45 Church Clergy Named as Slave-Trade Investors: What the New Register Shows
A newly digitised Register of British Slave Traders has identified 45 Church of England clergymen as investors in Britain's transatlantic slave trade.
Sarah Mullally is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the most senior bishop in the Church of England. The Register documents investors across Britain's nearly 250-year transatlantic slave trade, according to The Guardian. The project was led by Professor William Pettigrew. The Guardian published the findings in an interactive article titled 'Monarchs, MPs and merchants: the register laying bare Britain's ...' (The Guardian).
The 45 clergymen's investments helped fund hundreds of slaving voyages and a 1720 relaunch of the Royal African Company. Think of it as shareholders providing the capital that kept ships sailing. One case cited is Henry Brydges, later a canon at St Paul's Cathedral, who bought half of his £10,000 shareholding on the day he became Archdeacon of Rochester. The Royal African Company trafficked more African men, women and children than any other single organisation in the history of the slave trade.
The Register also points to wider investor networks. More than 1,000 women invested in companies at the heart of Britain's slave trade, according to The Guardian. The Company of Royal Adventurers of England Trading with Africa was one of the main slave traders of the period. Many volumes of the Company's records document the purchase and sale of slaves and the rate of mortality among slaves, according to The National Archives.
Cape Coast and church money
Archbishop Mullally visited Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. The castle was once run by the Royal African Company. Abolitionist Ottobah Cugoano, who later campaigned against slavery, was enslaved as a boy at Cape Coast Castle in Ghana.
In 2023, the Church of England's Church Commissioners, the body that manages church wealth, launched Project Spire, a £100m impact investment fund for communities affected by slavery's legacies. Impact investment means money invested to seek social benefit alongside financial return. Project Spire mainly responds to historic investments in the South Sea Company. The South Sea Company trafficked close to 45,000 enslaved Africans.
During her visit to Ghana, Mullally vowed to support the £100m pledge to help communities affected by enslavement, according to The Guardian. During that visit, she expressed regret and said the controversial fund symbolises Christian belief in repentance. The figure is £100m. The instrument is impact investment.
The internal church debate draws in clergy and historians now working on truth-telling, the church process of openly examining its past. They include Rev Natasha Beckles, the Dean of Racial Justice for Willesden, Dr Leona Vaughn of the University of Liverpool, who co-organised a 2025 Anglican truth-telling event, and Prof Alan Lester, a historical geographer at the University of Sussex.
Diplomacy beyond Lambeth Palace
Ghana intends to propose a United Nations resolution recognising transatlantic slavery as the "gravest crime in the history of humankind," according to Reuters. The Jamaican government formally asked King Charles to seek legal advice on whether Britain should pay reparations for slavery, according to Reuters. Reparations here means payment or other redress for past wrongs. The UK government reiterated in September 2026 that it rejects reparations for Britain's role in the transatlantic slave trade, according to Al Jazeera.
London rejects reparations. Kingston seeks legal counsel. Accra seeks multilateral language.
The broader context here is that ecclesiastical finance and state diplomacy are moving on separate tracks but toward the same negotiating space. Project Spire frames redress as targeted investment rather than state-to-state compensation. The Ghana initiative frames recognition in international law. The Jamaican request frames monarchy, advice and legal liability. Each uses a different vocabulary. Each will be read by the others as precedent.
Looking at what this means for practitioners, three pressure points deserve attention. First, the Register narrows the evidentiary gap. Names, shareholdings, voyage counts and the 1720 relaunch give campaigners and litigators specific links between church capital and slaving operations, beyond the South Sea Company holdings already acknowledged in Project Spire. Second, Mullally's Cape Coast commitments tie the current Archiepiscopate personally to delivery of the £100m pledge, at a moment when scrutiny of impact funds, governance and community control is high. Third, any UN text on slavery as the "gravest crime in the history of humankind" would not by itself create a reparations obligation, but it would alter the rhetorical terrain in London, Kingston and Bridgetown, and in Commonwealth ministerial meetings where communique language is contested word by word.
In my view, the near-term question is less whether Britain shifts its reparations position than how the Church manages disclosure. A register that names clergy, women investors, MPs and monarchs invites parish-level and diocesan reckoning, not only a centrally managed fund. That makes transparency, archival access and independent oversight central to credibility, for audiences in Ghana and the Caribbean as well as in England.
