Drax of Drax Hall - How One British Family Got Rich And Stayed Rich From Sugar Slavery

'A damning reminder that the ghosts of empire are not distant - they are living, breathing and, in some cases, still collecting rent' - The Observer

'Eloquently reminds us that history is never truly past' - The New Yorker

'A family story straight out of Game of Thrones' - Alex Renton, author

While the British landed gentry profited from chattel slavery in the West Indies, the Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax family of Dorset pioneered it. This is the story of the British Empire and slavery told through one family's grotesque history, and how its legacy is alive and well today.

List of contents

List of Plates

Foreword by David Olusoga

Abbreviations

Prologue

Maps

Introduction

Part I Drax Hall, Barbados

Part II The Erles of Charborough

Part III Barbados and the English Civil War

Part IV Post-Restoration

Part V The Grosvenor Years

Part VI The Wicked Squire

Part VII Four Barrels and a Smoking Gun

Part VIII Nemesis

Archives

Family Trees

Ten Major Dorset Landowners 1883-2020

Acknowledgements

Index

About the author

Paul Lashmar is Reader in Journalism at City St George's, University of London. He has taken an interest in the history of slavery since he developed a Channel 4 series on Britain's slave trade in 1999. He has been an investigative journalist in television and print, and on the staff of The Observer, Granada Television's World in Action current affairs series and The Independent. He is the author, co-author or co-editor of six books. He lives in Dorset.
David Adetayo Olusoga OBE is a British-Nigerian historian, writer, broadcaster and BAFTA-winning film-maker.

Summary

An unbroken British bloodline of slavery, exploitation, and unrepentance

Product details

• Authors: Paul Lashmar, Lashmar Paul
• Assisted by: Olusoga David (Foreword)
• Publisher: Pluto
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.03.2025
• EAN: 9780745350516
• ISBN: 978-0-7453-5051-6
• No. of pages: 448
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Non-fiction book > History > Miscellaneous; Capitalism, Dorset, Barbados, British Empire, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Colonialism & Post-Colonialism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Slavery, HISTORY / Caribbean & West Indies / General, Colonialism & imperialism, Economic systems & structures, Colonialism and imperialism, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Social Classes & Economic Disparity, Slavery & abolition of slavery, Slavery and abolition of slavery, Genealogy, heraldry, names & honours, Genealogy, heraldry, names and honours