On the up?

The Human Trafficking Foundation is one of several organisations that have revised the number of people involved in modern slavery in the UK from 13,000 to 20,000. But how is possible that the number is rising after the Modern Slavery Act came into force last year?

The reasons are complex. For example, the UK Government put out a host of modern slavery adverts over a year ago with the catchphrase “It’s closer than you think”. The statement is true, but a year ago is in the distant past for many people and without being frequently reinforced, the message is easily forgotten.

The point was that we, the public, have a key role to play as the eyes and ears of suspicious activity happening under our noses. Yet recent research undertaken by a team led by Dr David Walsh (University of Derby) and reported in a recent public lecture evidences that too often we do not know what to look out for, or understand the true nature of modern day slavery and trafficking.

This lack of awareness is also mirrored within the business world. Too often we do not perceive the most powerful factor of control - psychological coercion - as part of the story. We also have the perception that modern day slavery is something that happens abroad without the possibility of any aspect of it touching our lives, despite the official figures stating the contrary. We forget that as consumers, users of service industries and workers using secondary products that we are indeed part of the story.

Very soon, businesses with a turnover of more than £36m will be obliged to report annually on the health of their supply chain. But the quality of this reporting will vary from wilful ignorance or genuine lack of awareness of the need to conform to this part of the Act. Campaign organisations such as Kalayaan work to make the laws surrounding the employment of overseas domestic workers less open to exploitation. Many workers are currently tied to their employers through the need to have their passport visas fixed to the visa of the employer they came to the UK with, which makes them more vulnerable.

In addition to public ignorance and business negligence, crisis situations created by natural disasters can leave refugees of impoverished countries at greater risk of exploitation. For refugees, climate-caused disaster or foreign policies which bring war into their home nations, can enhance the problems caused by their low economic output, leaving the country more prone to modern day slavery.

So, fewer wars, better responses to natural disasters, less famine, greater corporate responsibility and fair pricing structures are just some of the responses needed to bring down the number of people affected by modern slavery from the 35 million worldwide. It may seem like big figures and small individuals, but many a drop make an ocean, and maybe it is time to consider what we can do as individuals.

Image credit: http://www.theprospect.net/

New Website for African Stories in Hull & East Yorkshire Project

We have a new website to support the African Stories in Hull & East Yorkshire project: africansinyorkshireproject.com. On the site, you will find useful information on how to research and where this can be done.

We will archive everything that is submitted and the website will give you the chance to contribute research, short essays, ideas and images. The purpose of this project is to provide an archive which is designed to be open to everyone and welcomes anyone to take part to share the experience.

Please support the project. Download the poster here, then print it and put it up in your offices, local cafes, workplaces etc. Thanks as ever for your wonderful support!

Project Announcement: The Story of People of Africans Descent in Hull and East Yorkshire

Project Aim: An exploration of the presence of people of African descent in Hull and East Yorkshire from the Wilberforce era of the 1750s, up until 2007.

The migration of black minorities to Britain is commonly associated with the ‘Windrush Generation’ that migrated from the West Indies in the period after World War II. However, this is inaccurate. The National Archives, in commenting about black presence, acknowledges that “Black and Asian presence in Britain is not a recent one. Black and Asian people have lived, worked and died in Britain for 500 years or more. They have contributed to the wealth, development and history of this country, directly and indirectly helping put the Great into Great Britain.”

The oldest skeleton of an African in Britain is said to pre-date William the Conqueror, dated between 896 and 1025 AD, and there are other examples from the 12th Century. Even as recently as November last year, Roman skeletons found in London were said to have had members of African heritage. These examples give credence to the fact that Africans have been present in Britain since before the ‘Windrush’ period and that of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, which are the points in history that most people associate with black presence. The Georgian and Edwardian period also saw significant periods of migration, a fact that further challenges the perception that minority groups are recent additions to British society. It took until 1984 for the narrative to change when Hull journalist Peter Fryer wrote about black people as individuals “woven into English society” rather than as a collective group in his book Staying Power (Kathleen Chater, Untold Histories).

