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Justin Welby discloses family link to slavery
from Religion Media Centre:
October 22, 2024
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has revealed that his late biological father, Sir Anthony Montague Browne, a private secretary to Winston Churchill, had an ancestral connection to the enslavement of people in Jamaica and Tobago. In a personal statement released to the press last night, he said that Sir Anthony was the great-great-grandson of Sir James Fergusson, the fourth Baronet of Kilkerran and the owner of enslaved people at the Rozelle plantation in St Thomas, which had 200 enslaved people at its height.
It's reported that the Fergusson family shared compensation of £3,591 in 1836 -- estimated at more than £3m today. The money was part of a £20m compensation package from the British government for the loss of "property" after slavery was abolished.
The report says that Justin Welby only discovered Sir Anthony was his father in 2016, three years after his death, and he received no money from him in life, or from his estate.
In the statement, the Archbishop reiterated his commitment to addressing the "enduring and damaging legacies of transatlantic slavery".
The Church Commissioners has traced its £9billion endowment fund partly to Queen Anne's bounty, based on slavery, for which it has expressed deep sorrow.
It has pledged £100m which it hopes will rise to £1bn from other donors, to address past wrongs.
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