Lloyds Register, the maritime and industrial group owned by one of Britain’s biggest charities, has apologized for its role in the trafficking of enslaved Africans but has been criticized for not going far enough.
Founded in 1760 as the Society for the Registry of Shipping by merchants and underwriters who met at Edward Lloyd’s coffee house in Lombard Street in London, the company provided classifications for ships.
The apology comes after Lloyd’s Register (LR) investigated its links to slavery. It also highlights the links between the maritime and insurance sectors, the businesses that served both and the transatlantic trade in people at the time, which laid the foundation for the global expansion of British financial interests.
The Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull published the results of their research focusing on records from 1764 to 1834.
In a statement on its website, LR said that during this period Lloyd’s Register was busy recording information about the seaworthiness of ships for use in the trade in their purchase, sale and insurance, adding: ” He then sold this information to buyers, many of whom were active in the slave economy.
“Some of our early committee members were involved in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans. Notably, at least six committee members of the Society for the Registry of Shipping from 1764 were identified as slaves, while Another six were involved in the trafficking of enslaved Africans.
“What is clear from this early research is that, from our founding in 1760 to Britain’s Abolition of Slavery Act in 1833, we played an important role in supporting a maritime system that carried slaves. Activated the economy.
“We deeply regret this part of our history. Acknowledging this legacy is important for our organization, for the descendants of victims and those still living with the consequences of this trafficking, and for society as a whole. “
The LR said it had given a £1m grant to the National Archives to catalog and share archived material and support scholarship in the Caribbean and West Africa “to develop new narratives” on the history of slavery.
It has also pledged to support the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool in a project to enable ethnic communities to research their history.
LR is owned by Lloyd’s Register Foundation, one of the UK’s largest charities, with an income of £560m in 2023.
Laurence Westgoff, of the Liverpool Black History Research Group, said £1m was a “patence” in light of the profits from the exploitation, and questioned why the research only looked at records up to 1834 when the British maritime sector planted plantations. continued to benefit from the economy of In the United States and Brazil long after the abolition of slavery in Great Britain.
In a statement, LR said: “While the original scope of our research took us back to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, we know that slavery goes back beyond that date and recognize that we still have a long way to go. There is more work to be done.”
On his sitethe company described Britain as “a major participant in the trans-Atlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans”, with British ships carrying “some 3.4 million people by force on more than 10,000 voyages, including 800,000 died in transit”.
LR Insurance Company is not affiliated with Lloyds of London, Who apologized for his role in slavery in 2020.Although it originated from the same coffee house on London’s Lombard Street.
