Hello and welcome to our London History Podcast, where we share
our love of London people, places and history.
This podcast is designed for you to learn things about London
that most Londoners don't even know.
I am Hazel Baker, a qualified London tour guide and CEO of
London guidedwalks.co.uk. Our walking tours are designed
for those who love London and want to make the most of their
time here. No matter whether it's for a
weekend or a lifetime, we aim to deliver well prepared and
insightful guided walks and private tours to make it an
experience worth remembering. It's been a busy time here at
London Guided Walks HQ, but don't forget our London History
Podcast section on our website now includes full transcripts,
photos, videos and recommended reading.
And you can find this section on our website
londonguidedwalks.co.uk/podcast or simply go to our website,
click on the section that says London History in the menu and
then select Podcast. We've got lots of new images and
also we've linked to related blog posts and other podcast
episodes where appropriate. Don't forget, if you enjoy what
we do then please rate and review.
It warms the cockles of my heart to read your appreciation of
this labour of love. Get that cup of tea, put your
feet up and enjoy. In today's episode, we are
stepping back into the 18th century to meet a man whose name
is both prominent and controversial, William Beckford.
Born in Jamaica in 17 O 9, Beckford became one of the
wealthiest commoners in Britain through the profits of sugar
plantations and enslaved labour. Twice Lord Mayor of London, he
built his legacy in Guildhall, on grand estates and also in
Parliament. But at what cost?
With me today is Ian Mcdermid, the City of London guide who
doesn't shy away from the tough subjects.
And he's here to help us unpick the many threads of Beckford's
life, from his influence in city politics to the uncomfortable
truths behind his wealth. If we're talking about his early
life and the wealth with William Beckford, what do we know about
his early life in Jamaica and how did he come to inherit all
of it? Well, the the simple fact is
that his father was the largest plantation owner in Jamaica and
also the speaker of the Jamaica Parliament.
And Beckford's inheritance is a little bit complicated.
He's not the eldest son, he's the second son, but is the his
elder brother dies before he does.
But actually he has to engage in very long litigation with his
mother. But eventually he does get the
majority of the estates. And in addition to his
inheritance, he has a reputation amongst other plantation owners
of being very sharp. There were economies of scale
within running plantations and. There is a process whereby.
The plantations in the Caribbean gradually get bigger and.
One of the ways that. Beckford took advantage of this
was that he would lend other plantation owners money through
a mortgage secured on their property and then when they
failed to make the payments, he had the reputation for being
rather too quick in foreclosing on those mortgages.
So he was able to build up his position largely through his
inheritance by a servo carried out in 1754.
He is shown as owning some 22,000 acres on Jamaica, making
him the largest landowner and 3000 slaves.
Wow, that's a huge amount. There is a very good book on
William Beckford by Perry Gauche, an Oxford historian.
It is the book on on the subject, and Gauchy estimates
that Beckford's average income was 14 one 4000 lbs, though he
Gauchy cautions that the figures were very volatile.
To give some perspective on to what 14,000 lbs.
Meant, about this time a junior clerk at the Bank of England
would be earning around 50 lbs. So we can think of 50 lbs as
being the very bottom of the kind of respectable ladder in
Georgian England. So you can just about survive on
£50 a year. 14,000 is a huge amount.
But in addition to this, Beckford's wealth was legendary.
There was a famous quote about him from Horace Walpole which
was endlessly repeated in at the time in newspapers and the rest
of it. And while Fontil, which becomes
Beckford's English estate in Wiltshire, burns down and after
this disaster, Walpo quotes him saying, oh, I have an odd 50,000
lbs in the. Drawer.
I will build this up again so Walpole isn't always the most
accurate, but this is the kind of jokey thing that rich people
say about their wealth in boasting and I think the point.
About the story is we we can't necessarily rely on the.
Statistics, but it was repeated, it was given.
Great credence at the time. So he's there.
He he's, he's born in Jamaica. He is sent to England.
For his education. So firstly he goes to
Westminster School and then he goes to Balliol College, Oxford.
And I think that sending your son to Westminster and then to
Oxford is partly about getting an.
Education, but it's also partly or in large measure about.
Networking and the English universities, certainly in the
18th century. Had a rather.
Poor reputation as being rather backwards and after he's been to
Oxford, he's he then goes off to Leiden and studies under the
physician Borjava. And we might say that in, in in
the Dutch Republic, he, he got a, a proper education and he
returns to Jamaica afterwards. He then makes a couple of trips
to London and then he makes, goes back to Jamaica.
But the final trip to Jamaica is in 1750.
And this is one of the important things about Bedford's.
You said that he, he was born in 17 O 9.
After 1750, he does not go back to Jamaica.
He spends the rest of his life in England, and this is one of
the important things about him. He is part of the plant.
Up proceed the absentee planters who make their way in England.
