SLAVERY AND THE BRITISH COUNTRY HOUSE : A REVIEW

de bene esse: literally, of well-being, morally acceptable but subject to future validation or exception

The following excellent Book Review of "Slavery and the British Country House" was written by my friend Peter Fullerton, who is a direct descendant of the Fullerton and Storer families who both owned Sugar Plantations and Slaves in Jamaica during the 18th and Early 19th Centuries.
 
This handsome book resulted from a conference in 2009 at the London School of Economics organised by English Heritage and the University of the West of England. I attended the conference as a member of the Friends of the Georgian Society of Jamaica. Almost all the delegates there were academics (mainly historians) and staff in English Heritage. I think I was the only person there who could claim to be descended from a family of West Indian Planters who had built a country house on a fortune made from sugar in the West Indies.
I met Madge Dresser and Nick Draper, two of the lecturers at the conference who have also contributed two chapters to the book. They were interested to hear about the Storers and Purley Park. I later sent them my Storer family history as Purley is a model subject for “Slavery and the British Country House”. It is therefore disappointing that Purley does not get even a mention in the book.
The book itself, and the illustrations in it, is excellent in telling the story. The sixteen articles by various historians are all well researched with extensive details of the families and the country houses which they built on fortunes made in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries from the slave trade and sugar plantations.
The numbers of such country houses, especially in the west country, is astonishing. Over forty are identified the book. English merchants and entrepreneurs got into the slave trade in Africa after the Spanish and Portuguese but English slave ships had gained a dominant share of the business by the end of the 18th century. English families and businesses also acquired the largest number of plantations in the West Indies, partly as a result of the capture of Jamaica from the Spaniards in 1670 under Cromwell and the seizure of some French colonies such as St Lucia during the Napoleonic wars.
The book does not dwell on the horrors of the slave trade or the conditions under which slaves were kept in the West Indian plantations. It does, however, identify and draw attention to the links between the families who made fortunes from the slave trade and slavery in the plantations and the country houses which they built in England. That, in fact is the theme and purpose of the book.
In exploring the links and presenting the facts the writers are not openly judgmental about slavery; but there is an underlying assumption that slavery was evil. One has to accept that as a fact, not a judgment, and move on. But in reading the texts, one has the impression that many of the authors in this book were holding their noses while they wrote it.. Phrases like “fraught with West Indian connections” (page 22) and “steeped in slavery associations” (page 25) are frequent in the references to families who built these country houses.
The otherwise non-judgmental tone is also apparent in the way in which the abolition of the slave trade by Britain in 1807 and the emancipation of slaves throughout all British colonies in 1833 is reported. The fact that Britain led the world in both these reforms is ignored; while the fact that British slave owners were all handsomely compensated for freeing their slaves is emphasised. As a reader of history, I admit to preferring openly judgmental views on the wrongs of our ancestors (massacres, torture, slavery, exploitation etc) provided that recognition is also given to the reforms and humane attitudes which we as a country later pioneered.
There is also in some of the early chapters in this book some gratuitous mockery at the way in which the wealth gained through slavery by some of the entrepreneurial families (as opposed to those who already had inherited wealth) brought them social status. For example (page 70) “they not only aped the manners and lifestyle of gentlemen but they also showed an almost universal desire to join the landed classes”. One can understand the aristocracy in those days looking down in this way on those who were “nouveau riches” from trade but why historians today should indulge in the politics of envy and class consciousness is another matter. (It seems to suggest that social mobility for the lower classes is good, while upward mobility for the middle class is just snobbery.) There is, by contrast, no recognition by any of the authors of the fact that the new wealth generated by slavery led to the building of many of the finest houses in England and to the patronage of English artists and skilled artisans. It contributed hugely to what we now call our National Heritage.
The best chapters in this book are the introduction and the first two by Nicholas Draper and Madge Dresser. They describe not just the connections between particular country houses and the source of the wealth on which they were built but also the social and economic background to wealth based on the slave trade and slavery in the plantations. Some of the later chapters are more like research papers with overemphasis on detail.
As a descendant of two sets of ancestors – the Storers and the Fullertons – both of whom made their fortunes in sugar plantations in Jamaica, I am left with mixed feelings about the theme of this book. On the one hand, should we have a conscience about slavery and fortunes based on it? Or should we recognise that the Storers and Fullertons were men of their time, entrepreneurs who had the initiative to go out into the world, take risks, undergo hardships and build a fortune for their families? I think we can do both. If we are to be judgmental on the history of slavery, we have to have a conscience about the role played by Britain and therefore our own ancestors. But that said we also have to accept that the standards of humanity in those days were entirely different. Savage corporal punishment was standard practise in the criminal justice system and in the Royal Navy, as well as (in a minor way) in schools and indeed in the home. Cruelty was tolerated, appalling conditions in industry were disregarded and attitudes to extreme poverty were indifferent. Pain was accepted as a fact of life and not an evil to be eradicated. Horror of slavery was thus not a natural reaction in those days. The culture today of apology for the evils of times past is thus irrelevant. We should applaud instead the steady improvement over the years in our own society of the treatment of our fellow human beings whether as servants, employees or prisoners.
“Slavery and the British Country House” needs to be read in that context. Purley Park, the mansion built by the Storers with money from sugar estates, happens to be a prime example of the theme. The fact that there is literally nothing left of the Storer fortune in the family may help to appease any lingering consciences. But the Storer heritage, which I have written up in the family history, is one which I hope we can all read about and enjoy.

Peter Fullerton