There has been recent research into black presence but the gaze is often on larger cities, especially those with their own slavery connections such as Liverpool, Bristol and London. Exploring the black presence in Hull with its somewhat different relationship to the slavery story will offer an interesting alternative especially in this region which still has proportionately fewer examples of minority presence. Hull’s link to William Wilberforce perhaps makes the presence of Africans particularly relevant and deserving of some attention.

The period between 2015 and 2024 has been declared the International Decade for People of African Descent by the United Nations. This initiative aims to eliminate discrimination as it recognises that racism and racial disadvantage still impacts on people of African descent. In so doing, it aims to promote inclusion and recognise the important contributions made by such people to other societies. This project will go some way in supporting this ethos.

This project also aims to promote better social cohesion through a greater understanding of migration and insight into the commonalities of lives in all cultures in an effort to dispel the sense of ‘otherness’.  Further to this, the project intends to provide a local resource to the new GCSE History curriculum which offers Migration in Britain as an option (http://www.ocr.org.uk/Images/207164-specification-draft-gcse-history-b-j411.pdf, p.13).

Current, relevant exhibitions can be found nationally at Tate Britain, the British Library, and Black Cultural Archives, all of which makes the African story current.

This project should be seen as community-driven with the opportunity for any interested person to contribute to the outcomes. It is hoped that there will be an educational resource, narratives, photographs and oral histories cataloguing the experiences of individuals. We also envisage a display of African artefacts representing black culture from a leading collector, who is happy to be involved. This will sit beside local findings to give a more rounded exhibition of national importance that will reflect African culture.

We have established support from academics, educationalists, historians and individuals within the community. We need everyone who is interested to start looking through photographs, archives, and other sources of local knowledge, and let us know what you are finding. We need talented organisations and individuals to support us in our work.

Please get in touch with your interest or findings by email at wilberforcemonumentfund@gmail.com. This is a community project - be part of the story.

Our thanks in the initial consultation go to Audrey Dewjee, Allison Edwards, Prof John Oldfield, Dr Nick Evans, Dr Jacqueline Jenkinson, Dr Madge Dresser, Dr Ryan Handley, Alex Ombre, Dr Carolyn Conroy, Martin Taylor, Greenwich Maritime Museum, Beverley Treasure House, Jessica Leathley, Clare Huby, Jeffrey Green and Martin Spafford.

Image of Sarah Forbes-Bonneta from http://www.nationalmediamuseum.org.uk/collection/photography/royalphotographicsociety/collectionitem.aspx?id=2003-5001/2/22392.

November 2015 Update: Hull & Beverley Connections

UCL Slavery Database - Hull and Beverley Connections

In 1833, slavery was abolished, and with emancipation came compensation. Not, however, for the enslaved who had endured a life of misery and suffering, but rather for the slave owners to the tune of £20m - a staggering amount now, but even more phenomenal then.

A recent exercise undertaken by University College London which attempts to trace the beneficiaries of the government’s decision to compensate slave owners for the loss of their slaves following the Emancipation Act makes very little reference to the city of Hull.

Indeed, the only individual cited as living in the city and linked to the slave trade was a Thomas Holt who was awarded the compensation for eight enslaved people from Falmouth, Jamaica. He inherited the compensation on the death of Elizabeth Kirkpatrick Holt. In the 1851 census he was recorded as an 80-year-old widower born in Jamaica, living at 63 Great Thornton Street, Hull with his 30-year-old daughter Jane who was born in Leeds.

The only other reference to the city comes with Elizabeth Haworth (née Foster), who inherited a share in the Lancaster estate in St Elizabeth, Jamaica, from her father Samuel Warren Foster. According to the 1801 census she was present in Hull for the birth of her daughter.

Relative to other cities more closely associated with the slave trade, these references seem minor by comparison.

If we broaden the exercise to the East Riding, there is a more noticeable entry, that of Stephen Denton who is described as a “returned slave owner awarded the compensation both as owner-in-fee of enslaved people and as trustee on John Hall and Somerset estate, and as mortgagee of the Devon and Green Vale and Norway estates.” All of these were located in Manchester, Jamaica. In total he was awarded in excess of £12,000 for the 637 slaves that he either owned outright or was mortgagee for between 1835 and 1836.

