Some of Britain’s most elite schools benefited from slavery through substantial donations and endowments worth the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds today, research has found.
Eton College, Christ’s Hospital school and Liverpool’s Blue Coat grammar are among the 29 schools still operating that have significant documented links to donations from people who profited from slavery in the 18th and 19th centuries.
In some cases, former students received significant compensation from the British government after abolition, suggesting that their families – who paid their school fees – were heavily involved in the slave trade.
The study by academics at Durham and Cambridge universities is the first to comprehensively draw together detailed links between British enslavers and investors with the schools they founded or supported using wealth derived from slavery.
Most of the schools identified are private. The research comes as the finances of independent schools in England are the centre of a debate over Labour plans to add VAT to school fees and strip them of charitable status.
