Drax of Drax Hall: New book reveals how Yorkshire-landowning family built wealth and influence through slavery

Lashmar became engrossed as he learnt more about the history and vast wealth of the Drax family during his initial research with fellow reporter Jonathan Smith into the ownership situation surrounding the Drax Hall plantation.

He continued his research and now five years later has published a powerful new book on his findings called Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery.

Dr Lashmar says that after initially being surprised to discover the Drax family had retained ownership of the plantation, he began to realise their story said much about how Britain and the British Empire operated. "I had assumed they had sold it because I couldn’t believe that a serving MP would want that optic of owning a plantation which his family had the most extraordinary historical relationship with, including having slaves for 200 years. I started to look at the family and I just got immersed. I thought this is a way of telling the history of Britain over the last 500 years through one family.”

The book explains that back in 1627, 18-year-old vicar’s son James Drax joined a few dozen fellow voyagers in journeying to then-uninhabited island of Barbados with the collective hope of making their fortunes.

Drax set up a sugar plantation and by the 1650s was using around 200 slaves on his land in a highly-lucrative operation. The book says the brutal conditions meant slaves would typically only live for around five years after arriving on the island as they were effectively worked to death.

Drax’s growing wealth saw him invest in ships trafficking slaves. The book says one record indicates a vessel he part-owned taking slaves from Africa to Barbados had 72 deaths on board – almost one-quarter of the 314 taken on the journey.

Drax himself returned to England in 1654 and became an important part of British society, being knighted by Oliver Cromwell in 1657 and made a baron by Charles II in 1661 shortly before his death at the age of 52.

Dr Lashmar says James Drax was in some ways an impressive and innovative figure who was a product of his time but equally involved in a deeply harmful trade and someone who pioneered “industrialised slavery”.

He reflects: "People say it was a different time. That’s partly true but there were other people back then who thought enslaving other human beings was not morally right.”

After his death, Drax Hall remained in the family’s ownership and by the late 17th Century, the plantation had more than 320 slaves working on it and its operating model was copied in other British colonies. In an indication of their high death rates, by 1700 it is estimated that 212,000 enslaved Africans had been taken to Barbados since the founding of the colony but there were only 50,000 still alive.

In England, the Drax family’s influence was growing with Henry Drax becoming an MP in 1718. He married his wealthy cousin Betsy Ernle and the pair initially lived at the Drax estate at Ellerton in Swaledale. But Betsy went onto inherit the vast Charnborough estate in Dorset in 1729 which has remained in the hands of the Drax family to this day.

Several other family members subsequently became MPs – something Dr Lashmar says was far from unique for many landowners.

He says: "The landed gentry seemed to realise they should become MPs, justices of the peace, military officers and the local vicars. By the time you have done that, you have all the levers of power pretty well sewn up in one family and a network across the county. Many of the estates in Dorset and many other counties are still in the same hands one way or another.”

The ownership of slaves was not banned until 1833 in an arrangement which saw slave owners paid vast compensation equating to 40 per cent of Britain’s national budget. The Drax family received £4,293 in compensation for 189 slaves; the equivalent of £440,000 today.

Drax Hall is still in operation to this day under Richard Drax’s ownership but now uses modern machinery and paid workers.

The latest member of the Drax family to inherit the site, as well as the Charborough estate, he was elected as Conservative MP for South Dorset in 2010. Parliamentary papers show that the Ellerton Abbey Estate in Swaledale is held in trust for members of the Drax family while Mr Drax also owns the Copperthwaite grouse moor.

After Dr Lashmar and Jonathan Smith revealed in December 2020 that he was in the process of inheriting the Drax Hall plantation following the death of his father, Mr Drax said: “I am keenly aware of the slave trade in the West Indies, and the role my very distant ancestor played in it is deeply, deeply regrettable, but no one can be held responsible today for what happened many hundreds of years ago.”

Mr Drax lost his seat at last year’s General Election and has faced ongoing calls in Barbados for the payment of reparations and the handing over of all or part of the extensive Drax Hall land.

Dr Lashmar says the story of Drax Hall is just a small part of British involvement in slavery of which many people are unaware of.

"Rarely was it ever presented that we did something wrong. When you look in the whole of what happened, we were involved in the movement of 12 to 15 million people from one continent to others for our economic benefit.

"I hope people understand the inhumanity of slavery and Britain did play a part in that and needs to come to terms with it. We are far from that at the moment.”

Mr Drax was contacted for comment via the Charborough Estate but did not respond.