Sailor's African photographs relive moment when slaves were freed

Published on Monday 30 April 2007 00:25

RARE photographs showing African slaves being freed by the Royal Navy have gone on display for the first time.

Samuel Chidwick, 74, has donated the photographs taken by his father, Able Seaman Joseph Chidwick, on board HMS Sphinx off the East African coast in about 1907.

The photographs, on show at the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth, are part of an exhibition marking the bicentenary of the passing of the bill to abolish the slave trade.

They show a sailor removing the manacle from a newly-freed slave as well as the ship's marines escorting captured slavers.

Mr Chidwick, of Dover, Kent, said: "The pictures were taken by my father, who was serving aboard HMS Sphinx while on armed patrol off the Zanzibar and Mozambique coast.

"They caught quite a few slavers and those particular slaves that are in the pictures happened while he was on watch.

"That night a dhow sailed by and the slaves were all chained together. He raised the alarm and they got them on to the ship and got the chains knocked off them. They then questioned them and sent a party of marines ashore to try to track the slave traders down. They caught two of them and I believe they were of Arabic origin.

"My father thought the slave trade was despicable, the slaves were treated very badly, so when they got the slavers they didn't give them a very nice time."

Jacquie Shaw, a spokeswoman for the Royal Naval Museum, said: "The collection comprises a fascinating and important snapshot of life on anti-slavery duties off the coast of Africa."