Remembering Slavery Slave trade, slavery and abolition: the north east of connections By John Charlton 2. Introduction

It is two hundred years since Parliament ended British involvement in the slave trade. As part of the national commemoration of this important moment in history, a group of local archives and libraries in the north east established a project to search their collections for material connected to the slave trade, slavery and the movements for abolition. The Remembering Slavery 2007 Archive Mapping and Research Project led by the Literary & Philosophical Society (Lit & Phil) appointed Sean Creighton as Project Officer. Sean assembled a group of volunteers to search the collections. This brief guide indicates the areas covered and summarises the fully referenced guide or resource pack which will be lodged at the four participating institutions. In addition to this, Hidden Chains: the Slavery Business and by John Charlton will be published by Tyne Bridge Publishing in Autumn 2008 ISBN 9781857951233; for further details, see www.tynebridgepublishing.co.uk. See www.rememberingslavery.com for more information about the Remembering Slavery project. Plan of accommodation for enslaved Africans on board the slave ship ‘Brooks’. © Tyne & Wear Archives Service 4.

NEWCASTLE LITERARY & PHILOSOPHICAL COLLECTIONS SERVICE SOCIETY Its library has a substantial Northumberland Collections amount of original and Service at the Woodhorn secondary material relevant Museum near , to slavery and abolition. For contains archive material an annual subscription fee, relating to the former and members of the library are able current Northumberland to borrow books and consult County areas. The Service items that are not available for has a sub-Record Office at loan. Special arrangements can Berwick. It has many items be made with the Librarian for of relevance including family researchers. papers, solicitors’ papers and the Newcastle Society of Further information about Antiquaries papers. The Service, the library, its opening times its opening times and conditions and conditions of use and its of use and its searchable web searchable web catalogue can catalogue can be seen on: be seen on: www.litandphil.org. www.northumberland.gov. uk/html_pages/LP_home.html uk/catalogue/. Newcastle Literary & Northumberland Museum, Philosophical Society Archives & Country Park 23 Westgate Rd, Newcastle QEII Country Park, Ashington, upon Tyne, NE1 1SE Northumberland, NE63 9YE E: [email protected] E: [email protected] T: 0191 232 0192 T: 01670 528038 www.litandphil.org.uk www.experiencewoodhorn.com www.northumberland.gov. uk/collections Remembering Slavery 5.

ROBINSON LIBRARY TYNE & WEAR SPECIAL COLLECTIONS ARCHIVES

Robinson Library at Newcastle Tyne & Wear Archives Service University has a large number has a range of relevant material, of secondary books and journals in its library of books and dealing with slavery and pamphlets, its microfilmed abolition issues. The Library’s records, family papers, papers Special Collections contain relating to the Non-Conformist a wealth of relevant books, religious groups and missionary pamphlets and other material. societies and a wide range of shipping records. Further Further information about the information about the Archives, Library, its opening times and its opening times and conditions conditions of use can be seen of use and its searchable web on: www.ncl.ac.uk/library/ catalogue can be seen on: specialcollections/. Its searchable www.tyneandweararchives.org. web catalogue can be accessed uk/. by clicking on the Library catalogue on: www.ncl.ac.uk/ library/.

Special Collections, Robinson Tyne & Wear Archives Service Library, University of Newcastle Blandford House, Blandford Back Jesmond Rd West, Square, Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HQ NE1 4JA. E: [email protected] E: twas@.gov.uk T: 0191 222 5146 T: 0191 277 2248 www.ncl.ac.uk/library/ www.tyneandweararchives.org.uk 6.

Part 1: Slave trade and slavery

Think slavery and the None have mentioned slave trade. Think Bristol, connections with the Liverpool, Glasgow. That abominable trade, the plantation was the starting point for economies of the New World, Remembering Slavery or their produce. 2007. The team of volunteers What about the north east of assembled last autumn by England? It faces east across the Sean Creighton joined the North Sea to Scandinavia and Remembering Slavery Archive the Baltic. It was a coal based Mapping and Research Project economy. Coal and ships. The with modest expectations. main ports of call for centuries Those expectations have been were London, Riga, Hamburg, confounded by the abundance Rotterdam, Le Havre. Coal out. of evidence turned up by Timber in. Simple. Simplified, of the archive search. Only the course. Many histories of the collections of the four project region have been written since partners have been rigorously the first accounts in the 18th searched. Two other large century. Fleshed out and rich in collections, Durham County detail, the stories have been told. Record Office and Durham Few have mentioned connection University’s Special Collections, with places further afield except have only had their catalogues as brief notes. scanned. Remembering Slavery 7.