And these planters are well known for their wealth, and they
are resented for their wealth, and they are criticized for
their wealth and for trying to forward the interests of the
sugar columnies. They do not attract a particular
degree of criticism for the slave owning, however.
So I've had a little play around with the National Archives
Currency calculator. Oh.
God. Now this has the often you say,
you know when you're over dealing with any of this deal
with a pinch of salt, but a skip worth of salt would be more
realistic. So if we're looking about what
1770 are we saying? Sorry that that figure is for
the 1760s. So actually you, you, you're not
far out. OK.
So if we do for the spending power, so this is not about
wealth, this is spending power for 1760s compared to a say now
issue. It's like 2017 was the last
update. Then it was worth £1,434,472.20
which meant in 1760 you could buy with 14,000 pounds, 2043
horses, 2997 cows. If you're wanting to get a few
woolly jumpers then you could get 29,787 stones of of wool.
You could also get 8588 quarts of wheat and you could pay a
skilled tradesman for 140,000 days, which is just amazing if
you think of that kind of of of that wealth that yes, I mean to
have that kind of spending power.
Yes, yeah. I mean, the problem with all
that is that the one and a half million just doesn't sound
significant in today's terms. And I think we we'd need to
compare them with with sort of billionaires today.
Yes, I'd agree with that. I mean when also you're playing
around the Bank of England has also got a conversion calculator
has a measuring wealth and they come up with a few other little
values as well. So from a value from 1760 to now
14,000 then when you're talking the the monetary value, we've
got about 28 million and that's the reflective of goods and
services. However, if we thinking of
economic power and influence, then this is where you're coming
in in with the talking in the realms of billionaires, roughly
about two to £3 billion, which is significant.
Was it typical for men like Bedford to move between colonies
and London so freely? I mean, what does that say about
social mobility and also the empire at large?
Well, I think this plantocracy is a fairly new phenomenon and
it causes a certain amount, as already mentioned, resentment.
So it's a very much a phenomenon which contemporaries are aware
of. And in terms of social mobility,
he does use. His wealth to.
Integrate into the. British.
Landed classes and I think he does this fairly successfully,
but I think we also have to bear in mind that the as Tocrats as
they would define themselves would slightly look down their
noses at him as being new money. Not particularly worried about
the origins of this new money, but the fact that it's not old
money and the fact that he is like other members of the plant
operacy so wealthy. So he comes to England and what
he does is he does a couple of things.
One is buy property and as already mentioned, he buys this
property Fonthill, which at the time of its purchase is a
renovated Elizabethan mansion. It burns down, as we've said,
and then he rebuilds it in the latest Palladian style and he
buys a couple of other landed estates as well.
What's interesting, particularly for us concerned with London
history, is following Beckford around London, and his first
London home is #12 Upper Brook Street.
And Brook Street is very near Grovesland Square, which was
perhaps the most fashionable square at this time.
And as with these other places that we're going to mention, in
terms of London, there isn't much remaining from Beckford's
time, but it's quite interesting to walk in his footsteps and to
try and imagine the world which he inhabited. 12 Brook Street
was largely remodeled after the Second World War as the high
House of the Canadian High Commissioner.
I've never been inside it. From the outside, it looks one
of those, to my mind, very ugly post Second World War
historicizing buildings. But I've read that inside, some
of the original features remain, so it'd be interesting at some
stage to to go around and have a look at it.
Though having described it as ugly, I don't suppose anyone's
going to invite me particularly soon.
But anyway, the key thing. Is that he he's.
In the most fashionable part of London, this is where a lot of
the plantation owners live so he can go and chat with them.
But then in 1751 he moves to 22 Soho Square.
So for those people who don't know London, Soho Square is to
the east of where we're talking about and it's just to the South
of Oxford Street. And even today it has a rather
mixed feel about it. Do you agree, Hazel?
Do you agree with that? Yeah, it's got a, a story of its
own, doesn't it? It's from different eras, but it
would have been a, a, a good address to reach into
Westminster though, if you think about it.
This. Move to the East is is somewhat
significant because although Soho Square was grand, it wasn't
nearly as grand at this stage as a square was, and we can see a
process by the more easterly of the squares which had developed
first go downhill as the aristocratic people who had
patronized them and really got them going, then progressed
further out to the West. Hence the development of square
to the West and. Just a just A2 column from say
who lived in Grosvenor Square as well compared to Soho Square in
the 1760s. If you think of the biggest
names that you could. So the Duke of Portland, who
later became PM Lord Harcourt, who was a diplomat and
politician and several members of the perigee Irish, Scottish
and also English titles as well. They're all in Grosvenor Square
at this time. And it would have been a
uniform. There would have been 5 Bay
brick houses, absolutely gorgeous, top notch
architecture, none of which exists anymore.
And these town bit townhouses would have had the basements,
the three or four storeys above ground.
They weren't very high, very grand staircases, drawing rooms
on the piano. Nobiley, which is a 1st floor.
