An exhibition titled "Enslavement: Voices from the Archives" is being hosted at Lambeth Palace Library, revealing the historic links of the Church of England to transatlantic slavery. The exhibition features items from the Library's archives, which were studied by the Church Commissioners for England as part of their research for a new report released on 10 January 2023.
In June 2022, an interim announcement revealed for the first time that the Church Commissioners' endowment had connections to transatlantic chattel slavery, with its origins partly traced back to Queen Anne's Bounty, established in 1704. The exhibition will be open from 12 January to 4 April 2023, with free admission during weekdays and two Saturday openings.
It covers topics that link to Sutton, including several monuments in St Nicholas that record legacies left to the church and poor relief in the form of South Sea Shares. The South Sea Company was granted a monopoly in 1713 to provide enslaved African people to the Spanish-held ports in the Americas, making it a significant player in transatlantic chattel slavery.
The exhibition also features a petition from Esther Smith, a slave brought to London, to Archbishop Secker in 1760, asking to be baptised. The legal opinion given by Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, in response to Archbishop Secker's inquiry confirms that a slave brought to England is still a slave. This opinion is based on the 1729 opinion written by Yorke and Charles Talbot, who lived in Sutton.
The exhibition highlights the irony that the first named African in Sutton, John Sango, was baptised in St Nicholas by the Rector, Rev Henry Wyche, in 1677. Rev Wyche had a son, also called Henry, who emigrated to America and settled in Surrey County, Virginia, and the exhibition includes a letter from Revd Morgan Godwyn, appealing in 1680 to the Archbishop of Canterbury to allow Anglican priests to baptise enslaved people in Virginia and Barbados.
The Friends of St Nicholas Churchyard have applied for funding to publish the survey of monuments within St Nicholas Church that demonstrate the links to slavery and colonisation, which was carried out in 2020.
In June 2022, an interim announcement revealed for the first time that the Church Commissioners' endowment had connections to transatlantic chattel slavery, with its origins partly traced back to Queen Anne's Bounty, established in 1704. The exhibition will be open from 12 January to 4 April 2023, with free admission during weekdays and two Saturday openings.
It covers topics that link to Sutton, including several monuments in St Nicholas that record legacies left to the church and poor relief in the form of South Sea Shares. The South Sea Company was granted a monopoly in 1713 to provide enslaved African people to the Spanish-held ports in the Americas, making it a significant player in transatlantic chattel slavery.
The exhibition also features a petition from Esther Smith, a slave brought to London, to Archbishop Secker in 1760, asking to be baptised. The legal opinion given by Philip Yorke, 1st Earl of Hardwicke, in response to Archbishop Secker's inquiry confirms that a slave brought to England is still a slave. This opinion is based on the 1729 opinion written by Yorke and Charles Talbot, who lived in Sutton.
The exhibition highlights the irony that the first named African in Sutton, John Sango, was baptised in St Nicholas by the Rector, Rev Henry Wyche, in 1677. Rev Wyche had a son, also called Henry, who emigrated to America and settled in Surrey County, Virginia, and the exhibition includes a letter from Revd Morgan Godwyn, appealing in 1680 to the Archbishop of Canterbury to allow Anglican priests to baptise enslaved people in Virginia and Barbados.
The Friends of St Nicholas Churchyard have applied for funding to publish the survey of monuments within St Nicholas Church that demonstrate the links to slavery and colonisation, which was carried out in 2020.
