“that wickedness, whereby an hundred thousand Africans are annually murdered” ………stories of Chorlton and slavery .... part 1

I doubt that anyone will be surprised that there are links between Chorlton-cum-Hardy and the slave trade.

Thomas Walker, 1794

I first visited the links* a few years ago prompted by a new onsite database on the Legacies of British Slave-ownership and reprised the story recently. **

But long before that, I had come across the remarkable Thomas Walker, who had lived at Barlow Hall, and was the Boroughreeve*** for Manchester.

He was at the centre of radical political thought arguing for civil liberty, constitutional reform and the abolition of the slave trade.

In a letter to John Cartwright he condemned “that Christian wickedness, whereby an hundred thousand Africans are annually murdered” and in another letter sought  help from Edward Cartwright, the  inventor of power loom to procure “me a list of Wool Spinners and other manufacturers to whom our [abolitionist] papers might be sent with effect.”

And as Chairman of the Manchester Anti Slavery committee along with Thomas Cooper, and others, he saw the opportunities for building on the growing opposition in Manchester to the slave trade.  He turned the visit of Thomas Clarkson in 1787 into a major propaganda event by persuading Clarkson to preach at the city’s Collegiate Church.

It was a great success, as Clarkson remarked “when I went into the church it was so full that I could scarcely get to my place; for notice had been publicly given.  I was surprised, also, to find a great crowd of black people standing in the pulpit.” ****

The success of that Sunday sermon was followed up by a petition to Parliament which the Committee had already planned.  In all over 11,000 people called for an end to the African trade.  This amounted to one fifth of the city’s population reflecting working class opposition to the slave trade and the practical campaigning skills of Walker and the others.

But for every Thomas Walker there was a Wilbraham Egerton whose family had owned great chunks of south Manchester including Chorlton-cum-Hardy since the mid 18th century.

I missed his connection to the Slave trade but was alerted to it by Cllr Dave Rawson of Chorlton Park Ward, and I went looking on that database.

The Insurrection, 1824

And there he was, listed as, “a trustee and executor for Mrs L.W. Boode in place of James Dannett, a role he shared with John Earl Brownlow".

Together as trustees they applied for and were granted on November 30th, 1835, £10058 15s 4d as compensation for the 185 individuals who had been slaves on the Greenwich Park plantation in Demerara in British Guiana.

The same database records that Greenwich Park had been owned by Margret Boode, née Dannett from 1817, passing to her daughter in 1826.

Back in 1817 the plantation owned 201 slaves, which had fallen to 190 in 1832.

Just how Wilbraham Egerton came to be a trustee is as unclear, but I know he took over from James Dannett, and that his fellow trustee, was related to the Egerton’s.

Nor is that quite all, because the Legacies database also records a young Emily Lawes Pink, who was born in Jamaica in 1819, lived in Chorlton on Medlock and was buried aged just 19 in our own parish graveyard, here in Chorlton.

The Egerton's proposed three routes for their new road, 1853

The Pink family also owned slaves, but as yet I can not make a connection with Chorlton-cum-Hardy, but it will be there, and in the fullness of time will be revealed.

I did however come across an account of the “Insurrection of the Negro Slaves in the Colony of Demerara” ***** in 1823, which was published the following year.

And this may offer up more information on Greenwich Park.

All of which leaves Wilbraham Egerton, who was a class ridden old representative of the aristocracy, opposed to any progressive moves during his time in Parliament and after.

And that in turn offers up the uncomfortable link with the road that bears his name.

The favoured route crossing Barlow Moor Lane, 1853

Or maybe not.

Wilbraham Road was planned in the 1850s and was not cut for another decade.

By which time Wilbraham Egerton was dead.

And it is likely that this superhighway linking Stretford through Chorlton to Fallowfield was the work of his son or grandson.

Wilbraham Egerton died in 1856 and was succeeded by his son William, who named his son Wilbraham.

Of course, the Egerton Papers, may well include details of the deliberations that led to both the road and to its name. *******

We shall see.

Location; British Guiana, and Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Thomas Walker, 1794, front cover, Account of An Insurrection of the Negro Slaves in the Colony of Demerara, 1824, proposed routes for what was to become Wilbraham Road, 1853

*Who in Chorlton owned a slave in the summer of 1831? https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/05/who-in-chorlton-owned-slave-in-summer.html

**Legacies of British Slave-ownership, UCL, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/


***"The regulation of the police is in three officers, viz a Boroughreeve or Head-Borough, and two constables.  These officers are annually elected in October by a jury of the Leet summoned by the Lord of the Manor.  The Boroughreeve is considered the principle officer, presides at public meetings, is applied to upon all public business, has the distribution of certain charities...”  Walker, Thomas, A Review of some of the events of the last five years, London 1794 page 23, Google edition page 194

**** Correspondence of Thomas Walker, quoted from Culture Minister defers export of anti slavery campaigner’s letters, Department of Culture, Media and Sports, February 25 2010

*****Clarkson, Thomas, History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishments of the Slave Trade, John Parker, London, New Edition 1839, Page 244, Google edition page 263

******Account Of An Insurrection of the Negro Slaves in the Colony of Demerara which broke out on the 18th of August, 1823, Bryant, Joshua, 1824

********Egerton Papers, M24 /1/15, Central Ref

Who in Chorlton owned a slave in the summer of 1831?

One who didn't, Jeremiah Brundrett

This is not such a sensational question as you might think.  

Slavery permeated deep into both our economy and our society and contrary to the popularly held belief it was not just the big cities of Liverpool, Bristol and London that benefited from both the Slave Trade and the produce grown and made by slave labour.

And even after the abolition of the trade in 1807 it would be another twenty-six years before slavery itself was abolished and on terms that saw the owners compensated to the tune of £20 million.