If you're in America, that's the second floor and then the
bedrooms above that. Real restrained Georgian
classicism. So that was what Grosvenor
Square was. It was synonymous with wealth
and refinement and elite society.
However, with Soho Square, this is at the same time associated
with medical man publishers, tradespeople and even
institutions. William Chambers, the architect,
he was around at that time, also Doctor William Hunter.
We've done an episode on him. He was at #28 and also I can
never pronounce his name. Isaac Sakura, the physician for
the Portuguese embassy. He he lived on the square at the
same time, as well as opera singers, French engravers,
publishers, bookbinders, useful people, I suppose, that do
things they were in in Soho Square rather than titled
genteel folk and. Perhaps it might be worth adding
in parentheses now that Grosvenor Square is a huge
disappointment. Just now.
I mean it's whereas. Soho Square is interesting to
be. Similarly with with with Brook
Street. As I was saying, although the
the original is there, it's interesting to to walk along
Upper Brook. Yeah, it's interesting to walk
along and let your imagination run with it.
I. Had a little look at prices of
Upper Brook Street and did you know that number 12 was sold in
2003? No do.
You want to know how much for? Well.
I guess that gives some light, some idea of the kind of wealth
that somebody like Beckford had Where?
He moves to in Soho square #22 is no longer.
There. There's a rather strange modern
building there, but what's quite nice about Soho Square is that
part of it. Is genuinely 18th century if
only a small. Part of it and #1 number one
Greek St. which is the House of Saint Barnabas, is still
standing. And although it's number one
Greek St. it's actually on the South side of Soho Square.
So Greek St. runs to the South, directly to the South leading
out of leading out of the square.
And this is a really grand house to stand outside.
And I remember you saying, Hazel, that you've actually been
inside. I never have, but it sounds a
really interesting building and the importance for us is that it
was leased and remodeled done up for our Beckford's younger
brother. This is Richard Beckford and he
My understanding is that the finest 18th century interiors in
Soho are within that building. But it's also very interesting
for it's later history. So it becomes the headquarters
of the Metropolitan Board of Works in the 19th century.
And this is Basil Jets headquarters, the man who
rebuilt sewers. And then it gets its modern name
because since 1862, until a couple of years ago, it was the
home of the Saint Barnabas Charity, which was a club and a
charity and which worked with London's homeless.
So a very diverse and interesting history.
But as I say, Hazel, can you say anything about visiting it and
seeing, did you see 18th century interiors when you were in
there? I don't remember seeing very
much of the interiors. It was, it was the membership
club was for those who worked in media, in the arts.
So there were a lot of modern art, sculptures and pieces of
art on the wall, which, you know, and my particular favorite
of mine. So I was a bit dazzled by all of
that. I do remember some plaster work
on the ceiling and of course that you've got the very nice
Georgian windows on the on the ground floor.
But now I don't remember very much of that.
But that might have been we just didn't have access to those
rooms or I just. That.
Wasn't just something that I remember at the time focusing
on. So then the opportunity arises.
I mean, at the moment it's closed.
London's changing all the time, as any modern city does.
So keep an eye on it. And it's worth reminding the
listeners that the transcript is also on a website.
But also we add in photos. So of these buildings that we're
talking about, there'll be photos on the show notes for you
to have a little look at as well.
And London guardedwalks.co.uk, yes, so.
Standing outside this house, looking at it from Soho Square,
it really is, is, is grand and beautiful.
So I've never been inside, but it really is interesting from
the from the outside and I think it gives some idea of the the
the the kind. Of luxury that these these
people were were used to living in.
He moves to the East, which is kind of going in the against the
flow of the fashionable and the extremely wealthy going the
other way. But you're saying it's still
respectable. And the reason for going there
is that it's a lot easier for him to get into the city from
the city is his other kind of place where he operates.
And in the city is where a lot of the.
Merchants are so it's important for him to to.
Have contact with them. And he has He opens an office.
In. Nicholas Lane.
Nicholas Lane is now bland modern office blocks, but also
he was along with the other a lot of other so-called W India
men, somebody who frequented the Jamaica Coffee House and the
Jamaica Coffee House was just off Cornhill.
And this is a very important historical site.
It's now occupied by the Jamaica Wine Bar, which I should
emphasize has nothing to do with the earlier coffee house bar
sharing the same name. So the the wine bar is built in
the 1860s, but it's built on the the coffee house.
And the coffee house is important because it was the
place where the West Indian merchantmen met.
So these are very, very wealthy merchants.
And it's important in the context of London's burgeoning
financial markets because these are one small section of the
mercantile elite who play a very important part in the
development of London's markets. And it's also historically
important because in 1652, this is the first place where coffee
is sold as a beverage in London, definitely probably the first
place in England as well. So, and it's in these little
narrow alleyways which quite evocative I think.
And it's reasonably easy to imagine yourself back in the
18th century when you're walking around them.
This is the kind of London media in which he operated.
