Royal Albert Memorial Museum (RAMM)
Our group was contracted by RAMM to prepare material for their exhibition In Plain Sight: Transatlantic Slavery and Devon, which was held from 29 January to 5 June 2022. We researched several individuals with links to items in the RAMM collection including:
De la Beche – Biography of Henry de la Beche
Wills – Sir Edward Channing Wills
Swete – Rev. John Swete
Teschemaker – The Teschemaker family
D’Urban – WSM D’Urban and his links to slavery
Houses painted by Rev. John Swete with slave-ownership connections
In connection with the exhibition, Lucy MacKeith gave an evening talk on 6 April 2022 with the title: John Swete’s paintings, transatlantic slavery and the RAMM collections.
All the materials from the exhibition can be accessed here
Exeter Cathedral
We initially researched monuments in the Cathedral that had direct links to slavery. We have now extended this research to cover all memorials in the Cathedral with links to Empire. See:
Peter Wingfield-Digby, Exeter Cathedral Memorials with links to Empire, 2022.
We have also clarified the role of Bishop Henry Phillpotts in relation to slavery. An article entitled Bishop Phillpotts and Slavery was published in the 2020 Report and Transactions of the Devonshire Association, Vol. 152, pp. 193-206. It makes clear that the bishop was not a slave-owner, but that he had a brother Thomas who was.
Centre for Imperial and Global History
Our small group was invited to present papers at a CIGH research seminar held at the University of Exeter on 22 October 2025. The aim was to provide more information about the research carried out by our group, and to try to stimulate university students and staff to undertake more research themselves on slavery.
Papers were presented by Lucy, Jill, Peter and Debbie. We also distributed a Timeline on slavery and a list of useful internet links for research on slavery.