Big local studies collections in Newcastle, North Shields, Gateshead, South Shields, Sunderland, Carlisle and the whole of Teesside and North Yorkshire have hardly been touched. Close investigation of these would enormously augment the amount of material found. The volume of material already available suggests at least the possibility of a reassessment of the north east’s place in the Coal from local pits was shipped out emerging capitalist economy to the Caribbean islands. © Museums of the 17th to the early 19th centuries. Its relationship to the Atlantic world is the important part of that reassessment. This does not mean downgrading the well attested predominance of the links with the Baltic and northern Europe, but it does mean seeing these spheres as complementary. 8. Part 1: Slave trade and slavery

A Sunderland connection

Contact with the New links with the Caribbean. World came in many Anthony Hylton acquired a forms not necessarily tobacco plantation, was connected with slavery, at appointed Governor of St Kitts & least in the first instance. Nevis in 1625 and later became a One of the first with north east tobacco merchant selling on the connections was William Hylton London market. Hylton of the Sunderland family with descendants settled in Maryland, ancient roots. Through an Carolina and Jamaica before association with Sir Edwin 1700. Like many of the first Sandys, a counsellor of James I, settlers, involvement in the slave he went to New England in 1621 trade and slavery grew out of as part of a rescue mission for acute labour shortages in their the Mayflower settlers. William new lands. Members of several was said to be the first settler in other north east families were what was to become New early arrivals in America and the Hampshire. A number of County Caribbean, among them the Durham place names in the area Pinckneys of West Auckland, the he settled suggest there may Howards of Brampton, the have been more north easterners Colvilles of Newcastle and attracted to that area. A relative, branches of the Northumbrian Anthony Hylton of South Shields, Fenwicks, Ogles and Ordes. a master mariner, followed in In the eighteenth century 1623, taking settlers to migration from the north east Jamestown, Virginia. The Hyltons accelerated as opportunities were sea farers who also forged in the New World increased. Remembering Slavery 9.

‘Like many of the first settlers, involvement in the slave trade and slavery grew out of acute labour shortages in their new lands.’

Members of reasonably well married a Carolina woman. to do families could launch Additionally the poorer sorts into business as planters and could accept indenture, like merchants. Edward Cook, of William Moraley, the watch farming stock from Togston, maker, of Newcastle, with near , fulfilled both the hope of opportunity after roles in Baltimore, Maryland serving their time. Many who from the 1760s as had George had fallen foul of the law might Marr, a leather merchant from be transported as a welcome Morpeth in the 1720s. Military alternative to death on or naval activity was another the gallows. route to the colonies. From the Cromwellian period onwards Britain was serially at war for control of the Atlantic. Soldiers could play two roles apart from fighting. They could send regular news bulletins home, as did Lord Percy during the War of American Independence, perhaps advertising the advantages of colonial life. They could seek land grants on retirement from the service Cowrie shell snuff box. Cowrie shells were like John Ogle of Eglingham, used as a form of currency when trading Northumberland, or William for enslaved Africans. Hedley of , who © Tyne and Wear Museums. 10. Part 1: Slave trade and slavery

Gentry capitalists

During the eighteenth century many of the region’s gentry acquired or increased colonial interests.

Among the most significant were the Trevelyans of Wallington, Northumberland and Nettlecombe in Somerset. Beginning with a fortunate marriage in 1757, by the time of abolition of slavery in 1833 the family had become major sugar producers in Grenada making a substantial claim for loss of slaves under compensation under Parliament’s compensation award. The Cadogans were of similar importance on Barbados. They acquired Brinkburn Priory by marriage in the early 19th century. The Ridleys, through the Freres, and the Bennets (Earls of Tankerville), Ordes, Riddells and Hedleys all had plantation interests mostly in the Caribbean. Probably the biggest interest of all was that of the Graham Clarke family of Newcastle. They were linked by marriage to two old Jamaican planter families, the Barretts and Parkinsons. By 1820, the family had interests in at least thirteen plantations on that island. Five Graham Clarke ships have been identified operating on the Atlantic trade taking Tyneside products (coal, glass, pottery and linen) to the New World and returning with slave produced goods, primarily sugar and rum, but also hard woods, pimento and indigo, right up to the 1830s. There were three extensive sugar refineries in Newcastle and Gateshead, two owned by Graham Clarke, and one in Stockton. The Crowleys, iron founders at Winlaton and Swalwell, supplied restraints for captured Africans and tools for the plantations from the late seventeenth century. Ralph Carr, the Newcastle merchant, engaged in the Atlantic trade from the Tyne in the 1720s. Remembering Slavery 11.

