McCarthy, Mark; (2020) The slave trade and emancipation recalled by street names in Camden Town, London NW1. Transactions of the London & Middlesex Archaeological Society , 71 1-19 [AAM version].

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Abstract

The slave trade and emancipation, in economic and social aspects, can be recalled through the street names of Camden Town, an inner north London suburb. Jeffreys Street was built in 1810-1830 on land that the first Lord Camden gained from his wife Elizabeth Jeffreys: her family's wealth was gained as importers of tobacco from America and merchants in the trans-Atlantic trade. Molesworth Place was named for the second Lord Camden's wife, Frances Molesworth, who was from an established gentry family in Cornwall and Devon: her family had benefitted from plantations in the West Indies. Yet also, a nearby street, Wilmot Place, recalls a family that contributed over three generations to the emancipation of slaves: Chief Justice Sir John Wilmot affirmed the married rights of freed slaves living in England; John Wilmot chaired Parliament's Commission providing compensation for loyalists of the American Revolution, when the British Army gave freedom to slaves leaving rebel plantations; and MP cousins Wilmot-Horton and Eardley-Wilmot both promoted emancipation as well as the humane care of prisoners. While this history is about the upper classes, for whom more records remain, it contributes to understanding the colonial past within London's local history.

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