The slave trade...

When slavery was abolished in 1833, the UK government paid a total of £20m (£1.8bn in today's prices) in compensation. However, that money was not paid to those who had been enslaved, but was given instead to slave-owners for their "loss of human property”.

It’s not hard to see what slave money bought (though we don’t always want to acknowledge it). We can start with major ports such as London, Bristol and Liverpool, though slave ships also sailed from the Cumbrian ports of Whitehaven and Maryport. John Bolton (1756-1837) made his fortune from the ‘triangular trade’: slaves to America, returning with cargoes of sugar, rum and cotton. He operated out of Liverpool, though he preferred to live in the more salubrious setting of Storrs Hall, on the shore of Lake Windermere, where he organised regattas and entertained lavishly. William Wordsworth, a regular visitor to Storrs Hall, spoke of Bolton as his “long loved, tried and sincere friend”.

Storrs Hall, overlooking the lake.

John Bolton also took on the role of local benefactor (a bit like a Mafia boss trying to re-invent himself as a ‘legitimate businessman'). Tainted money paid for the Bowness Grammar School, which was still incomplete at his death in 1837. Interesting that a slave-trader would want to “promote, in connection with the Church of England, the temporal and eternal interests of the population of these hamlets”. Perhaps Bolton felt secure in the posthumous destination of his own immortal soul. And why not? After all, there’s nothing in the Bible - Old Testament or New - to suggest that it’s wrong to treat human beings like farm equipment… commodities to buy and sell. The Church of England is currently apologising for its own contemptible role in the slave trade, but, as always, the apologies come far too late…