For me, it's interesting to walk around these places and have a
look where where Beckford would have walked.
Do you even know where we get Nicholas Lane name from?
No. Go on.
Well, it. Was originally Saint Nicholas
Lane which might give a little clue, and this is a street
running North and South from Lombard St. to Candle Wick St.
and it comes from the medieval Saint Nicholas Akon church.
So earliest recordings is 1084. However that church got
destroyed in the Great Flower of London in 1666 and it was never
rebuilt. So even when Beckford is walking
around, that church has been gone for 100 years and we still
have the name now. We've spoken a bit about his
property in in London and the the estates more than the London
house are about assimilating with the English landed classes.
And he invites well to do people to visit him in Fontail.
And obviously being very, very rich, they're quite keen to go
because you're going to get really splendid entertainment if
you if you go there. The other thing that he is using
his money for is to buy his way into politics and he first of
all gains a seat as a Member of Parliament in Shaftesbury in
1747. And his younger brothers,
Richard, who we've already mentioned becomes MP for
Bristol. And I'm never quite sure how you
pronounce his brother's name. Juline's possibly becomes MP for
Salisbury, but what's significant is that Beckford
then shifts his political attention towards the City of
London and in the 1754 election he's elected as an MP for the
City. And he repeats this feat in the
remaining elections in his life, which say 1761 and 1768.
Now, the City is important because it's full of merchants
like him, but it's also important because it is one of
the most open constituencies in England.
So there are estimated to be around 6000 voters in the City
of London. The other old thing about the
City of London is that it returns four members of
Parliament and the electorate of 6000 is only really surpassed by
Westminster where there are 9000 voters.
So Westminster, it's no coincidence that's the place
where Wilkes the the, the the radical wins the elections and
then then is denied his seat, but nevertheless standing for
the city. It's about winning over a lot of
men who would be seen as relatively independent.
This is a seat in which the traditional ties.
Of. Aristocratic patronage are a lot
weaker, and this is important. And when we're talking about
aristocratic patronage in the 18th century, it might be worth
mentioning that the only other seat that returns four members
of Parliament is none other than Weymouth come Malcolm Regis.
And that reflects it rather dramatically, the fact that the
representation of the House of Commons is very much based on
how it was established in the Middle Ages, and the places that
were wealthy and important in the Middle Ages still have
outsize influence in the 18th century.
But. This business about winning the
polls in the in the cities is important for Beckford and there
are four MPs. He comes fourth in 1754 but
that's fine. And then he comes third in the
next two elections and he is also pursues a political career
within the city itself. So he becomes an Alderman in
1752 for Billingsgate. London is divided into the City
of London is divided into wards, and each of the ward returns a
varying number of councillors, common Councilman, depending on
the population there, but. Each of the wards returns.
One Alderman. So the Alderman is kind of like
the most senior post within a ward.
In 1755, he becomes a sheriff of London.
This is largely A ceremonial role by this stage, but it is a
crucial stepping stone because once you have become sheriff,
you are then eligible to become Lord Mayor.
And Beckford serves as Lord Mayor twice, once in 1762 and
once in 1769. And it's this latter time of
serving as Lord Mayor that's going to lead to his kind of
apotheosis as a champion of. English Liberties.
He. Mentioned that Beckford was Lord
Mayor of London twice. First term 1762 to 63, second
term 1769 to 1770. But it is in 1770 that he makes
a famous speech. Yeah, well part of the reason
the speech is famous is is that he shouldn't have made it in the
first place. So what happens?
Is he as Lord Mayor? He presents 2 addresses to
George the Third, and the first of these is in March.
And in this address he calls for dissolution of Parliament and
the removal of ministers. And this is kind of fairly
sailing, although, although it sounds to us very innocuous,
this is kind of sailing fairly close to the wind.
It's fairly controversial because he's using the language
of 17th century parliamentary grievances against the King,
against George the Third. And he is basically comparing
George the third to the Stuarts. And the king believes that the
address is extremely disrespectful.
And then political news is ratcheted up a little bit
because in April there is news of the Boston Massacre.
And we'll come onto a bit in the a little bit later, I'm sure the
fact that one of the things that Beckford is.
In. Opposition to the king about is
the policy on the American colonies.
He is a defender of the American colonies and doesn't want a kind
of strict imperial policy imposed on them.
And in May 1770, he makes another address to the king, and
this address is described as a formal remonstrance of the
liberal as Lord Mayor. So again, sort of very 17th
century language. And again he calls the
dissolution of parliament and the removal of evil ministers.
And that really should have been it.
The the king gives a very cool reception and that should have
been at the end of it. But then Beckford, to the
amazement of everybody present, answers the king.
And his words became venerated by generations of radicals.
And what he does is he assures the king of the loyalty of the
city and declared that any minister who sought to drive a
wedge between a wedge between the crown and the city was an
enemy of the people. And then he refers to our happy
constitution as it was established at the Glorious
Revolution. So this is, you know, revolution
principles of 1688. And by implication that George
is acting in some ways tyrannically because he is not
observing those principles. Now, George I.
