The Gazetteer: errors and omissions

The Gazetteer’misrepresents some historic figures and omits many interesting global links with National Trust properties.

Kerr, Mrs Gandhi and Catholic emancipation

In the Gazetteer entry on Blickling Hall, Philip Henry Kerr is mentioned for having served as an administrator in South Africa (but not the ‘South African government’, as the Union of South Africa was only formed in 1910). Of his further career we learn:

‘Kerr became Secretary of the Rhodes Trust in 1925. In this capacity, he oversaw a University of Oxford scholarship for British Commonwealth students, funded by Cecil John Rhodes (1853–1902), an advocate of colonial expansion. Rhodes established the De Beers Mining Company in South Africa and became prime minister of the Cape Colony (1890–6).’

In this context it does not add anything to say who Rhodes was, what he thought or how he made his money, as Kerr served in South Africa after Rhodes had died, and had no significant connection to him. It may have been interesting to note instead that Kerr and other members of Milner’s so-called Kindergarten strove for a Commonwealth of nations equally represented in an imperial parliament and that Kerr was considered a liberal in his time with enlightened views on race, and that he admired Gandhi. 

The Gazetteer mentions a distinguished visitor to Blickling Hall, the future Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, but does not mention events during her premiership such as the war with Pakistan or the assault on the Golden Temple at Amritsar in 1984.

On Felbrigg Hall, the report mentions that the Whig politician William Windham opposed the abolition of slavery in 1806, but does not mention that he took a principled stand for Catholic emancipation, which would have granted certain rights to Irish Catholics, and resigned from the government over this issue in 1801, or that he voted against the suspension of habeas corpus in Ireland in 1805. 

The Japanese Garden at Tatton Park and Lord Egerton in Africa

Tatton Park has been omitted from the Gazetteer, despite several interesting international connections. A team of gardeners from Japan constructed the authentic Japanese Garden at Tatton Park after Alan de Tatton Egerton was inspired by seeing such a garden at the Japan-British Exhibition in London in 1910.

Inside the house there is a display of extraordinary items from around the world collected by his son Maurice, the fourth and last Baron Egerton of Tatton (1874 – 1958), such as ivory puzzle balls from China, a model kayak from the Yukon, musical instruments from Africa and North America and a collection of spears, weaponry and knives from different cultures, including wrist knives from Kenya. After the First World War he bought some land in Kenya where he founded a school in 1939, now Egerton University. His Kenyan home, Lord Egerton Castle, completed in 1954, is a popular visitor attraction.

Legh of Lyme in Egypt

Lyme Park is another notable omission from the Gazetteer. Thomas Legh (1793-1857) created the exterior of the house which we see today. He was a keen Egyptologist and travelled extensively in the Ottoman Empire. He also studied Classical architecture and collected Greek sculpture. In 1810 he went to Egypt, where he met Cachef Hassan, an Arab chieftain. Hassan presented Legh with a ten-year-old black African boy as a slave, whom he brought back to England and entrusted to the care of Revd Charles Smelt, rector of Gedling in Nottinghamshire. 

Legh travelled as far as Ibrim in Nubia, and he believed that he was the first European to do so. He wrote in his account of the journey, Narrative of a Journey in Egypt and the Country Beyond the Cataracts, of the slave-market in Cairo: ‘We visited also the slave-market, where, to say nothing of the moral reflections suggested by this traffic in human beings, the senses were offended in the most disagreeable manner, by the excessive state of filthiness in which these wretches were compelled to exist.’

The ‘Black Countess’ and the Emperor

The report does not make full use of the interesting information on Dunham Massey’s international connections on the National Trust’s own website. Harry Grey, the future 8th Earl of Stamford, was sent to South Africa after disgracing himself by drinking and gambling. Martha Solomons, whom he married there and who became his Countess, was the daughter of a freed slave. After his death she established a school which later became the Battswood School and Teacher Training College, alma mater of many non-white South African intellectuals. A former principal of Battswood, Prof. Richard van der Ross, who later became South Africa’s ambassador to Spain has written her biography, entitled The Black Countess.

The report also omits the long-standing friendship between the 10th Earl and the exiled Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie beginning with his visit to Dunham Massey in 1938, even though this relationship is covered at length on the National Trust’s website. 

Haile Selassie had ruled Ethiopia as Regent since 1916. Under pressure from Britain the League of Nations demanded an undertaking to eradicate slavery in return for admitting Ethiopia in 1923. Selassie followed a policy of gradual abolition to avoid disrupting the economy. He is said to have owned many slaves himself. In 1931 he introduced Ethiopia’s first written constitution, which kept power largely in the hands of the nobility, but envisaged a gradual transition to democracy. He went abroad following the Italian invasion of 1936. Once the Italians had been defeated by the forces of the British Empire he was restored to his throne in 1941. Ethiopia was then a British Protectorate until 1951. In 1942 he passed laws against the slave trade which confirmed measures put in place by the Italians. People of slave descent still face discrimination in Ethiopia today.

