please empty your brain below
I visited this Museum on the weekend that the new London Sugar and slave gallery opened.(admission was free that weekend) and there were many Afro Caribbean Londoners looking at the new gallery.

I found the museum very interesting and intend to visit again. The Sainsbury study section needs more time.

I did notice that on the large map of the River Thames, Port of London’s area, that you see facing you on exiting the lift on the 3rd floor, Brentford is shown but no mention of the old Brentford Docks.

John | 24.11.07 - 9:04 a.m. | #

I went on opening weekend too. I'm never one to miss out on free admission.

And I agree about the Sainsbury Study Centre (a floor devoted to old supermarkets) being unexpectedly fascinating and worthy of closer study.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 24.11.07 - 9:13 a.m. | #

Being a Londoner exiled in the NW this London exhibition seems to follow very closely the 3 parts of the Liverpool Slavery museum. If it's anything like as good as Liverpool's it will have done a great job. There are many exhibits you don't want to look at too closely but which remind us of "mankind's inhumanity to mankind".

sylvester | 24.11.07 - 11:28 a.m. | #

Great museum tour movie by Jonty... there ought to be more of those online for internet armchair travelers. Seems like an unexplored new niche... since so many museums have websites, but a movie is much more appealing and makes you feel like you've actually been there.

jon | Homepage | 24.11.07 - 4:49 p.m. | #

"Believing it had a right and duty to police the world, the British Government interfered in the affairs of many countries".

*considers Iraq and Afghanistan*
Plus ca change...
We never learn do we?

Blue Witch | Homepage | 24.11.07 - 6:56 p.m. | #

Did you know that white slavery was still legal in Scotland until 1799?

Thought not.

Scottish miners were slaves or as the mine owners preferred to call them, 'collier serfs’.

Even the Scottish Habeas Corpus Act of 1701 which protected people from ‘wrongous imprisonment' specifically excluded salters and colliers.

If a pit was sold, the miners became the property of the new owner and children were bound to the coal master for life at baptism.

This was die to the system of 'arling'. 'Arles' was bounty money paid to the workers at the commencement of his employment and it bound the miner for life. A pit owner could also offer arles for the children of the miner, thereby ensuring their future labour. In time this arling custom became part of the baptismal ceremony of miners’ children, thereby ensuring that they were bound to their “master” almost from the cradle to the grave.


This was all sanctioned by Scots law in 1606. This meant among other things, that miners could not remove themselves from that occupation. Beggars, tramps and those guilty of minor crimes were forced into lifelong bondage in the mines. This law was not changed until 1775 when it was then allowed that all new men entering the mines were allowed to be free, however it was not fully remedied until 1799.

The community looked down upon miners who were stigmatised by this enslaved condition and in some places miners could not be buried in church graveyards or other consecrated ground.

Where's our restitution, forty acres and a mule, eh? Never mind a freakin' museum.

Mr H | Homepage | 26.11.07 - 9:56 a.m. | #











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