In 2020, the National Trust released its ‘interim report’ on the connections between its properties and colonialism and slavery. It quickly became obvious that the report had not been commissioned in the spirit of free historical inquiry, but as a way to tarnish the National Trust and Britain’s history.
The report found that 93 properties or places owned by the Trust had a ‘link’ to colonialism and slavery, a fact that was widely reported in the news at the time.
According to the report, a ‘link’ could be anything from having wealth ‘connected’ to slavery, involvement in a colonial administration in a senior capacity, or even having a business with significant interests in a British colony. Using these criteria, even Winston Churchill’s family home of Chartwell was included.
Unsurprisingly, there was a significant backlash to the National Trust’s denigration of its own properties in this way.
Now, one of the main editors of the report, Corinne Fowler, a University of Leicester academic and the author of Green Unpleasant Land: Creative Responses to Rural England’s Colonial Connections, has written in the Telegraph to defend the history in the report, which she says wasn’t ‘new or controversial to experts in the field.’
Fowler writes that she has received a large amount of unpleasant abuse and trolling since her report was published, which of course must be condemned. But in the piece she also gives a perfect example of the way history can be distorted.
Fowler mentions in the piece that she has written a book of Walks Through Colonial Britain. The book ends in Cornwall, where:
‘Copper mines once employed a third of the local population, but I learned that a significant amount of that copper was used to sheath slave ships so that they lasted longer in tropical waters.’
This, I’m afraid, is a bit like saying that pens from a British factory were exported to Germany where they were used by bookkeepers in Auschwitz, making Britain complicit in the Holocaust.
To be clear, the copper sheathing of ships was developed by the Royal Navy in the 18th Century, and was used on all types of ships, not just those involved in the slave trade. Incidentally, this is the same Royal Navy that spent 60 years from 1808 patrolling the waters off West Africa to stop the slave trade, at vast cost in money and lives.
Fowler claims that the copper sheathing was developed so that ships ‘lasted longer in tropical waters.’ This is partially correct, but a distortion. The purpose of copper sheathing on ships was to prevent the growth of barnacles and weed – which slowed down all ships. Barnacles grow on ships’ hulls everywhere in the world, not just in the waters of the Caribbean and West Africa. If Fowler had driven a few miles from where she found out this supposedly awful truth about Cornish copper mining, she would have found them growing on Cornish rocks as well.
Now let’s move on to Cornish copper, of which she writes: ‘a significant amount was used to sheath slave ships.’ ‘Significant’ is a rather vague term. Significant annual production or significant in the context of Cornish production overall? If so over what period? I’m dubious of this claim. The only figures I can find begin at 1771, but they show that production of Cornish copper significantly increased after the abolition of slavery, with annual production rising between two and four times that of the years before abolition.
This copper was not just used to sheath ships, of course. Significant amounts were used in coin production and in the production of brass which, together with copper in its raw state, was used in great quantities in the Industrial Revolution.
All of this may seem like a small complaint, but it just goes to show the ways history can be distorted and shoehorned to fit a preconceived point of view. If this reflects the rest of Fowler’s research, it’s no wonder her National Trust report was so controversial.
Anti-colonialism and the distortion of history
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24.04.2024
In 2020, the National Trust released its ‘interim report’ on the connections between its properties and colonialism and slavery. It quickly became obvious that the report had not been commissioned in the spirit of free historical inquiry, but as a way to tarnish the National Trust and Britain’s history.
The report found that 93 properties or places owned by the Trust had a ‘link’ to colonialism and slavery, a fact that was widely reported in the news at the time.
According to the report, a ‘link’ could be anything from having wealth ‘connected’ to slavery, involvement in a colonial administration in a senior capacity, or even having a business with significant interests in a British colony. Using these criteria, even Winston Churchill’s family home of Chartwell was included.
Unsurprisingly, there was a significant backlash to the National Trust’s denigration of its own properties in this way.
Now, one of the main editors of the report, Corinne Fowler, a........
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