Bank of England Museum to unveil two plaques about its part in the slave trade

The Bank of England Museum is to publicly display two slave trade reparation plaques.

The signs, which carry the phrase Black Lives Matter, emphasise that the Bank was involved in paying millions in compensation to slave owners when the practice was abolished in 1833. They also commemorate the 760,000 Africans that were taken.

A second plaque concerns former director Sir Gilbert Heathcote, who was deeply involved in the sale of humans as slaves.

The museum, in the same building as the bank founded in the 17th century, made the decision as part of the legacy of its Slavery & the Bank exhibition, which ended earlier this year.

The Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved African Corrective Historical plaques are the brainchild of Gloria Daniels, whose greatgreat-grandfather was enslaved in Barbados.

They identify plantation owners, merchants and institutions, as well as pointing out the number of enslaved people they had.

A blog post written by curator Jennifer Adam and exhibitions manager Kirsty Parsons says: “The Bank of England was nominated to receive this plaque by TTEACH to represent its involvement in the compensation process. The bank, as the Government’s banker, was responsible for distributing payments to those who claimed compensation for the loss of their enslaved workforce.

“While former slave owners were compensated, the formerly enslaved received nothing. Around £20million was paid, a sum that was added to the national debt. The last repayment of that debt was made in 2015.

“This means descendants of the enslaved contributed to paying off the debt that had been created to compensate their enslavers.”