The National Trust has released an Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery which surveys its properties and highlights links between the property, past owners and slavery and colonialism. Lacock Abbey, one of photography's most important historical sites, is included.
The report notes:
Lacock Abbey, Wiltshire
John Rock Grosett MP (c.1784–1866) was a plantation owner who leased Lacock Abbey during the 1820s. He was the son of Schaw Grosett (1741–1820), a merchant of Clifton, Bristol, and Mary Rock (1755–1807). John Rock Grosett married his cousin, Mary Spencer Shirley (1784–1820), and through his father, mother and wife received a combined inheritance of at least three Jamaican estates: Chepstow Pen and Spring Gardens Estate in St George, and Petersfield in St Thomas-inthe East. In 1822, he joined the Standing Committee of The London Society of West India Planters and Merchants and supported planters’ interests in Parliament. By 1831, Grosett had left Lacock to live in Jamaica, elected to the Assembly that year. In 1834, he and his lawyer received compensation totalling £16,143 1s. 9d. for 916 enslaved people.
H J P Arnold notes in his biography of William Henry Fox Talbot (p. 45-46) that Grosset surrendered the lease to Lacock Abbey in 1827 and it was made ready for a partial reoccupation by Talbot and the Fieldings, including Talbot's mother, Lady Elizabeth, and his sisters. Lacock itself is unlikely to have benefited directly from Grosset's occupation and there is no suggestion that Henry Talbot or his immediate family profited from slavery or colonialism, other than from Grosset's rental income.
The full report can be read here: https://nt.global.ssl.fastly.net/documents/colionialism-and-historic-slavery-report.pdf
Comments
While I am not opposed to adding to our knowledge of history and having a good discussion on slavery and elements of racism/bias and how to lessen their impacts, I suspect that there are other political motives in trying to build such very tenuous links to slavery. In the case of Lacock, we're talking about one man who leased the property for about five years. Does that fact add anything to our understanding of this otherwise historically important property and its history? I think not. Yes, there are more substantive links to slavery that should be part of our discussions of history. Let's not trivialize the issue though and smear entire histories with the most inconsequential of connections.
It's important to highlight the history of slavery. These links bring to light how many stately homes and their residents were in some way funded by slavery. These links should be highlighted in the history of these homes, in the same way that other social/political/medical viewpoints are highlighted. People who insist this is a "mob rule revisionist" obviously have no real interest in equality or little understanding of how history is constantly being revised the more we learn about it. Perhaps we should ignore what we learn and write in history books about how the Titanic sank in one piece and didn't break in half? As originally believed.
As Wilson Laidlaw indicates below, almost every stately home (and many other non-stately properties) may have a 'connection' with slavery but this mob rule revisionist madness has to stop - and, as a Member of the NT and volunteer at Lacock, I have made my position clear about this. That was then, this is now. We cannot undo the past, only try to make a better future for all.
Yes, you're right and the NT research is a good step to identify those people and properties, and to surface some of the stories that help explain how they came to be built. In Lacock Abbey's case the building has a much older pedigree.
Probably every stately home built or occupied in the UK, between 1600 and 1850 has some slavery link if one delved deep enough.