These were direct journeys carrying coal and iron goods and returning with timbers and pitch, but there was a more complex operation too. It involved stop-overs and transfers of commodities at London, Rotterdam, Bristol and the Cumbrian port of Whitehaven where family and business connections of Crowleys, Cooksons, Lowthers, Blacketts and others helped to create a web of transaction. The north east was wholly integrated into the British Empire’s political and commercial networks where the enslavement of Africans produced super profits. Combined with enclosure and agrarian capitalism at home, a launch pad was provided for the first industrial revolution. It is likely that wealth generated in the Caribbean and in North America funnelled into the north east of England. John Graham Clarke, for example was the owner of plantations in Jamaica, the exporter and importer of sugar and rum to the Tyne, and a major shareholder in the Newcastle bank of Burdon and Surtees. The new district banks of the 18th century were an important part of setting into motion the industrial economy. Yet more obviously, gentry families indulged in building, extending or renovating their great houses. Caribbean money was a vital ingredient in luxury consumption just as sugar was to become an object of mass consumption.

Shackles like these were made at a local ironworks and were used to restrain captured Africans. © Tyne and Wear Museums. 12.

Part 2: Towards abolition

North east abolitionists Council of Newcastle could pass were in the vanguard of a resolution in February 1788 the campaigns to abolish calling for Parliament to conduct the slave trade and an urgent enquiry into the slave slavery. Notwithstanding trade, and how John Erasmus the growing evidence of Blackett, a merchant and regional involvement in councillor with family the economy of slavery it was not visible in the way connections and personal it was in Bristol, knowledge of the slavery Liverpool, Glasgow or business, could be called upon to London. convey the resolution to Parliament. There were few black people on the streets, very few domestic Newcastle’s middle class, which slaves, no hue and cry for contained both men with escaped slaves and no holding interests in slavery and prisons for absconded slaves. abolitionists, was numerically And there was no vociferous elite small, and its members lived gaining its main income from it. nearby each other in a very small It was probably therefore less geographical space. Discussion obviously confrontational in the of the issues must have been north east for abolitionists to immediate and insistent. The raise their banner. It may presence in the town of key explain, for example, why the abolitionist visitors like Thomas truly conservative Common Clarkson and the former Remembering Slavery 13.

enslaved African, Olaudah Equiano, would have been obvious to all. It is just possible that an explanation for the sparse reference to slavery interests lies in the relative silence of those who had strong business interests in the colonies. The most involved figure, John Graham Clarke, had multiple local business interests and civic involvement which may have somewhat obscured the central role of colonial slavery in his business portfolio. Yet it is hard to imagine his explanation for having six black children, as wards, in his household after 1794. We know they were Olaudah Equiano (about 1745 - 1797). placed there under the terms of a Equiano visited the north east in 1792. Jamaican associate’s will. © Anti-Slavery International. 14. Part 2: Towards abolition

Dissenting religion

Presbyterianism in provincial organisations: the several sectarian Newcastle Abolition Society varieties, Methodism, founded in 1791. In that year it Unitarianism and published 2,000 copies of a Quakerism were all version of Thomas Clarkson’s strong in the area. There report to the House of Commons was also a strain of inquiring into the slave trade. The Anglican evangelicalism. Dissenting religion petition mounted by the played a major part in campaign and lodged at the nurturing local Guildhall accumulated over abolitionist sentiment. 3,000 signatures, possibly the largest provincial petition after The Quakers were the first to Manchester’s. Since the petition express their opposition to has not survived we cannot know slavery in the 1730s and then in the social status of its an organised form in Newcastle signatories, but the number in 1783, though John Wesley, a represents about one in three of fierce opponent of slavery, the town’s adults, and we would regularly preached to his big be safe to presume they were congregations in the area. The almost exclusively male, from all Unitarian minister, William classes, and with a high Turner, was an enthusiastic incidence of protestant organiser of one of the first dissenters. Remembering Slavery 15.

