Forum Topic

The 19th century slave trade money that built Acton

A new website has been launched allowing you to check out what happened to the money from the British slave trade.http://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/... and wouldn't you know it Berrymead Priory in Acton was built with money from the Carribbean slave trade. (Berrymead Priory was a country house that used to stand next to the Magistrates Court)Shows how ubiquitous this kind of money was.see link belowhttp://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/physical/

Richard Grange ● 4947d10 Comments

if you want to know about the history of the slave trade, just ask me, i have loads of info for you from my family archives, DAVID HAWKINS

David Hawkins ● 4947d

Berrymead Priory was built well before Edmund Fleming Akers purchased it in 1807. He may have used his money to extend the building, but it was there many years before!http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=22548Not condoning the slave trade, just pointing out the real history of Berrymead Priory.

Amanda Knights ● 4947d

Hi DavidI'd be very interested to know if Acton has any other links.I'd always associated the slave trade primarily with Liverpool and Bristol - so its a bit of a shock when you find its influence is right on your doorstep.It makes you look at things with different eyes,

Richard Grange ● 4947d

I wondered where the Priory was as I live in Berrymead Gardens so I guess that is the connection for this street.

Tony Crumpton ● 4947d

Tony, it was where the car park is now behind what was the swimming pool!There is a picture of it in it's heyday at:-http://www.actonhistory.co.uk/acton/page9.html

Amanda Knights ● 4947d

Well said Amanda.  No way did slave trade money build Acton; it was built years and years before, so it's a bit of a misleading and sensationalist title.  As you say, one building extended by some reprobate on the back of the slave trade does not a whole village or town make.  The Priory has gone; having become enlightened we no longer have open slave trading thank God, so it's just a sad historical fact and can achieve nothing but try and sully Acton's name.....for what?

Antoinette Smith ● 4946d

That's what I thought Antoinette. Oak Town as I think it was originally called is pretty old.

Keith Iddon ● 4946d

Okay, okay  - slave trade money did not literally BUILD Berrymeade priory (although it may have added a few battlements)  - or Acton for that matter.But Edmund Akers who bought Berrymeade Priory in 1803 - was certainly a man who had made his money from the slave trade.He was born in St Kitts - and in 1790 he mortgaged lands with 205 slaves attached.A year after he bought Berrymead Priory he bought a St Kitts property with 179 slaves attached.And when he died he owned estates worked by almost 200 slaves.

Richard Grange ● 4946d

This reminds me how slavery and the sugar trade contaminated society on many levels. So sad. Has anyone been to the slavery museum in Liverpool?

Ros Guthrie ● 4944d

I havent been to the museum but would like to go.I think one of the key findings of the UCL project is to show that very significant amounts of money related to the slave trade - was swirling around in early 19th century Britain (Far more than we may have realised)Apparently a fair chunk of it ended up funding the building of Britain's railways.

Richard Grange ● 4944d