St Barts and the Slave Trade: 50 Donors Under Scrutiny
At least 50 people with deep financial ties to St Bartholomew's Hospital in London were directly linked to the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans, according to research published 14 September 2026. The finding comes from the Register of British Slave Traders, a large archival project tracing financial links between British institutions and enslavement. The Guardian
St Bartholomew's is London's oldest hospital. Many of those donors are commemorated in its Great Hall. The research says those individuals made charitable donations to St Barts while also investing in shares of companies built on the trafficking of enslaved Africans. Philanthropy and investment ran in parallel. The names remain visible in that ceremonial space.
The Register is a joint venture between Lancaster University, the University of Manchester and University College London. It was led by Prof William Pettigrew. Researchers have established links to roughly 900 organisations, placing St Barts in a wider network of British civic, religious, educational and medical institutions whose early funding overlapped with slavery-derived capital.
One case studied in detail is Sir Jeffrey Jeffreys, a London merchant commemorated in the Great Hall who left a sum to the hospital in his will. Jeffreys helped finance the Hannibal, commanded by Capt Thomas Phillips. In 1694, that ship docked in Barbados after buying enslaved people at Whydah, modern-day Ouidah in Benin.
The voyage was lethal. Only 372 of the 700 enslaved African people bought at Whydah survived the Atlantic crossing.
Barts Health NHS Trust, which now runs the hospital and its predecessor institutions, acknowledged the findings. It states that new research has "identified further links between donors to its predecessor hospitals and the transatlantic trafficking and enslavement of African people." Barts Health NHS Trust
The broader context here is a shift in how provenance is investigated. Earlier histories often treated benefactors as names on a wall. The Register approach treats them as investors in a system, cross-referencing wills, subscriptions, shareholdings and company records, much like following a paper trail across archives. For specialists, the method matters as much as the count. Fifty is a floor, not a ceiling, set by what can be directly documented rather than the full extent of indirect exposure through credit, insurance and reinvested profits. Death on that scale was not exceptional for the trade. It was structural.
Looking at what this means for custodians of historic institutions, the questions are practical and unresolved. Commemoration in a working hospital carries different weight than in a museum. Great Halls, plaques and portraits instruct staff, patients and visitors about lineage and values. Retaining, recontextualising or removing such markers involves curatorial, ethical and operational judgments, with implications for public trust in a health service that serves a diverse city.
