Bennett, M. orcid.org/0000-0003-3351-5927 and Anson, M. (2025) The compensation agency business: London merchants, bankers, and the payment of slavery compensation, 1835-46. Enterprise & Society. ISSN 1467-2227
Abstract
Through analysing the compensation accounts and stock ledgers in the Bank of England Archive, this article explores how British firms – especially those in the City of London - profited from the unique business opportunity that arose through the payment of slavery compensation in 1835. It uses a new dataset with 18,930 observations to establish that a cohort of 27 “compensation agents” handled as intermediaries approximately two-thirds of the transactions associated with £5 million paid in compensation as government stock (3.5% Reduced Annuities) to slave-owners in Barbados, Mauritius, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Virgin Islands. The article argues that this demonstrates how the City’s financial capacity, infrastructure, and business community were significant in delivering the efficient payment of compensation. It also underscores the need to understand the slavery compensation process as contemporaries did; as an important moment in the history of the City and its financial markets.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s), 2025. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. |
Keywords: | colonialism; merchants; slavery; London |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 10 Feb 2025 14:34 |
Last Modified: | 10 Feb 2025 14:34 |
Status: | Published online |
Publisher: | Business History Conference |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/eso.2025.1 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:223156 |