The University of Cambridge has reaped “significant benefits” from slavery, according to a report.
The study was conducted by the Legacies of Enslavement Advisory Group, appointed in 2019 by the University’s Vice-Chancellor, Stephen Toope.
It turned out that the university and its colleges benefited from companies and individuals participating in the trade.
Prof Toope said it was “inevitable” that a university “as long established as Cambridge” would have links to slavery.
Researchers found that fellows from Cambridge colleges were involved in the East India Company, while investors in the Royal African Company also had ties to Cambridge, with both companies involved in the slave trade.
The university also received donations from investors in both companies and invested directly in another company involved in the slave trade, the South Sea Company, the study found.
“Such financial involvement has both helped facilitate the slave trade and brought very significant financial benefits to Cambridge,” states the Legacies of Enslavement report.
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Following its investigation, the group made a number of recommendations that the university said it would implement.
These include establishing its own slavery research center and enhancing existing academic links with universities in the Caribbean and West Africa.
It will also consider increasing the number of postgraduate scholarships and grants for black British and African and Caribbean students, as well as commissioning an artwork commemorating the achievements of black academics at the university.
Prof Toope said slavery was “a widely accepted system of exploitation until the 19th century”.
He said the report “helps us better understand the nature” of the university’s links to slavery.
“It also offers insight into some of the ways in which the university, as an education provider, played a role in promoting some of the ideas that underpinned the practice of enslavement,” he said.
In 2019, St. Catharine’s College removed a historic bell that “most likely” came from a slave plantation.
Earlier this year, Clare College accommodation, originally called The Colony, was “rebranded as Castle Court”.
But Jesus College lost a petition to move a memorial to Tobias Rustat, who invested in the Royal African Company.
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