The Dentons went on to become one of the largest landowners in the Beverley area in the 1800’s, acquiring an area that included Hampston Hill Farm and Old Hall Farm, which is located in the Woodmansey area on the outskirts of the town.

There is one other reference to Beverley, Ebenezer Robertson, formerly of Jamaica but latterly of Beverley, East Yorkshire though no reference of slave ownership has been found.

The UCL database has open access and searches can be done by individuals, firms or addresses, so it makes fascinating reading when entering searches on prominent people in political circles.

Campaign Update

Thank you to our supporters and guest panellist for our recent Gardener’s Question Time event: horticulturalists Mike Kinnes, John Hickling and Doug Stewart, and florist Jo Pearson (Floral Studio) for an excellent occasion. We raised £250.60 on the evening.

The image is a reproduction of ’An Accurate Map of Yorkshire’ by Thomas Kitchin c. 1786 (ex-Boswell Atlas), seen at www.wellandantiquemaps.co.uk.

October 2015 Update: The Unwitting Accomplice

The Unwitting Accomplice

We have heard it said by an eminent historian that Hull was on the right side of the country when it came to issues of the slave trade, but that doesn’t quite explain the full story. Whilst not a key player in the slave trade in the way that other more notable ports were (such as the Atlantic-facing Bristol and Liverpool), Hull was indirectly involved in the supply of raw materials for the expanding Yorkshire textile industry - particularly wool. As well as this, Hull ensured that its cotton industry obtained cheap raw material and all the textile industries obtained huge quantities of dyes (such as indigo and logwood) and dye fixatives.

Allison Edwards of the Diasporian Stories Research Group writes:

“The port of Hull became extremely important, for the export of West Riding raw wool and also, later, woollen and worsted cloth through the Aire – Calder navigation which connected the West Riding with the Humber before the development of the Leeds-Liverpool canal shifted trade west towards the port of Liverpool. The export of such goods to the Baltic States through Hull was reciprocated by the import of linseed, crushed in Hull for its oil, and vitally important materials for the Navy and for trading ships such as timber, hemp and large quantities of flax.  Such Baltic goods were also imported through Scarborough and Whitby - where ready use will have been made of the Baltic wood and the sails - eventually made from the imported flax - and ropes, from the imported hemp, in the construction of some of the slave ships there.”

Although tenuous in its links to Hull, what this history teaches us is that we can’t be complacent and even now as a port city we are likely to be unwittingly transporting products of slavery. This makes the recent piece of legislation (within the Modern Slavery Act 2015) that obliges transparency in any organisation’s supply chain more relevant. Whilst it will primarily affect organisations with a turnover of at least £36 million, others should take note and use this as part of their organisation’s own ethical footprint.


Campaign Update

We’d like to say a huge thank you to our 23 runners in the RB Hull Marathon. They raised nearly £3,000 towards our target of £20,000 to light the Wilberforce Monument and bring the story of abolition back into prominence.

Our next fundraising event is coming soon. Please look out for the venue, date and time to be confirmed.....


Some Key Documents

Released this month is the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner’s Strategic Plan 2015-17 which is pivotal in how anti-slavery measures will be enacted
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-anti-slavery-commissioner-strategic-plan-2015-to-2017

A series of films by Unchosen which highlight modern slavery
http://www.unchosen-films.org/films/trailers-gallery/

WISE Stolen Lives project looking at contemporary and historic slavery
http://www.stolenlives.co.uk/

Image Credit: An 'Aerial view of Queens Dock' from http://factsabouthull.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/fact-13-dock-was-largest-dock-in-britain.html

Running for Change - August update

Modern slavery is happening everywhere and that means human trafficking, slavery, forced labour, and domestic servitude.

Victims tend to be vulnerable people either from the UK or abroad. Some of the industries associated with enslavement include brothels, farms, service industries and nail bars, and all have a common theme of people being coerced to work against their will.