This breadth of support probably ‘This breadth of support accounted for the strength of the probably accounted for the abolitionist cause in subsequent strength of the abolitionist campaigning activity, at least cause...’ after 1810. During 1806-7, Parliament passed the bill abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire. Although Earl Grey proposed and the Durham MP, Ralph Milbanke seconded the resolution, the north east appears to have played a lesser role in what was essentially a parliamentary campaign led by the government of the day. Further research might alter this assessment but, certainly, from 1810-1814, meetings were held in many towns in the region round the slave trading issues in the Peace Settlement at the end of the long war with France. Reverend William Turner (1761 -1859) was a leading campaigner in Newcastle against the slave trade. © Newcastle Libraries and Information Service. 16. Part 2: Towards abolition

The push to 1833 and 1838

The 1820s was a decade of at Morpeth, in the 1780s, and continuous agitation with William Ewart Gladstone’s father, the north east taking the John, in Berwick. Even after lead in numerous the franchise was widened in meetings and petitions in 1832, the Berwick MP, Matthew every sizeable settlement Forster used his position to and with heightened campaign against British action activity from both religious and secular to halt the slave trade. organisations. Continued vigorous action was The final drive to abolition in required from abolitionists the British Empire took place in Parliament. Earl Grey as between 1830 and 1833. There Prime Minister and his son Lord was a virtual pamphlet war, well Howick were important in this represented in the Lit & Phil and respect. At least as significant Robinson Library’s contemporary was the mushrooming growth collections. The issue of slavery of local societies across the became entangled with the region. Dozens of meetings were great reform bill crisis. The addressed by men like Charles narrow voting base and Attwood, James Losh, Dr Thomas patronage controlled system of Winterbottom and the Baptist Parliamentary representation missionary, William Knibb, had made it possible for West visited the area after his personal Indian planter lobbyists to experience of the Jamaican become MPs like Anthony Storer rebellion. Remembering Slavery 17.

It is difficult to assess the importance of the serial Caribbean slave rebellions on opinion in the north east but it is generally supposed that they impacted upon both the slave interest and abolitionists. The traffic in information from the Caribbean suggests they must have been well known in the area. In the final phases of colonial slavery the Graham Clarke letter books give regular and gloomy reports from the island, of the Jamaican Rebellion of 1831.

After 13 long years of fighting, Saint Dominique became Haiti, the first ever free black slave republic in 1804 © Anti-Slavery International 18. Part 2: Towards abolition

Tyneside radicalism

Newcastle was a town and socially diverse current of with strong radical radicalism. However, in each traditions established by of the campaigns the people the 1770s. There had been whose names we know belonged strong support for John mostly to the educated, well- Wilkes in the 1760s, for to-do middle class. This was the American side in the certainly true of the Quakers war for independence and and Unitarians who formed the opposition to attempts to first committee. The institution develop parts of the Town which provided a focus for the Moor. campaigns was the Literary and Philosophical Society. The Abolition of slavery fitted Lit & Phil was the successor of well into this. Each of the the more openly radical society campaigns and the 1792 petition founded in the 1770s. The fact were numerically substantial, that it was constituted in 1793, indicating support beyond the as war fever developed, certainly radical ‘middling sorts.’ The dampened the radicalism in its enormous Newcastle mass ranks, probably accounting for meeting of 1819 in protest at its constitutional forbidding of Peterloo and the well of support political discussion within its for Queen Caroline in 1820 walls. Somehow objections to show the presence of a strong slavery seem to have transcended Remembering Slavery 19.

‘Somehow objections to slavery seem to have transcended politics’

politics, for today we have to be grateful for the presence in the Library of numerous anti- slavery tracts and a wealth of informative literature acquired early in the Lit & Phil’s life. In the 1820s and 30s men like William Turner, whose active history went back to the 1780s, and James Losh, active from 1810 till his death in 1833, continued to be mainstays of the local campaigns which were ultimately successful in abolishing slavery completely, at least in the British Empire.

