Slavery and Blackburn’s Cotton – Part Two

This is the second blog in a series looking at slavery connections within English Ms 1199. This blog is focused on the triangular trade from the port of Lancaster, which in the eighteenth century, was the fourth busiest British slave port after Liverpool, London and Bristol (albeit on a much smaller scale). Perhaps surprisingly, given that many of them were prominent abolitionists, most of that trade was run by Quakers. Members of the Religious Society of Friends (as they prefer to be known), then shunned by mainstream society, were unable to find work, and so often began their own businesses. By the 1700s, the Lancaster Quakers had developed a global shipping network, gradually focused on the increasingly profitable trading of enslaved people to, and cotton from, the Caribbean, as textile production and demand for the raw material increased in northern England.

The port is situated a few miles down the coast from Lancaster at Glasson Dock. This area was developed for that purpose by money donated by the same Quaker families who were involved in slavery. The cotton imports through Lancaster probably explain why the Blackburn merchants built their first spinning mill in Scorton, just south of the city, rather than in East Lancashire, as transporting the raw material from the coast would have been time consuming and expensive before the construction of the canal network. There are payments in the accounts to people involved in the building of the Leeds–Liverpool Canal (1770-1816) and the Lancaster Canal (1792-1826), which connected Blackburn with both ports and enabled the movement of cotton directly to the town. It is almost certainly not a coincidence that Blackburn’s enormous cotton manufacturing boom took place on the completion of these two great navigational achievements, largely built by Irish labourers.

The Rawlinson family of Lancaster were prominent Quaker slave traders and the owners of Caribbean plantations on which enslaved people picked cotton. ‘Rawlinson of Lancaster’ is listed in the ledgers as providing cotton to the Blackburn merchants, as are later companies featuring family members which include Rawlinsons & Chorley and Rawlinson & Lindow. Abraham Rawlinson (1709-1780) and his brother Thomas (1712-1769) initiated the business, the family later rising to such prominence that Abraham (1738-1803), son of Thomas, became the city’s MP, which enabled him to oppose the abolition of slavery in parliament. The Slave Voyages website confirms that Thomas Rawlinson, Abraham, Abraham junior and his brother Henry (1743-1786) all invested in slave ships visiting Barbados, Brazil, Jamaica and Suriname – often in partnership with other Lancaster Quakers.

Abraham is listed in research on the Legacies of British Slavery website as claiming British government post-abolition reparations for enslaved people on the Gouyave and Maran Estates in Grenada. His son Henry Rawlinson, of the company Rawlinsons & Chorley, listed in Lancaster directories as ‘West India merchants’, is also mentioned in Legacies of British Slavery research, as a Grenada plantation owner with enslaved people. It is possible that the Rawlinsons were providing cotton picked from their own plantations to the Blackburn company, as Grenada was one of the key suppliers at this time. More likely, looking at where the company’s ships visited in the Caribbean, the cotton they supplied came from other plantations in the West Indies or South/Central America. William Lindow (1724-1786) began as an apprentice with the Rawlinson company, working his way up to become a partner, the business renamed Rawlinson & Lindow, and in 1771 he married Abigail Rawlinson, daughter of Abraham. Alongside investing in slave ships, Lindow also owned a share of three plantations in Grenada and St Vincent, and he transported and sold the enslaved between Caribbean islands while later living and working there.

Thomas Satterthwaite (1720-1790) was a Lancaster Quaker involved with his brother Benjamin (1718-1792) in slavery and the importation of goods produced by enslaved people in the Caribbean. Slave Voyages confirms that the Satterthwaites invested in slave trading vessels initially registered in Lancaster and then Liverpool, which visited Barbados; Charleston, South Carolina; St Lucia; Dominica; and Jamaica. Benjamin acted for the company (and others) in the Caribbean, the business dealings of the brothers outlined in the Satterthwaite Letter Books 1737-1782, fully digitised by Lancaster University Special Collections. The annual inventories in the ledgers of Cardwell, Hornby and Birley, confirm that their warehouse held cotton provided by the Satterthwaite company and show related debts owing to the family; the brothers sometimes co-invested in slavery with the Rawlinsons.

Most of the slavers who initially operated from Lancaster, moved their businesses to Liverpool later in the eighteenth century, as the port’s much larger docks offered the opportunity to increase the size of ships, and consequently the scale of trade. Slave Voyages confirms that between 1771 and 1796 a company run by John Hodgson (1736-1813), and his brother Thomas (1738-1817), who originated from Lancaster, invested in over 50 triangular journeys from Liverpool, visiting several Caribbean islands as well as US ports in South Carolina and Georgia.

According to the Historic England website in 1784 John and Thomas Hodgson built Low Mill at Caton near Lancaster. The ledgers confirm that Cardwell, Hornby and Birley paid John Hodgson several thousand pounds without confirming for what goods or services. Although there is one transaction after 1784, the others are from well before it, so these payments will almost certainly be for providing cotton to the Blackburn merchants. By 1792 the company name was Hodgson, Capstick & Co, which advertised a bounty for the return of Low Mill runaway apprentices. The ad confirmed that they had ‘procured’ the children from Liverpool Workhouse. Newspaper adverts indicate that this was not unusual at that time; mill owners effectively ‘bought’ child labour from workhouses, who often (and perhaps unsurprisingly) then went on the run. There are unconfirmed reports that in this period hundreds of such escaped children lived in woods between Blackburn and Preston. The Legacies of British Slavery website has a ‘John Hodgson of Jamaica’ listed as owning Halifax Estate, St Ann, Jamaica. Legacies of British Slavery researchers were unable to connect this John Hodgson to the Lancastrian slaver and so far, neither have I – despite it likely being one and the same person.

The Lancaster based Samuel Bradford & Co (also listed as Bradford & Co), appears in the ledgers, the Blackburn merchants owing them over £300 for unspecified goods or services. Newspaper reports from the 1770s confirm that Bradford was importing cotton through Lancaster, while the records of Gillows, the furniture makers, show that he purchased 24 Windsor Chairs for his ship Minerva. Although Bradford does not appear in Slave Voyages research, the website confirms that the Minerva made multiple triangular journeys from Liverpool. Elsewhere in the ledgers, the company is named as Bradford & Coupland, as he was also in business with John Coupland – a Liverpool cotton merchant who does appear on Slave Voyages as investor in slave ships travelling from the Cumbrian port of Whitehaven to Jamaica. Although John is not listed in Legacies of British Slavery, his wife, Mary Ann Coupland, is confirmed to have received post-abolition reparations for enslaved people in Kingston, Jamaica. Caroline, Eliza and Margaret Coupland, also made claims in Kingston – although it has not yet been possible to connect them with John. Samuel Bradford was effectively ex-communicated by the Lancaster Quakers, not for his exploitation of enslaved Africans, but for theft from a fellow church member.

In The Emergence and Establishment of the Slave Trade in 18^th Century Lancaster (1992), Melinda Elder sets out how many of the city’s tradespeople became dependent on slavery. Not only were several families involved in the triangular trade but, according to Elder, slave ships were also constructed in the port, employing hundreds on the building, fitting out and supplying of the vessels. The nefarious trade was also carried out from Maryport and Whitehaven, north of Lancaster, and from Kirkham in West Lancashire to the south. In the second half of the eighteenth century, triangular journeys through these ports gradually died away and, in the next blog, we will look at the Blackburn merchants’ growing trade with businesses in Liverpool.

For acknowledgements and a list of resources, see the end of Blog 1.