Mean the 1760s, they were a turbulent decade in in British
politics anyway. So I mean, Beckford knew what he
was doing. Yes, he's being deliberately
provocative. And George the Third, I mean,
there've been some very sympathetic biographies recently
of George the Third, but he strikes me as being sort of very
well-intentioned, but a bit out of touch and possibly out of his
depth a bit. George the Third.
He is so angered by what Beckford has just said that he
can't even find the words to utter reply.
And the opposition press immediately circulates for some
accounts of Beckford's exchange. And he's encouraged to commit
his words to papers. So he's speaking extemporary
before the king. But in two days, a text of what
was this spontaneous speech appears in the press and the
corporation that is the Council of the City of London, that they
love all this because they're they're against tyranny.
They rely heavily on the American colonies for trade.
And they meet to vote thanks to the mayor.
And then the following month, Beckford dies and he is
immediately acclaimed by radical papers as a martyr to their
cause. So medals are struck
commemorating him. And already there's the sort of
fairly brisk market in spoons and tankards celebrating him.
And Common Council, which is the the Council of the City of
London, they vote for a statue of Beckford to be placed in
Guildhall. And this is Julie, executed by
John Francis Moore, who has already done a statue of
Beckford. And the one he makes for
Guildhall shows Beckford, and he's standing and he's
surrounded by two figures. One of these female figures
represents the City of London. She's in mourning.
She's got her Mace, her sword of state and her cap of maintenance
on her head. These are all symbols of the
City of London. And on the other side is a
figure representing trade and navigation, who is in this
drooping posture with a cornucopia representing the
benefits of trade, and with a compass and an anchor.
And in the on the in the middle of the pedestal, there is
engraved the the speech that Beckford had made.
So here we have this funerary monument to this champion of
English liberty standing in Guildhall.
And of course he was the largest slave owner of the time.
And what I think is very interesting is using this statue
as a kind of example of the way contemporaries regarded slavery.
And we earlier on did a, a podcast on slave London and, and
the slave trade. And one of the themes of that
was how there's this sort of big move in the 18th, late 18th
century when the anti slavery movement gets going.
But before then, people aren't really exercised by slavery.
They're not really bothered by it.
And it's kind of like a quiet assumption.
And the slave owners, like Beckford, don't need to, don't
really feel the need to justify why they're earning slaves.
They don't write about it, it's just property to them.
And it's only when the anti slavery movement really gets
going. That they come out of the
woodwork and then start talking about property rights and why
it's quite right that they should own slaves.
And this, this sort of absence of commentary, I think fits in
with Beckford's life. So he dies in 1770.
This is when the anti slavery movement is just about to get
going really. And it's two years after his
death that in 1772 you have the famous Somerset case, which is a
case which is taken as saying that slavery is antithetical to
English common law. We're not quite sure what the,
the ruling actually said. But the important thing is that
people took it as meaning that. And that has two big important
implications. The, the, the 1st is a practical
one that you can't really have slaves in England.
And the really important practical part of that is.
That if you. Are an owner of slaves in
England, or black servants as you might like to call them.
You cannot legally threaten them with sending them back to the
sugar colonies, which was a major sort of force of coercion,
a major power that you had over them.
And people still did this on the after the case.
You could not do it openly. It says that in English law,
slavery is is is completely foreign to the rights of people
under English common law. Well, why can you not then
extend those rights to parts of the British Empire?
So it becomes a kind of great rallying cry for the anti
slavery cause. But this this happens after his
death and he he's just before then and.
There. Aren't many references, as I
say, from Beckford about slavery.
So occasionally he makes comments about people with dark
skin being well able to bear the heat and therefore serve as
soldiers in the Caribbean. Sort of fairly typical racist
view of people of a different skin.
We mentioned Fontil, he has black servants there and a
couple of the servants are called Wilkes and Liberty.
So this sounds very much like the kind of jokey names you
might give to pet animals, which I think sort of expresses a lot
of his his attitude. But another really interesting
thing happens shortly before he dies, and that is that Granville
Sharp, who is the the great campaigner who is behind a lot
of the cases, including the Somerset case.
And Granville Sharp had produced this great book arguing that
slavery was not compatible with with English common law.
And obviously he he wins to some extent this argument, the
Somerset case. But prior to that, this has been
a very contested point. And he's not a lawyer, but he he
trains himself and he writes this book.
And what he does is throughout he champions the causes of
runaway slaves. And he sees an advert put for
Beck put up by Beckford for one of his servants or slaves who's
run away. And Granville Sharp writes to
him, say, asking him to reconsider his attitude to
slaves and. Also sends him a copy.
Of his, his, his, his, his book. And all we get from Beckford is
a brusque reply and the return of the manuscript.
So I think that sort of sums up Beckford's attitude towards
slavery. And then?
