The National Railway Museum and universities across Yorkshire and the north of England will investigate the possible links between railways and the global slave trade as part of a £9,000 research project.
York, Leeds, and Sheffield Universities are backing the project. It will “examine the economic and social legacy of slavery and steam across the latter nineteenth and twentieth century”.
The committee will examine whether steam power assisted imperial expansion, and it will also evaluate trains’ role in expanding.
The £9,000 research project – titled Slavery and Steam: steam power, railways and colonialism – was developed by curators from the National Railway Museum, the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester and Leeds Industrial Museum, as well as research hubs at the three universities.
The National Railway Museum and universities across Yorkshire and the north of England will investigate the possible links between railways and the global slave trade as part of a £9,000 research project. Pictured: Chinese Government Railways KF7 locomotive
Jonathan Finch from the University of York is the lead of this project. He said that little has been done on the development and history of railways.
He called the relationship between steam power & global trade ‘complex’ and added that: “Steam engines replaced wind energy on British cotton plantations, waterpower in British textile mills, and steamboats transported goods and raw materials around the globe.
Railroads were crucial to expanding colonial power across Asia, Africa and opening up North America’s interior.
“The wealth generated by colonies is a stimulus for industrialization, even after slavery was abolished in the UK.
Winston Churchill’s coffin being taken to Weterloo Station on January 15, 1965. Staff at the Museum raised concern about Churchill’s connections to empire and colonialism in relation to the train.
The Science Museum Group, of which the National Railway Museum is part, has been reassessing the legacy of rail travel and colonialism after last year’s Black Lives Matter protests, The Telegraph reports.
According to the newspaper, internal records at the museum indicated that staff had found “little interpretation” regarding the role of railways in the empire in their collection of nearly 300 locomotives.
Museum documents indicate that staff have highlighted objects such as an 1896 Cape Government Railway locomotive, Chinese Government Railways KF7 locomotive, and a quarter scale model of a Bombay Barda, Central India Railway locomotive.
The museum staff have raised concerns previously about Winston Churchill’s train in 1965 that transported his coffin. They said it could be the subject of protest because of Churchill’s links to empire and colonialism.
There were concerns about George and Robert Stephenson’s Rocket Steam engine. Staff said it could spark protests as Robert’s benefactor, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had links to slave-trade profits.
The Rocket was designed by George (1781-1848) and Robert Stephenson (1803-1859) and built by Robert Stephenson & Co in Newcastle in 1829. This particular model was questioned because the Liverpool and Manchester Railways had direct links to profit made from slave trade.
The National Railway Museum and universities across Yorkshire and the north of England will investigate the possible links between railways and the global slave trade as part of a £9,000 research project. After the lifting of lockdown, August 2020 saw the National Railway Museum’s reopening.
White Rose University Consortium provided funding of one year for the project. This consortium includes the Universities of York and Leeds.
Consortium hopes that the project will increase awareness about the connections between slavery, steam power, and development of railways throughout Europe and the colonies.
The White Rose University Consortium announced the project by stating: “The relationship between steampower and global trade was complex. This includes the use of steam power to power plantations, global distribution of products and new models of financing capital projects.
“Furthermore the wealth created in the colonial economic was a stimulant to industrialisation long after the abolishment of slavery in the UK or US.
The topic has received a mixed academic interest from many fields. But, very little interdisciplinary research has been done on the period between the end of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, when existing human and political networks, as well as the frameworks and structures of slavery, fed into new systems of steam and railway infrastructure.
“This research will explore the social, economic and infrastructural consequences of slavery and steam throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Dr Oliver Betts, lead researcher at the National Railway Museum, added: ‘Across the Science Museum Group through projects such as this, we are examining Britain’s colonial past to look again at the stories we tell, the voices we represent, and the challenges we face in presenting complex, hitherto untold stories to the public.’