Now I had assumed that most of that tax payer’s money went to a small group of large plantation owners based mainly in the West Indies, but the final settlement according  to Legacies of British Slave-ownership extended to  "over 45,000 claimants, and about 3,000 of them were living in Britain in the 1830s. 

Although claimants living in Britain were in the minority, they tended to own the largest stakes of property; about £10 million of the total £20 million compensation was paid to these 3,000 people in Britain. 

Many were very wealthy but there were a wide range of claimants, from rich landowners to widows with children who wrote to the compensation commission complaining of their poverty." 

The site  and can be found at Legacies of British Slave-ownership, http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/

It is the “umbrella for two projects based at UCL tracing the impact of slave-ownership on the formation of modern Britain: the ESRC-funded Legacies of British Slave-ownership project, now complete, and the ESRC and AHRC-funded Structure and significance of British Caribbean slave-ownership 1763-1833.

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 encyclopedia 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.

We are now tracking back to 1763 the ownership histories of the 4000 or so estates identified in that project. At the core of the completed project is this online Encyclopedia of British Slave-ownership containing information about every slave-owner in the British Caribbean, Mauritius or the Cape at the moment of abolition in 1833. 

Entries include information about the activities, affiliations and legacies of these men and women, with a particular emphasis on the "absentee" owners based in Britain.

The records of the Slave Compensation Commission, set up to manage the distribution of the £20 million compensation, provide a more or less complete census of slave-ownership in the British Empire in the 1830s. The individuals named in these records form the starting point of the Encyclopedia.

And the data base can be searched by name, or browsed through the subject headings of “commercial, cultural, historical, imperial, physical and political.”

So armed with the names of our most prominent residents I trawled the data but so far have drawn a blank.

Even The Rev William Birley who had lived here in the 1840s before moving to Salford and who publicly supported the Confederate States in the American Civil War is missing from the list.

But it is early days, and there are still plenty of people who may have an interest.

Leaving that aside here is a wonderful introduction into that world.  Just looking at the 36 who applied each with the surname of Brooks there was Joseph Walrond Brooks who was awarded £32 16s 5d for two slaves in Antigua, Amelia Brooks from St Elizabeth in Jamaica awarded £253 15s 8d for her 10 slaves and George Brooks from Manchester in Jamaica who was paid £2478 13s 1d for his 212 slaves.

Nor is that all, for abolition did not actually mean abolition for only slaves below the age of six were freed in the colonies.  All those over the over the age of six were re designated as "apprentices", which was abolished in two stages; the first set of apprenticeships came to an end on 1 August 1838, while the final apprenticeships were scheduled to cease on 1 August 1840.”

Ah well as I often maintain history is messy, and with a sideways nod to my old self, it is a story which often chronicles those with power and money coming out on top again and again.

Pictures; Jeremiah Brundrett leading Chorlton Wesleyan, Chorlton, detail from the OS map of Lancashire 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives, http://www.digitalarchives.co.uk/

Stories of Chorlton and slavery .... part 2 .....From plantation to Chorlton-cum-Hardy by Dave Rawson*

In July 1838 a young woman born in Jamaica was buried in the Chorlton graveyard. 

St Clement's and the parish burial ground, circa 1870

My interest in this young woman was roused because she is mentioned in the pages of the UCL Legacies of British Slave - ownership project. **

The young woman was 19 year old Emily Lawes Pink, she was one of 8 children whose father was a major plantation owner in the parish of St Ann. Not only did her father own two plantations but her mother held one in her own right.

Unfortunately, we do not know how Emily came to be living in fashionable Chorlton on Medlock in the 1830’s but we do know something about her origins.

Her father was John Pink and her mother was Rebecca Hiatt. As mentioned, they had 8 children together but were never married. A line in John's will may explain why. Rebecca was described as, ‘my respected friend and housekeeper’. Also when we see the baptism records for their first son, we see that he is recorded as a ‘free quadroon’. It is reasonable to surmise that Rebecca was of mixed race and therefore marriage was out of the question at that time. However it would appear that to all intents and purposes they led a married life and the children were raised in the family home. We also know that Rebecca was in fact the daughter of one of the most powerful Planters in Jamaica and was bequeathed one of her father's estates on his passing.

The Pink's plantation of Drax Hall was one of the largest in the parish and was worked by 275 slaves. Sugar was milled with a ‘modern’ water wheel and this helped to make the plantation one of the wealthiest in Jamaica.

The parish burial ground, 2008

In August 1834, the Slavery Abolition Act came in to force and this is when planters such as John Pink started to receive their compensation. Pink received over £7000 (almost £5.5 million today) but also, as part of the settlement he was allowed to keep his workforce as ‘apprentices’ for a further 6 years without having to pay them.

John Pink died in 1834, Rebecca had already passed away in 1829 and his vast estates and wealth was shared out between his children. They each received very large allowances until they were 21 and then earnings from their ownership share in the estate which continued to be run by a son.

Emily and other siblings end up in England as wealthy young people. They seem to have gone to different parts of the country and become part of genteel society. Why did Emily settle in Manchester? It would be wonderful to learn more about her short life and times in Manchester, the daughter of a Jamaican plantation owner.

Dave Rawson © 2020

Dave Rawson, is a Manchester City Councillor for Chorlton Park Ward

Location; Jamaica, Chorlton-on-Medlock, Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Picture, Chorlton Parish Church, circa 1870 from the collection of Tony Walker, and the burial ground, 2008, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*“that wickedness, whereby an hundred thousand Africans are annually murdered” ………stories of Chorlton and slavery .... part 1, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2020/07/that-wickedness-whereby-hundred.html

**Legacies of British Slave-ownership, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/