 1857 to 1861. Campbell fought in several colonial conflicts in the Caribbean and Asia during the nineteenth century, and was involved in the suppression of the Demerara slave rebellion in 1823 and the Indian rebellion in 1857. -
Canning, George British Prime Minister, statesman, and pro-slavery politician in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Canning was an important opponent of the abolition of slavery in the 1820s, and his views on the subject have been discussed at length by the historian Michael Taylor. As Member of Parliament for Liverpool between 1812 and 1823, one of his major political patrons had been the absentee Guyanese slave-owner and politician John Gladstone (1764-1851). Canning also enjoyed a close personal and political friendship with Charles Rose Ellis, Lord Seaford (1771-1845), who was a leading figure in the West India interest and an absentee Jamaican slave-owner. As Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons, Canning was responsible for thwarting Thomas Fowell Buxton's early efforts to introduce a plan for abolition in May 1823. His opposition to emancipation was often couched explicitly in ideas of racial inferiority: in a speech to the Commons on amelioration in March 1824, for instance, he argued 'In dealing with the n****, Sir, we must remember that we are dealing with a being possessing the form and strength of a man, but the intellect only of a child'. -
Carlyle, Thomas Scottish essayist, historian and philosopher (1795-1881). Carlyle's essay 'Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question', first published in 1849 and republished in 1853 with a new title, expounded a defence of slavery on the grounds of racial inferiority. He later led the Eyre Defence and Aid Fund to defend Governor John Eyre's violent repression of the Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica in 1865. Carlyle's thought had a wide-ranging influence both during and after his life. Other nineteenth-century proslavery intellectuals such as George Fitzhugh and John Mitchel, the latter of whom Carlyle met in the mid-1840s, claimed inspiration from his work. -
Carteret, George Royalist statesman in Jersey and one of the original lords proprietor of the British colony of Carolina. Carteret was one of the six founding members of the Company of Royal Adventurers into Africa, an early predecessor of the Royal African Company (RAC), and later became a consultant and investor in the RAC. -
Cartwright, John English naval officer and political reformer in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. -
Cass, John English slave-trader, politician and philanthropist in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Cass was a member of the Court of Assistants of the Royal African Company from 1705 and made substantial investments in the Company. Cass also served as a Member of Parliament from 1710 to 1715. -
Castle, Barbara British Labour Party politician who was Member of Parliament for Blackburn from 1945 to 1979, making her one of the longest-serving female MPs in British history. Castle was a supporter of both the Movement for Colonial Freedom and the Anti-Apartheid Movement in the United Kingdom, and was a leading figure in protesting the British government's conduct during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya (1952-1960). Castle visited Kenya in 1954 during the rebellion and made a famous speech in Parliament exposing governmental deception over the Hola Massacre in 1959. -
Cavendish, Charles British politician and soldier who was Inspector General of Imperial Yeomanry during the Second Boer War. -
Cavendish, Frederick British politician in the nineteenth century, whose appointment as the Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1882 was cut short by his murder by Irish republicans, known as the Phoenix Park Murders. -
Cavendish, Spencer, 8th Duke of Devonshire British politician in the nineteenth century. Cavendish served in a number of government positions, including Secretary of State for War (1866; 1882-1885), Chief Secretary for Ireland (1871-1874), and Secretary of State for India (1880-1882). -
Charles II King of Scotland (1649-1651) and King of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1660-1685). Charles granted a royal charter to the slave-trading Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading into Africa and made investments in the company. He was later founder and patron of the Royal African Company alongside his brother the Duke of York. -
Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Queen consort of Great Britain and Ireland (1761-1818) -
Christie, Agatha Mary Clarissa, née Miller British detective fiction writer, creator of the characters Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. She was married twice, the second time to the archaeologist Max Mallowan, whom she accompanied on several field trips in Iraq, Syria, and other places in the Middle East. These trips were enabled by the fact of British imperialism in the region. They were also associated with the cultural predation of twentieth-century archaeology. Christie's husband, Max Mallowan, was a devoted admirer of Gertrude Bell, whose enormous political influence on mandatory Iraq remains a contentious legacy. As the first director of the Iraq Museum, Bell designed Iraq's first antiquities law, which allowed archaeological excavators to remove 50% of their finds; these were priceless antiquities currently housed in museums in the West. Many of Christie's widely loved and enjoyed detective novels are set in Middle Eastern locales. They are replete with Orientalist stereotypes. -
Churchill, Winston Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (1940-1945; 1951-1955) The British Empire fundamentally shaped Churchill's life and career. From 1896 to 1901, Churchill fought as a soldier in several colonial conflicts, including in India, Sudan, and South Africa. He wrote a number of books recounting his military experiences with the Empire, including The Story of the Malakand Field Force (1898), The River War (1899), London to Ladysmith via Pretoria (1900), and Ian Hamilton's March (1900). During the interwar years, Churchill held many ministerial offices and briefly served as Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1921 to 1922. Churchill's first term (1940-1945) was dominated by the Second World War and its consequences for the British Empire. His second term (1951-1955) was marked by Britain's postwar transition and conflicts over decolonisation across the globe, including the Mau Mau Rebellion and the Malayan Emergency. -
Clayton, Robert Member of the Court of Assistants to the Royal African Company (1672-1682) and Lord Mayor of London (1679-1680). Clayton also acquired a large plantation in Bermuda through his wife Martha Trott, who was the daughter of a Bermuda merchant and factor. -
Clive, Robert British East India Company official -
Cobbett, William English radical pamphleteer, journalist, and politician. Cobbett held strongly racist views and was an important working-class opponent of the British abolition movement in the early nineteenth-century. -
Cobden, Richard British Radical and Liberal statesman and manufacturer in the nineteenth century. -
Codrington, Christopher Slave-owner and colonial administrator in late seventeenth and early eighteenth-century Barbados. Codrington was Governor of the Leeward Islands from 1699 to 1704, as well as being a major benefactor of All Souls College, Oxford and their formerly named Codrington Library. -
Coeur, Jacques Grand bourgeois parvenu, il devient le grand argentier du roi Charles VII en 1439, dans le contexte de crise de la fin de la guerre de Cent Ans. Il réorganise la fiscalité et développe le commerce, notamment avec l’Italie et l’Egypte. Sa chute est aussi spectaculaire que son ascension, elle le contraint à l’exil. Il meurt sur l’île de Chio lors d’une expédition navale contre les Turcs. -
Colbert, Jean-Baptiste Jean-Baptiste Colbert was Intendant of Finances, Secretary of the Maison du Roi, and State Secretary to the Navy under Louis XIV. He developed industry and trade, reorganising state finances, laws, and the navy. The navy was a crucial military tool for French colonialism. Under Louis XIV, France was one of the most powerful colonial empires, with a large presence in North America and the Caribbean. Colbert founded the French West India Company and French East India Company in 1664. Thanks to the slave trade, the fur trade, and other resources extracted from far away lands, France experienced unprecedented commercial growth. Louis XIV charged Colbert with writing set rules to organise slavery, which had been abolished in the kingdom in 1315, but was practised in its colonies, especially in the Caribbean. Colbert thus compiled rules sent by local governors and turned it into a piece of legislation coined the "Code Noir", which became a royal edict two years after he died.