We're thinking about Sharp and what he was doing, really not
just the legal but also the moral arguments framing slavery
as incompatible not only to British law but also to
Christian ethics, He argues. There's a particular line.
He says the enslaved of fellow subjects under the king and the
law must protect them. What?
Yes, I think there are a lot of things coming together at the
end of the 18th century, which you just mentioned, which is the
most important, which is evangelical Christianity.
And it's the spread of evangelical Protestantism.
And these people are absolutely up in arms.
And in particular, they're they're worried about the
spiritual conditions of people who are enslaved.
But also you've got the Enlightenment in the background,
the idea that the relationships between people should be based
on reason, difficult to reconcile with this terrible
system of slavery. You've got the increasing
importance of polite society, and it the the.
Spread of tea. Drinking, which is ironic in a
way because they're with their tea they're they're, they're
consuming sugar. But that again is quite awkward
because if you've got this kind of genteel society and yet your
sugar is made by these people living these, these, these
absolutely appalling conditions. And one of the aspects of anti
slavery is that they, they, they champion the cause of sugar that
is not produced by slaves. And then finally also at the end
of the 18th century, and this is kind of like the really radical
and minority wing of it. You also have the growing idea
of rights that men in men and women to some extent implicitly
have rights just by being humans and that they should not be
treated in degrading way. So all of these things come
together. But Beckford is kind of on the
hinge of that development. And he is able to live his life.
And to our eyes, it's it's it's an immense irony that he is seen
as a champion of English liberty.
It wasn't totally an irony free zone for him because at the time
when he becomes Lord Mayor, in 1769, when you become Lord
Mayor, you throw a big dinner, it costs a huge amount of money.
If you're Beckford, it costs a really big amount.
And somebody wrote an anonymous little verse that circulated and
circulated in large numbers and the verse went for Beckford.
He was chosen mayor, a white of high renown to see a slave he
could not bear unless it were his own.
So some people at least were alive to the contradictions in
appearing as this kind of great champion who has this funerary
statue erected to him and yet was a big slave owner.
And of course, that irony goes down to the present time,
because. The City of London has been left
with this rather awkward inheritance in Guild hall of
this statue to this big slaveholder.
Not not only his statue, but kind of heralding him as a a
champion of English liberty. And a couple of years ago they
had a debate about what to do with it and one of the council's
wanted it removed. In the end, they decided to keep
it in situ and to put a plaque up explaining.
That he was. A slave owner.
One is that unfortunately since COVID, Guildhall has no longer
been open to the public, which is a big shame because it it's,
it's a fascinating building. The other thing is people must
make up their own minds on this. It was his statue that
originally got me interested in Beckford because I was wondering
around Guildhall and I actually saw this statue and I, I think
it's sort of described by people in the know as being a, a fine
piece of 18th century carving. But I don't think anybody would
say it's a kind of work of art. It's just it's just one of these
sort of funeral monuments to another 18th century grandy,
but. You.
Read it and I thought, hang on, didn't wasn't this guy the the
big slave owner? And of course, it just makes the
statue immensely interesting once you once you sort of
realise that here is this man who's being celebrated as a
champion of English liberty and yet he was the biggest slave
owner of of the day. You think there's only thing in
it about him dying in 1770 is that he he died before the big
change where he could have said something that was not of the
time, you know, not going with the flow of the abolition of
slavery. And then he would have like
inevitably kind of been cancelled.
Do you think he died early enough to, to stop him putting
his his foot in it? Yeah, I.
Think that had he died 10 years later, the erection of a statue
to him might well have been a lot more controversial.
I mean, we're talking about people in the city who are
fairly are there in commercial, but also the anti slavery
movement certainly had its strong supporters in the City of
London. A lot of the activity occurs in
London. So yes, I think that's
absolutely right that it was. I mean, it's astonishing that
his reputation was what it was. But I think what you're saying
is absolutely right. Had he died a bit later on, it
probably wouldn't have happened. Anybody wanting to learn more
about the transatlantic slave trade and London Episode 126 is
when Ian and I discussed that. So have a little listen to that
to try and, you know, build a bigger picture of what's what's
going on here. So, Ian, you were talking about,
you know, his immense wealth and how he had not so much of an
interest into the, the welfare or even the human element of
slave people. Is there anywhere else other
than Guildhall, can we see anything of of Beckford and his
legacy? Well, I.
Mentioned earlier that the, the, the man who does the statue in
Guildhall does another statue of him that's in one of the London
guildhalls. And I think that this is the
Ironmongers and Beckford was a member of the Ironmongers Guild.
And I think that I've not been there myself, but I think that
they, they put up an explanation again saying who he was.
So that's part of his inheritance.
Otherwise, I don't think there is a great deal.
I mean, Fonthill was famously remodeled by his son and perhaps
people will probably know the Beckford name from the son more
than the father. The son was very famous as well,
the romantic novelist, but also for rebuilding Fonthill in a neo
Gothic style at immense expense with enormous towers, really,
really tall, which was destroyed by wind eventually.
