Members of the House of Lords whose forebears had financial ties to transatlantic slavery are set to lose their seats, Declassified has found.
They are among 92 hereditary peers in the Lords that prime minister Keir Starmer wants to evict under his reforms to parliament’s upper chamber.
It marks a step back from his earlier pledge to abolish the entire 800 seat assembly, all of whose members are unelected and can claim a non-taxable daily attendance allowance of £361.
However it has sparked a backlash from some hereditary peers. Tory Lord Strathclyde, who chaired Raytheon UK while it armed Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen, called it a “high-handed, shoddy political act”.
The reform was originally planned by Tony Blair’s government in 1999.
Hereditary peers, who are all men, have long caused controversy and those with family links to the slave trade have generated particular criticism.
When Westminster finally banned chattel slavery in 1833, the British government gave citizens who had ‘owned’ slaves compensation for their ‘loss’. The formerly enslaved people were never compensated.
The database of those compensated is curated by University College London (UCL). It shows that several hereditary peers currently sitting in the Lords have ancestors who received such compensation.
Keith McClelland, a history professor at UCL, is behind the database. He highlighted that, in reality, many more will likely have familial connections to the slave trade.
That’s because not everyone who profited happened to own slaves at the point when the compensation scheme was agreed.
RELATED
Earl of Rosslyn
The database shows that James St Clair-Erskine, the second Earl of Rosslyn, owned 233 slaves in Antigua at the time of abolition.
The current holder of the title, his great-great-great grandson Peter St Clair-Erskine, sits as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords.
In February, he was appointed by King Charles as Lord Steward of the Household, a senior position in the palace.
He is also a former Metropolitan police commander and ran its Royal and Diplomatic Protection department.
James St Clair-Erskine did not reply to this author’s request for comment.
‘Sixth great European power’
Francis Thomas Baring, the 6th Baron Northbrook, is a descendant of the family that ran Barings bank.
The finance house played an extensive role in European colonisation of much of the rest of the world during the 18th and 19th centuries.
At one point it was known informally as the “sixth great European power” before ultimately collapsing in 1995.
The first baron Northbrook was great, great, great, great grandfather of the current holder of the title, and was also called Francis Baring.
He is thought to have made the firm’s first millions by trading enslaved people, and the family appears numerous times in the records of those compensated for ‘their’ slaves being freed.
When the author put this to Lord Northbrook, he said there were “factual inaccuracies” but he didn’t respond to a request that he elaborate.
‘Not at all proud’
Lord Fairfax of Cameron is a Tory peer whose family was first ennobled by Charles I around 1627. Thomas Fairfax, the sixth Lord, ‘owned’ many slaves in the US.
In 2020, the current Lord endorsed Justin Fairfax, the great-great-great grandson of one of those enslaved people, in his campaign to be governor of Virginia.
At the time, he said “our family are not at all proud of the fact that our forebears in Virginia were involved in the institution of slavery”.
Lord Fairfax did not respond to a request for comment.
RELATED
‘Ridiculous’
The Earl of Dundee, Alexander Scrymgeour, has sat in the Lords since his father’s death in 1983.
He held various positions in Margaret Thatcher’s government and has represented Britain at the council of Europe.
His ancestor Henry Scrymgeour owned a sugar estate in Jamaica from 1795 to 1807.
Alexander Scrymgeour accepted that his ancestor had owned an estate, but told this author “there is no evidence that he owned slaves; or that he approved of the slave trade; and still less is there evidence that he benefited financially from the slave trade”.
Responding to these comments, Professor McClelland said, “Who does he think worked on the estate if not enslaved people? It’s just ridiculous to claim that there is no evidence that he owned slaves.
“If you owned an estate, you owned the people on it. It’s theoretically possible you could own the land and rent it out to somebody else who owned the people on it, but I don’t know of any cases.”
Scrymgeour also highlighted that his ancestor had been a member of the Jamaican Assembly at the time.
McClelland said “The Assembly was in favour of slavery, opposed to the abolition of the slave trade, and racist. Black people were banned. This was an institution of White planter control.
It also, he said, “played important roles in lobbying against the abolition of the slave trade.”
St John of Blesto
Peter Simond was a large-scale owner of slaves in Grenada. When he died in 1785, his slaves were left to the families of his two daughters, both of whom had married prominent English aristocrats.
One of those families, the Trevelyans, including the BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan, have recently apologised for their ancestors’ role in ‘owning’ enslaved people.
They paid compensation to the people of Grenada – including £100,000 from Laura Trevelyan’s BBC pension pot.
The other beneficiaries of Simond’s will were the family of Baron St John of Blesto, a title dating back to 1582.
Anthony St John, the current Baron St John of Blesto, is a crossbench peer, whose work in the Lords tends to focus on matters pertaining to Africa.
He has sat on the Communications Select Committee, but did not respond to a request for comment.
‘Compromised’
Melanie Newton, a professor of Caribbean history at the university of Toronto commented: “the role of slave owners and human traffickers in the foundation of the modern parliament – still evident in the political privileges of certain peers – is part of the wider conversation about reparations as a key aspect of modern democratic practice.”
Newton continued: “Repairing the legacy of slavery is not just about ‘giving things’ to Black people. It is about repairing institutions whose ability to function reliably in a democratic context is compromised by this legacy.”
She argued: “That means that some people should have to give up power that they don’t actually deserve.”
Professor McClelland said “direct connections to both slavery and the slave trade continue to resonate” through the House of Lords.
He added: “They speak to racial inequality, racism, and the culture of British politics. The threads of connections are long and complex, but nonetheless clearly visible.”
