With her comments on slavery, Kemi Badenoch shows a poor grasp of history | Letters
Your article quotes the business secretary, Kemi Badenoch, claiming that the UK’s wealth “was not due to colonial history or racial privilege” (Kemi Badenoch: ‘UK’s wealth isn’t from white privilege and colonialism’, 18 April)
Ms Badenoch is misinformed, and if she was interested in the local history of the place where she was born, Wimbledon in London, she would know that it was the centre of Britain’s initial involvement in the slave trade, from which that locality and Britain gained huge wealth.
Wimbledon’s oldest and most costly house, the Old Rectory (a stone’s throw from the All England Lawn Tennis Club), was the home of William Cecil, the secretary of state and lord treasurer to Elizabeth I.
It was Cecil who persuaded Elizabeth I to provide the first British ship to participate in the slave trade. The ship, part of the British navy, was called the Jesus of Lubeck and was captained by the slave trader and pirate John Hawkins. Both Elizabeth I and Cecil funded Britain’s and Hawkins’ first slaving trips in the 1560s.
Peter Walker
Wimbledon, London
The UK’s wealth is “not from slavery”, claims Kemi Badenoch. The “bittersweet heritage” (to quote the title of a 2022 book by Victoria Perry) is there for all to see. In conspicuous vanity projects from Harewood House to Penhryn Castle, with their sculpted and manicured grounds and prospects. In the opulent residences of Bath, Bristol and Liverpool. In the burnished mahogany furnishings fashioned from timbers hewn from forests cleared for plantations of cash crops. And in the burgeoning mills of Lancashire built to capitalise on cotton from the colonies.
Delve into the records of receipts made out to over 40,000 “owners” of enslaved people in compensation for their loss of income following abolition and you will see a cross-section of society, from the obscenely rich to those of modest means, the length and breadth of the land.
Drill even deeper into medical records right up to the present day and you can see the long shadow of misery cast by lung cancer and dental caries imposed by the introduction of, and addiction to, the tobacco and sugar grown by an enslaved workforce.
The results of the systematic imposition of enslavement and its associated trades are as pervasive as the entire enterprise was pernicious. Until this is acknowledged at every level of society, we cannot hope to progress beyond its vile effects.
Austen Lynch
Garstang, Lancashire
How encouraging to see that Kemi Badenoch has now emerged as a historian. Perhaps she could enlighten us on where the cotton, sugar, tea and tobacco that made Britain the wealthiest country in the world in the 19th century came from, and how it was produced.
If we had such a peaceful and well-planned constitution, how come we got involved in so many wars and felt the need to rule over so many territories that produced these raw materials?
Sarah Sheils
History teacher, York
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