After the United Nations joined Ethiopia and Eritrea in a federation in 1952, Selassie annexed Eritrea, which resulted in a 30 year period of armed conflict. He has been blamed for not doing enough to relieve a famine in Tigray in 1958. His reign was marked by the detention and torture of political prisoners and by military atrocities against separatists, even while he enjoyed respect abroad. In 1974 Selassie was removed from power in a coup by a Marxist military junta following another period of famine. He died the following year, possibly murdered by military officers. A sculpture bust of Haile Selassie in Wimbledon marking his stay there during his exile was destroyed in 2020 by protestors objecting to his policy of eradicating the Oromo language.

The problem with sugar has not gone away

Barrington Court has a connection with one of the founders of the Tate & Lyle sugar company. The businesses which merged to form Tate & Lyle were established after the abolition of slavery, but, the report continues, ‘the early nineteenth and early twentieth century [sic] British sugar industry was predominantly supplied by Caribbean plantations, founded under colonialism and supported by enslaved labour.’ This statement ignores the complexity of the worldwide sugar industry after the abolition of slavery. After the emancipation of slaves in British territories in the West Indies sugar cane was produced mainly by former slaves and indentured labourers, mostly Indian. While indentured labourers worked in harsh conditions for low pay, their contract was of limited duration, after which they were free to renew it or return home. Sugar beet production took off in Continental Europe, especially France, from the 1840s onwards. After import duty on sugar was abolished in Britain in 1874, imports of beet sugar quickly overtook cane sugar. This had severe consequences for the sugar industry in the West Indies. By 1895 Britain imported three times as much beet sugar from Europe as cane sugar from the rest of the world. 

It is interesting to note that forced labour still plays a major part in the cane sugar industry in our own time. It is estimated that there are between 25,000 and 100,000 exploited agricultural workers who are effectively slaves in Brazil today. Most of them are employed in harvesting sugar cane. Child labour is widespread in Belize, Guatemala and El Salvador, which produce much of the cane sugar consumed in the UK. The National Trust already uses Clipper Fairtrade tea and can now can take practical steps to help end these practices by using only Fairtrade certified sugar in its catering and products for sale. 

Hughenden and the Empire

Benjamin Disraeli of Hughenden Manor was Prime Minister at a time when the British Empire was growing rapidly. In the report he appears only for his opposition to the Government of India Act and as the Prime Minister who made Queen Victoria Empress of India. In fact, Disraeli was wary of putting the Royal Titles Act before Parliament, as he knew that it would be unpopular. The National Trust’s own website has a concise but interesting page on houses with Jewish connections, where we read that Disraeli was accused of pursuing a ‘Jewish’ foreign policy because of his support for the Ottoman Empire at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. 

Disraeli toured the Middle East as a young man, in 1830-31. In his second term as Prime Minister, from 1874, he had to deal with the ‘Eastern Question’, namely how to keep Russia at bay as the Ottoman Empire was declining. Disraeli arranged for Britain to purchase a major interest in the Suez Canal Company in Egypt in 1875. The outcome of the Congress of Berlin of 1878 was considered a diplomatic coup for Disraeli and made his name as a statesman. The Second Anglo-Afghan War of the same year was an attempt to repel the Russians from Afghanistan, which resulted in a mission and garrison being stationed in Kabul. 1879 saw the Anglo-Zulu War in South Africa, a rebellion in Kabul and a punitive expedition against the Afghans. 

Waddesdon, Israel and Rwanda

Waddesdon Manor reminds us not only of how foreign newcomers came to be accepted into the British landed gentry, but also of the Rothschild family’s interest in in the Middle East. James Armand Edmond de Rothschild, son of Edmond James de Rothschild, of the French branch of the family, inherited the Waddesdon estate from his cousin Alice in 1922. He sat in the House of Commons as Liberal MP for the Isle of Ely from 1929 to 1945, and was also Deputy Lieutenant for the City of London. During the Second World War he served in Palestine as a major in the 39th Battalion, The Royal Fusiliers. His father had bought land in Palestine, set up businesses and given substantial sums to the early Zionist movement, which later led to the establishment of the state of Israel. In his memory James bequeathed the funds to construct the Knesset building in Jerusalem, which was completed in 1966.

Waddesdon Manor also has an interesting African connection. The French president Francois Mitterrand attended a summit with Margaret Thatcher there on 4 May 1990, during which they discussed defence. Towards the end of the same year he began to support the Hutu-led regime in Rwanda with airlifts of arms and military advisers. It has now emerged that this was part of a policy of resisting Anglo-Saxon influence in Francophone Africa (https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/english-beef-the-sinister-side-to-frances-mistrust-of-Britain). Once again, events in the wider world were determined by imperial rivalry between Britain and France.

A Wilberforce Memorial

In the Abinger Roughs in Surrey there is a granite memorial to Samuel ‘Soapy Sam’ Wilberforce, sometime Bishop of Oxford, erected by his family on the spot where he died in an accident in 1873. The National Trust attached a brass plaque to the memorial which points out the connection with Samuel’s father William Wilberforce, describing him as ‘the third Son of the Abolitionist.’