And he's also very famous because he was homosexual and he
I don't think that anybody he sort of championing gay rights
ever mentions him because of the connection with slavery.
But he was forced to live in exile and became marginalized
when Fontil, he entertained people like Horatio Nelson and
Lady Hamilton, who were similarly put aside because of
the scandalous nature of of their relationship.
But nothing survives, unfortunately, of the Font
hills, the Palladium or, or, or or the Neo Gothic.
So it's a question really, as we were saying earlier, of walking
around these places in London and trying to use your
historical imagination to recreate what it was like.
One of the things that follows on from the enormous controversy
over statues to slave owners and the controversy concerning
monuments is that people are very reluctant to admit to
slaving history, which in a way is a shame simply because the
historical roots are so interesting.
I think that it's, it's incumbent upon modern society in
Britain to recognize the importance of the slave trade in
early modern Britain, and we should be remembering the
importance of the slave trade and the places associated with
somebody like Beckford. Is it worth circling back to
what you were mentioning about relationships with key Members
of Parliament, including Wilkes? Yes.
That's, I think, worth connecting it.
So in episode 91, we do an episode about the radical MP
John Wilkes. But they had an interesting
relationship, didn't they? Yeah.
Well, this is one of the interesting things about
Beckford and reflects the fact that we've been talking about
the very end of his career when he undergoes his apotheosis as
this champion of English liberty.
But also the fact that he stands as an MP for the city is that he
is in of radical politics would be too strong a word for it.
But he's he's on the sort of he's on the kind of spectrum
towards radicalism. And one of the things that he
does in Parliament is he stands up and he defends Wilkes.
And we've, we've already mentioned the fact that he has
two slaves on his estate, which he calls Wilkes and Liberty.
Wilkes and Liberty being the rallying call of many radicals
at this period. Yeah, and it's worth pointing
out that Wilkes is imprisoned in 1768, so riots were broken out
in London and they're called the The Wilkes and Liberty protests.
Beckford publicly supports Wilkes's right to free speech
and also to trial. And he also champions of various
other causes which are certainly anti monarchical to some extent.
So he is very much against aristocratic corruption which
feeds into his championship of Wilt.
Wilt wins the election to Westminster 3 or 4 times and is
doesn't denied his seat. And this is what enrages a lot
of people. And he, Beckford is very much
against sort of aristocratic corruption.
And there's a debate in the late 1760s on the civil list, which
is the money granted to George the Third.
And he stands up and makes a speech saying no, we, we need to
have proper scrutiny of where this money is going.
It's far too much money. And he's also.
Key. Thing in his politics is that he
is an ally of Pitt the Elder. So Pitt the Elder in the 1750s
is advocating an imperial policy.
This is important. This is something that the the
the Beckford likes. But Pitt is somebody who is
disliked by the King, and he comes to power and Beckford is a
key ally of him. One other thing that Beckford
champions ever already mentioned is the cause of the American
colonies. Now this is largely, I suspect,
because the people who own plantations in the Caribbean do
not want to be treated like colonialists themselves.
They, they do not want troops billeted on them.
They, they want proper rights and they're frightened to some
extent by the attempts of the British government to impose or
reimpose greater control on on North America.
So he is very much For these reasons a champion of liberty
who might say in quote marks, but he also uses his politics to
argue for policies which he is in favour of partly because of
his plantation interests. So one of the things that Pitt
considers doing is introducing a sugar tax to help pay for the
the war against the French. And then he waters this down and
it was made into a sort of general tax.
And behind this can be seen the influence of of Beckford.
But the key thing about Pitt is advocating a forward imperial
policy of aggression. And this is something that
Beckford supports. And I think as plantation
owners, they're all worried about the French being able to
sail into the the West Indies and simply take their their
islands from them. But their attitude is a bit
ambivalent because they don't really want the British taking
over the French sugar colonies because that would mean more
sugar coming onto the market. So it's a little bit double
edged. Beckford achieves great power in
the second Pitt administration, which is in 1768.
Pitt returns to power, and he, perhaps rather hypocritically,
accepts a place in the House of Lords.
And accepting a place in the House of Lords means that he
can't manage the House of Commons himself.
And also Pity's always I'll, so he's not really politically
active and he relies on left tenants to carry out the.
Business in the Commons for him and one of these people is
Beckford. But.
During the really important. Time.
Of Pitt in power, which is in the late 1750s and early 1760s,
Beckford although he doesn't have that degree of influence,
he's always writing letters to Pitt and this is the key period
in which. Pitt champions a more aggressive
war against the French, so the Seven Years War breaks out in
1756. He begins badly.
Pitt comes to power. He loses power.
He then comes power again. The war continues on.
In in a bad way for the British. But then in 1759, under Pitt's
direction, the British win this great series of victories.
