William Gladstone’s descendants to apologise for family’s part in slave trade

The family of Victorian-era prime minister William Gladstone are due to travel to the Caribbean to apologise for the historical part an ancestor played in the slave trade.

William Gladstone speaking in House of Commons, London, 1882. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

William, who was Liberal prime minister on four occasions in the 19th century, was son of Leith-born John Gladstone – one of the largest slave owners in the British West Indies.

Charlie Gladstone, the great-great-great grandson of John, said he “felt absolutely sick” when he found out about his family’s slave-owning past.

He and five other family members are due to travel to Guyana in South America to make an apology for John’s ownership of Africans.

They also reportedly intend to pay reparations to fund further research into the impact of slavery.

John Gladstone was a Scottish merchant who made a fortune as a Demerara sugar-planter and had hundreds of enslaved people working in plantations in the decade before emancipation.

The 1823 rebellion in Demerara, a British colony that later became part of Guyana, started on one of Gladstone’s plantations, with some historians arguing its violent suppression had a role in bringing an end to slavery.

After slavery was abolished in 1833, John received the largest compensation payment made by the Slave Compensation Commission – around £93,000, the modern equivalent of about £10 million.

In 1831, William Gladstone used his first Commons speech to argue in favour of compensation for slave owners.

But by 1850, his family said he was a “changed man”, with the former leader describing slavery as “by far the foulest crime that taints the history of mankind”.

Charlie, president of Gladstone’s Library in Hawarden, North Wales, told the Observer: “John Gladstone committed crimes against humanity.

“That is absolutely clear. The best that we can do is try to make the world a better place and one of the first things is to make that apology for him.”

The Gladstone family plan to make their official apology at the opening of the University of Guyana’s International Institute for Migration and Diaspora Studies, which it is reportedly helping to fund with a grant of £100,000.

Rob Gladstone, Charlie’s brother, called on the UK Government to begin “reparative justice” by apologising for slavery within the British Empire.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has refused to apologise for the UK’s role in slavery.

Asked at Prime Minister’s Questions in April by Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy whether he would offer a “full and meaningful apology”, the Conservative Party leader said: “No.”

He added: “What I think our focus should now be on doing, while of course understanding our history in all its parts and not running away from it, is making sure that we have a society that is inclusive and tolerant of people from all backgrounds.

“That is something that we on the Government benches are committed to doing and will continue to deliver.

“But trying to unpick our history is not the right way forward and is not something we will focus our energies on.”