The Modern Slavery Act is now in force but many regions are only now shaping their responses to incidents of slavery by identifying the single point of contact for front-line staff within key service areas such as the NHS, police, children’s services, education and charities, supporting those who are abused, homeless or otherwise disadvantaged.

In addition, information from the community, no matter how small or insignificant can play a vital role in tackling modern slavery. If you see something suspicious call the police on 101 or the independent charity Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111. For victim support, The Salvation Army offer a 24-hour confidential referral helpline on 0300 303 8151.

Some of the signs to look out for include:

• Several adults who are not related living at a single address
• People being regularly collected very early in the morning and/or returned late at night
• Signs of injury, malnourishment and a general unkempt appearance
• Isolation from the rest of the community
• People who live and work at the same address under poor conditions
• Women kept within houses where there are large numbers of male visitors

Click here to find out more about definitions of modern slavery.

Campaign Update

The Hull Marathon is on September 13th - come than see us, we will be near the monument! We have 24 runners: 4 individual runners and 5 relay teams running to raise funds to light the monument and highlight the issues associated with past and modern day slavery. Please support them by sponsoring at our Virgin Money Giving page.

Our teams are named after past and present day abolitionists and these are:

• Elizabeth Heyrick - one of the few female abolitionists famed for the sugar boycotts and pushing for immediate rather than gradual abolition
• Olaudah Equiano - a slave who bought his own freedom and then pressed for reforms in the treatment of slaves and for abolition using his own story
• Thomas Clarkson - who devoted 61 years of his life in working for abolition and was instrumental throughout the movement for gathering first-hand evidence and artifacts that demonstrated the evil of slavery
• Aidan McQuade - current director of Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest human rights organisation which works to eradicate all forms of slavery
• Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves and Professor of Contemporary Slavery at the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) at the University of Hull. He works to advise governments and is a key contributor to the Global Slavery Index. Read more about them here.

Our thanks this month goes to JJ Tatten and Stewart Baxter of The Warren for their sound advice, and Calvin Innes of Drunk Animal for his amazing re-design of our publicity material.

Light the monument, Light the message - July Update

At 10pm in the evening on Wednesday, 22nd July, the sky in Kingston-upon-Hull was not fully dark and the weather was getting chilly, but the conditions were perfect to record the first test lighting of the Wilberforce monument. The above photograph was the culmination of several hours of testing by Nayan Kulkarni, one of the recently appointed artists for the development of the Public Realm for City of Culture 2017.

Hull’s most famous son, illuminated at last! But for one short hour only!

After much frustration but with dogged persistence, the Fund has reached an important milestone on the road to being able to light the monument permanently in time for 2017. The lighting test was a complete success, and our thanks go to Nayan, Andrew Bell, Garry Taylor and the many others who have supported our efforts these past eighteen months.

This will be the first of several tests, and we will post updates and photographs as these tests progress. Our focus now is to secure the funding needed to turn the test into reality and deliver a permanent and tasteful lighting solution in time for January 2017.

The monument has its own special history; it had to compete against the York School for the Blind (closed in 1958) when it was seeking money for it to be erected and again the public played its role in getting it moved. The idea to relocate it to its current position was spoken about as early as 1899, and was brought about after much public objection to the fact that there were too many tramlines nearby with some even attached to the monument itself. One reader felt strongly enough to write to the Hull Daily Mail complaining that the Wilberforce monument was being desecrated, defaced and ridiculed! As we know, in 1935 it was finally moved again with public contributions.

We know that all good things come to those who wait, so from an initial idea of illuminating the monument with gas lights in 1854, it will finally get illuminated in 2017. Quite a wait, but with your help we can make this a reality many generations on. Sadly we have come to a time when lighting it won’t be just in celebration of the deeds of a great philanthropist but it will serve as a reminder to continue his work (and those of the many others) to focus on the scourge of modern day slavery.

Please help us in our fundraising effort and be part of it on our Virgin Money Giving page.

History of the monument taken from the book by Dr Carolyn Conroy, Homage to the Emancipator (available in Waterstones Hull, Museum bookshops, Amazon or at Lulu. All proceeds go to the Fund).