The Guardian
· collected 2026-09-14 · by Written by Morgan Ofori and David Conn; Animation by Alexander Purcell; Photography by Wayne Crichlow
Inside the Great Hall of St Bartholomew’s North Wing, alongside stately portraits of the apostle from whom London’s oldest hospital takes its name and King Henry VIII, extravagant commemorative boards adorn the walls.
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boards → take → walls
The Great Hall was a grand, formal space where governors weighed their philanthropic donations and drafted their wills, many while investing in the stock of companies built on the trafficking of enslaved Africans.
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governors → weigh → Africans
Today, many of those donors are commemorated in acrylic gold paint on the boards.
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many → commemorate → boards
The Register of British Slave Traders, a joint venture between Lancaster University, the University of Manchester and University College London, includes biographical data on every known investor in Britain’s transatlantic trafficking of enslaved African people from the 16th to 19th centuries.
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Register → include → centuries
It reveals how wealthy individuals, often enriched by the proceeds from racialised chattel enslavement, donated to hundreds of church parishes and helped to fund schools, hospitals and charities across the country.
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individuals → reveal → country
Prof William Pettigrew, who led the project, said the register had established connections with roughly 900 organisations.
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register → lead → organisations
“Most of those organisations sought to improve the lives of ordinary Britons,” he added.
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he → seek → Britons
The register reveals at least 50 people with deep financial ties to St Barts who are directly linked to this history.
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who → reveal → history
Among the names etched on to the boards in the Great Hall is Sir Jeffrey Jeffreys, a London merchant who left an unspecified sum to the hospital in his will.
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who → etch → will
In 1694, the Jeffreys-funded ship Hannibal, commanded by Capt Thomas Phillips, docked in Barbados.
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ship → fund → Barbados
This concluded a harrowing journey in which only 372 of the 700 enslaved African people bought at Whydah (Ouidah in modern-day Benin) survived the Atlantic crossing.
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372 → conclude → crossing
Phillips’s journal, one of the few surviving records of the voyage, details the horrors onboard, where captives were subjected to branding and calculated psychological cruelty.
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captives → survive → branding
“Then we marked the slaves we had bought in the breast or shoulder, with a hot iron, having the letter of the ship’s name on it,” he wrote.
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he → mark → it
The Africans on his ship, he recorded, held “a more dreadful apprehension of Barbadoes than we have of hell”.
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we → record → hell
Phillips recalled using African overseers, who were enslaved themselves, to keep order, whipping any plotters of mutiny.
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who → recall → mutiny
There were grave consequences of the squalid conditions on the ship; many who died on the Hannibal were killed by smallpox, dysentery, starvation and suicide.
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who → be → smallpox
Some were thrown overboard when dead or dying to prevent the spread of disease and to protect profits.
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Some → throw → profits
The voyage’s mortality rate was close to 50%, cementing its place as one of the deadliest crossings in the history of the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.
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rate → cement → Africans
The 1694 Hannibal crossing was one of 13 to which Jeffreys was financially linked.
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Jeffreys → link → which
His latter term coincided with the end of the company’s royal monopoly on trading enslaved Africans, from which he profited handsomely.
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he → coincide → which
He also inherited a fortune from his tobacco-trading uncle, John Jeffreys, in 1688.
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He → inherit → 1688
During Jeffrey Jeffreys’ time with the RAC, the organisation made 170 crossings.
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organisation → make → crossings
Others commemorated at St Barts have links to the trafficking of enslaved Africans.
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Others → commemorate → Africans
Edward Colston, whose statue was toppled by Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol in June 2020, appears in the register.
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statue → topple → register
William Prichard, once president of St Barts and a leading City merchant, bought £600 of RAC stock in January 1678.
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Prichard → lead → January
Sir Robert Geffrye, who left money to the hospital and other philanthropic causes in his will, was a substantial investor in the trafficking of enslaved Africans, selling £1,600 (the equivalent of £350,000 today) of RAC stock on 5 January 1692 alone.
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who → leave → January
Diane Abbott, the MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, has called for the removal of Geffrye’s statue at the Museum of the Home in Hoxton.
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Abbott → call → Hoxton
These connections run through the heart of the City of London’s political structure, with several lord mayors commemorated in the Great Hall.
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mayors → run → Hall
Sir William Humphreys, who left legacies to three London hospitals including St Barts, sat on the RAC’s court of assistants from 1683-85 and from 1688-90.
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who → leave → 1688
In 1711, he attended Board of Trade hearings on the company’s operations on the west African coast, three years before he became lord mayor.
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he → attend → coast
His predecessor, Samuel Stanier, who also left money to St Barts in his will, sold off most of his substantial £4,000 holding in the RAC in February 1698, before his lord mayoralty started in 1713.
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mayoralty → leave → 1713
After the British crown was restored in 1660, the trafficking of enslaved Africans became more formalised and was a lucrative source of funds for merchants.
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trafficking → restore → merchants
The private banker Sir Robert Vyner (also known as Viner) became a central figure in the City and was lord mayor of London from 1674-75.
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banker → know → 1674
He first invested in the Company of Royal Adventurers in January 1663; by August, his holding had grown to two shares, worth £800.
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holding → invest → shares
In January 1665, he bought a further £1,200 from the Countess of Chesterfield, and was elected to the company’s board where he served from 1667-70.
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he → buy → 1667
He continued attending board meetings, without formally serving, from 1671 until the company’s dissolution.
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He → continue → dissolution
This positioned him to invest heavily in the RAC, the Adventurers’ successor, subscribing with £5,000 (the equivalent of £1.18m today) and serving as an assistant from 1672-74.
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This → position → 1672
During his involvement with both companies, they undertook 81 crossings.
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they → undertake → crossings
Vyner left a portion of the remainder of his estate to St Barts after his death in 1688.
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Vyner → leave → 1688
Like St Thomas’ hospital in Lambeth, south London, St Barts provided free medical care to the city’s sick and poor people, sustained by charitable donations from City merchants and rental income from land and property across the capital.
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Barts → provide → capital
…and 8 more, not listed.
