This afternoon in Parliament, I joined the Leader of the House to view the proposed memorial to the West Africa Squadron. This is in honour of the Royal Navy Fleet which helped to bring about the end of slavery, freeing 150,000 men, women and children.
William Wilberforce was a prominent figure whose work was integral to the abolition of slavery. Having been a resident during his campaign, it is important to remember the British forces that suppressed the slave trade.
The West Africa Squadron, operated between 1808 – 1867, policed the seas between West Africa and America, boarding vessels suspected of being involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and seizing vessels that were.
So seriously did the UK embrace the quest to end slavery, following the passage of William Wilberforce’s Slave Trade Abolition Bill in 1807, that at its’ peak the fleet 36 of Royal Navy ships, crewed by 4,000 men, consumed 50 per cent of the entire Royal Navy’s budget, or two per cent of Great Britain’s entire GDP, equivalent to around £50 billion today.
Despite this proud record there is no memorial to the thousands of sailors who lost their lives, or the pivotal role played by the Royal Navy which waged the 60-year campaign to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
The campaign was started by a group of British historians, led by Colin Kemp, who was surprised that there was no memorial to the West Africa Squadron.
