Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners - BBC2

[ElizabethHerts]

We have just been watching this fascinating programme.

Many ordinary people were slave owners. For example, two women (sisters?) owned a single slave between them. When slavery was abolished, every slave owner was compensated. This was the only way that the legislation could be passed.

This is the searchable database where you can see if any of your lines in fact owned slaves:


https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/search/

[Olde Crone]

Oh, I can't believe I missed this!

I felt very sick when I found out that a distant branch of my family were slave owners. I don't know which I felt was worse - the fact that they were slave owners, or the fact that they released them all and then abandoned the plantation and left most of the slaves to their own devices.

OC

[kiterunner]

Oh, I can't believe I missed this!


It's repeated tomorrow night at 11:20 pm (11:50 pm in Scotland).

I know that some of my ancestors owned slaves, but I can't find them on the database, so I presume it is not complete.

[Olde Crone]

Thanklyou Kate, I've made a note of that.

I've just looked up one I knew about and got all excited because someone had put a lot of biographical information against the claim.

It was me!

OC

[Olde Crone]

Kate

I think the database is either incomplete or there is perhaps another explanation. Maybe not everyone claimed compensation for their freed slaves?

My man does not appear at all yet he had dozens of slaves according to other documented evidence.

OC

[kiterunner]

Oh, the database only covers 1834 when slavery was abolished in the British empire. My slave-owning ancestors were before that.

[Jenoco]

There's also a section on slavery included in the BBC's History Extra podcast this week, if anybody's interested.
http://www.historyextra.com/podcasts

[Olde Crone]

I've now watched the programme. I feel a bit uneasy.

I would never in a million years defend slavery, I can't think of anything more vile and wrong BUT while the "British Empire" was congratulating itself on having abolished slavery, it was still happily pushing little boys up chimneys and sending 3 and 4-year olds out of the workhouse to work in cotton mills in the UK.

Also - freedom for the slaves amounted to what, exactly? No provision made for them and it seems as if their freedom was a bit of a farce - where to go, what to live on. Many of them simply stayed where they were and worked for the same master for a pittance.

Slavery certainly wasn't the world's finest hour - but neither was the abolition.

OC

[HarrysMum]

Found a Robert PODMORE CLARK.

Now...he couldn't be one of THE Clarks........they were so upstanding...... :(

[Merry]

lol Libby! I remember Lucretia Podmore marrying a Clark (Thomas or Edward?) so is this their son?

[HarrysMum]

Yes, Merry, son of Thomas (I think).

[Kit]

lol Libby! I remember Lucretia Podmore marrying a Clark (Thomas or Edward?) so is this their son?


Your memory is so scary Merry.

I remember Clarks and Ariels but not specific people.

[Mary from Italy]

Plenty of upstanding people of the day owned slaves.

At a later period, one of my ancestors owned a sweatshop where the conditions for child workers were terrible, yet he was a staunch member of the local Baptist church.