North east Quakers, including Anna Richardson (1806-1892), played a leading role in the anti-slavery movement. © Newcastle Literary and Philosophical Society. 20. Part 2: Towards abolition

Post 1833

Success in 1833 was In the 1830s women started to tempered by the Act’s challenge the social convention conditions, not least the that denied them direct granting by Parliament involvement in a campaign that of £20 million as many had long supported. As compensation to the the international campaign slave holders. Even broadened women abolitionists worse was the scheme became more and more of apprenticeship which prominent. Quaker women would have prolonged were especially significant. true freedom for a further Elizabeth Pease of Darlington decade. was a tireless and somewhat unconventional campaigner Elation among abolitionists travelling the country breaking quickly turned to anger and the prohibition on women a fierce campaign continued speakers. Anna and Ellen to bring the scheme to an Richardson of Newcastle played end in 1838. The north east leading roles in organising a Free featured very strongly in this Labour Produce Campaign with and subsequently in campaigns many branches in the north east. to attempt to end slavery They wrote anti-slavery missives throughout the world. and welcomed a succession of Minds and activity turned to the American abolitionists, including United States, Brazil and Cuba. former slaves Frederick Douglass Remembering Slavery 21.

and William Wells Brown and North east abolitionists were the journalist, William Lloyd a vital part of the national Garrison to the north east up to abolitionist movement from and beyond the American Civil its inception, growing in their War. Also important was the influence as the nineteenth journalism and pamphleteering of century proceeded. Their work Harriet Martineau, partly resident was immensely important in in the area, on the national and helping to create a climate of international scene. The Radical public opinion which would MP for Newcastle, Joseph Cowen embarrass those who gained Jnr. organised support for the from the foul trade and place North and Emancipation during pressure upon the politicians the American Civil War. to enact legislation effecting change. Black Africans, Americans and West Indians continued to visit, John Charlton, September 2007 perform, and settle in the North East throughout the nineteenth © Literary & Philosophical century. Activists like Robert Society, of Newcastle upon Spence Watson campaigned Tyne 2007 against the worst excesses of British rule in the colonies, colonial expansion, for black Grey’s Monument in Newcastle. Earl rights and against continued Grey (1764 – 1845) supported the anti-slavery cause in Parliament. slavery around the world. © Ad Infinitum: Peter Atkinson. Rum decanter, about 1800 © Tyne and Wear Museums Acknowledgements 23.

The Project volunteers: John House and Collections Manager, Wallington Charlton, Valerie Glass, Patricia Hall (re-Greys and Zachary Macauley), Robert Hix, Gill Johnson, Tamsin Lilley, Longridge (re-Mic/Michael Longridge), John Peter Livsey, Rosie McPeake, Malden, Director, Paxton House (re-Ninian Sauda Motara, David and Home), Elizabeth O’Donnell (re-Quaker Mary Phillipson, Ann Nicol, and women), David Richardson (re-the Hedley Margaret Woodley. family), Anne Sharpe (re-Shields), Genevieve Silvanus, Assistant Archivist- Education and For support to the research by the Outreach, Durham County Record Office Project Officer and volunteers: (re-slavery and abolition in County Durham), Kay Easson, Librarian, Lit & Phil Neil Sinclair (re- Dr Winterbottom and Ralph Society, Sue Wood, Head of Milbanke), and Irene Ferguson , Assistant Collections, Northumberland to University Archivist, Special Collections, Collections Service, Liz Rees, University of Edinburgh, Margaret S. Chief Archivist, Tyne & Wear McCollum, Assistant Keeper, Archives & Archives, Melanie Wood, Special Collections, Durham University Librarian, Robinson Library Library, Jessamy Sykes Assistant Archivist, Special Collections & Archives, Lambeth Palace Library, and Joan Williams, Hazel Edwards, Senior Keeper of Assistant Librarian, Durham Cathedral Library History, Tyne & Wear Museums, (re-Durham Cathedral connections with the and their staff, and Diana Paton West Indies). (Newcastle University School of Historical Studies). The work does not end with this Project. It provides the foundation for further For information shared: Ruth research. Several of the volunteers have Blower, Newcastle University decided to continue to liaise together History student (re-Newcastle through an informal history group, which papers and abolition 1788-1792), can be contacted through the Lit & Phil: Sylvia Greener (re-baptism [email protected] information), Tracey Hylton, Liverpool BEM Network (re- Hylton family), Lloyd Langley, Archive Mapping and Research Project

Participating institutions Newcastle Literary & Philosophical Society Northumberland Collections Service Robinson Library Special Collections Tyne & Wear Archives Service Tyne and Wear Museums www.rememberingslavery.com

Front image: ladies’ petition notice for the abolition of slavery in West India, May 1833. © Tyne & Wear Archives Service.