So they drive the French out of Canada, they drive the French
out of India, they destroy the French fleet and this is the
Annis Mirabilis. And it's all done under Pitt and
Beckford is there really supporting Pitt in this.
And then the following period, Pitt loses power and. 2.
Things happen. 1 is that the King's favorite boot comes to
power. And a lot of people, including
Beckford, hate this. And he hates it partly because
it's aristocratic influence. It's the king, in his eyes,
acting tyrannically in in appointing his his favorite, the
man who'd been his chooser as his Prime Minister.
But also in 1763, the British signed a peace with the French
pit, who is out of power. Hates.
This treaty as being too soft on the French and and Beckford
joins in with him. So we can see Pitt.
Using his influence as a member of power to forward the
influence of the plantation owners in the West Indies, plus
this kind of agenda of English liberty.
And it's the pursuit of West Indian interests, as mentioned
earlier, that incurs the contempt to some extent of
critics of the time. That's the thing that really
bothers them, not the fact that he is this massive owner of
slaves in Jamaica. Now, if we're talking about
friendships and linking John Wilkes, but also with, with with
Beckford, but also with Horace Walpole as well.
So Horace Walpole describes Backford as a vast, rich, tawdry
man. And for Walt Poulter to say that
Beckford's rich, you know, he really is.
And what I love is in April 1770, so just weeks before
Beckford's death of death, there he is, 22, Soho Square.
And he famously hangs a huge banner across his house in Soho
Square emblazoned with the word liberty.
Yeah, a quick gesture of support for Wilkes, who has just been
recently released. And it is Horace Walpole who
sedonically notes that the banner stayed intact because the
weather was bad and that no one went out.
But the symbolism was, you know, unmistakable.
Do like that. All of these pens, letters that
Beckford's doing and all the money he has.
And really, the only power that he feels that he has is to put
this banner in front of his own house.
Interesting that Walpole describes him as tawdry.
When we're talking about Beckford, we're coming to the
conclusion, really, that his story complicates our
understanding of London. History is not simple.
It's not black and white. There's multiple layers through
multiple lenses, and it's hard to read their acceptance or
knowledge of things. And even when we read a quote,
we don't know exactly if that is their verbatim and also in the
context in which they were spoken or written and who they
were directed to. But I do think it highlights a
really interesting story of how we can't just take down a statue
and pretend that something didn't happen.
Yeah. And.
Just to reiterate, the, the key thing about the slave owners,
including Beckford at this time is their relative silence on
slavery. And it's a, it's a bit of an odd
thing to talk about really, a sort of absence of, of
discourse. But this is a big contrast to,
for example, with the classical period, because the Romans wrote
quite extensively on, on slavery and they would write treatises
on, for example, how you should treat your slaves, IE how you
should treat your slaves well. And the British in the earlier
part of the 18th century are conspicuous for, for not doing
this. And I guess though there, there
are a couple of important things in play there.
One of them is that Roman slavery lacks this later racial
element, which is, is so crucial.
And what you do see in Rome is occasional sympathy for slaves.
So under the Emperor Nero tells us about a senator who is
murdered by one of his household slaves.
And under Roman law, if that happens, all of the household
slaves are to be executed. And there is a huge
demonstration in favour of the slaves so that there's rioting
amongst the pleds. But also there's a debate in the
Senate about the rights and wrongs of this.
And a lot of the senators stand up and say, well, look, you
can't do this. You're going to be murdering a
lot of innocent people. And you could say, well, this
Roman law is incredibly harsh that the Senate in the end
decides that no, we need to keep this law because we we need to
discourage slaves from murdering their their owners.
But nevertheless, it it's hard to imagine that kind of massive.
Degree of popular. Sympathy for slaves who are
going to be executed in 18th century Britain and in addition
to the racial element, I think the fact that it's it's a long
way away that it's it's tucked into the Caribbean also is
important. But there's also, it's a
positive aspect to Roman culture here that there is this kind of
classicizing civilized idea of how a man in particular should
behave in a correct way. And then finally, we begin to
see that coming into the late 18th century discourse in
Britain. So as always, difficult to argue
from an absence of evidence, but the the the the absence of slave
owners justifying what they're doing in a way in itself speaks
volumes. Well, that brings us to the end
of today's journey into the extraordinary life and legacy of
William Backford, a man of immense wealth, bold convictions
and larger than life ambition. From the halls of Parliament to
Soho Square, Beckford left a mark on 18th century London that
still echoes in politics, architecture and the ongoing
conversation about Liberty. Complex, controversial and
undeniably influential, his story reminds us of how power,
principles and public spectacle can collide in the making and
rewriting of history. If you enjoyed this episode,
don't forget to subscribe, leave us a review and share it with
someone who loves and told stories from the past.
As I mentioned. For sources, images, more
context, links to the other episodes that I've mentioned,
then check the show notes on londonguidedwalks.co.uk/podcast
until next time.