The slavery connections of Brodsworth Hall (1600-c.1830)

This report was commissioned by English Heritage in November 2008 and research was carried out from December 2008 to October 2009. The following six objectives were addressed in the research:

• to establish the slavery and colonial connections of the case study property and its owners, including their wider families;
• to assess the relative importance of slave-generated wealth to the owners and how this changed over time;
• to establish how slave-generated wealth was used in relation to the property and within the wider British economy and to establish if/how the wealth of the property in Britain contributed in turn to the development of slavery-based investments in the colonial and slavery environment;
• to identify and evaluate any evidence of slavery-related designs at the property;
• to assess any evidence of a black presence within the household;
• to assess any responses to abolition from owners of the property, their families and any other figures associated with them.

The key areas of focus are:

• the sources of Peter Thellusson’s (1735-1797) merchant wealth, with a case study of his money lending in Grenada;
• Peter Thellusson (1735-1797), and the managers of his will (1797-1859), as landowners in Grenada and England;
• Charles Sabine Augustus Thellusson (1822-1885) and the spending of his inheritance at Brodsworth, including the building of Brodsworth Hall.