Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, has revealed that his ancestor owned enslaved individuals on a plantation in Jamaica and was compensated by the British authorities when slavery was abolished.
Welby disclosed his ancestral hyperlinks in a private assertion that reiterated his dedication to addressing the enduring and damaging legacies of transatlantic slavery.
The archbishop, who’s the chief of the worldwide Anglican church, stated he found lately that his late organic father, Sir Anthony Montague Browne, a personal secretary to Winston Churchill, “had an ancestral connection to the enslavement of individuals in Jamaica and Tobago”.
In 2016, Welby discovered that he had been conceived as the results of a quick fling between his mom and Browne, and that Gavin Welby, whom she married shortly afterwards, was not his organic father. Justin Welby had no relationship with Browne, who died in 2013.
Based on the archbishop’s assertion, Browne was the nice nice grandson of Sir James Fergusson, the fourth Baronet of Kilkerran and the proprietor of enslaved individuals on the Rozelle plantation in St Thomas.
Fergusson, who died in 1838, received part of a £20m compensation package from the British authorities for the lack of “property” after slavery was abolished.
The Centre for the Examine of the Legacies of British Slavery says the Rozelle plantation had about 200 enslaved people working on it at its peak, and the Fergusson household shared compensation of £3,591 in 1836 – estimated at greater than £3m at this time.
Welby didn’t obtain any cash from Browne whereas he was alive or from his property after he died.
The archbishop has been on the forefront of the general public acknowledgement by the Church of England (C of E) of its historic profit from transatlantic slavery.
In a report published last year, the church traced the origins of its £9bn endowment fund partly to Queen Anne’s Bounty, a monetary scheme established in 1704 based mostly on transatlantic chattel slavery.
On the time, Welby stated: “I’m deeply sorry for these hyperlinks. It’s now time to take motion to handle our shameful previous.”
The church has pledged £100m to handle the legacy of enslavement. It stated later it aimed to develop this to £1bn with contributions from co-investors after a report from an oversight group, chaired by Bishop Rosemarie Mallett, stated the unique quantity pledged was not sufficient.
In Tuesday’s assertion, the archbishop reiterated the C of E’s dedication to a “thorough and correct analysis programme, within the data that archives have much more to inform us about what has come earlier than us – typically in a really private approach”.
He stated: “Whereas I sadly solely found my relationship to Sir Anthony in 2016, three years after his demise, I did have the delight of assembly my half-sister and her son.”
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The reality about his organic father got here to gentle after Welby took a DNA test, which confirmed a 99.98% chance that he was Browne’s son. His mom, Jane, who died final yr, stated the revelation had “come as an nearly unbelievable shock”.
Sir Adam Fergusson, the tenth baronet, stated on behalf of the Fergusson household that its “involvement in slavery is a horrible a part of its previous”. He stated: “The archbishop’s reference to the household is a shock to us all. It’s sobering that, 5 or 6 generations on, very giant numbers of us may have hyperlinks, identified and unknown, to this horrible part of our historical past.”
Alex Renton, one other descendant of Fergusson and the creator of Blood Legacy – Reckoning with a Family’s Story of Slavery, stated he and different family had made private donations in the direction of restore initiatives in Britain and the Caribbean since changing into conscious of the household’s historical past.
Renton has additionally helped arrange the Heirs of Slavery group, which works “to encourage different households enriched by slavery wealth to acknowledge their historical past, apologise and help campaigns for reparations in Europe and the Caribbean”.
In his assertion, Welby referred to his journey to Jamaica in July, when he received an honorary degree from the College of the West Indies and apologised to Jamaicans for the church’s position within the enslavement of their ancestors.
He was quoted in the Jamaica Observer saying: “I can’t communicate for the federal government of the UK however I can communicate from my very own coronary heart and symbolize what we are saying now in England. We’re deeply, deeply, deeply sorry. We sinned towards your ancestors. I might give something that that may be reversed, but it surely can’t.”
The information about Welby’s ancestor comes amid growing pressure on Keir Starmer to handle reparatory justice when he travels to Samoa this week to attend the Commonwealth heads of presidency assembly. There was hypothesis about whether or not or not reparations might be on the agenda, with the UK government ruling out issuing an apology on the summit.
