Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery by Lashmar, Paul

Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780745350516)

Vendor: Paul Lashmar
Product type: Books
Format: Hardcover
$35.00
$35.00
$35.00
Subtotal: $35.00
Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery by Lashmar, Paul

Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery

$35.00
Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery by Lashmar, Paul

Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery

$35.00
Format: Hardcover
Description
Description
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While the British landed gentry were to profit from chattel slavery in the West Indies, the Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax family of Dorset pioneered it.

Spanning 400 years and 18 generations, Drax of Drax Hall is a story that has never been told. It all started when James Drax, one of the first settlers in Barbados in 1627, effectively founded the British sugar industry. His descendants went on to write the book on how to run a slave plantation. For more than two hundred years, the family enslaved up to 330 people at any time and became enormously wealthy.

Today, the bloodline is unbroken, and former Tory MP Richard Drax heads the family from his vast Charborough Estate in Dorset. With physical assets worth at least 150m--not to mention the 621-acre sugar plantation in Barbados, the Drax Hall Estate--he was the wealthiest landowner in the House of Commons. Unseated in 2024, he remains a hero amongst hard-right culture warriors for his refusal to make any reparations for his family's role in slavery.

Drax of Drax Hall is a history that lifts the lid on this grotesque family. Through enclosure at home and enslavement abroad, their exploits expose the ugly realities of colonialism and empire--the legacies of which we have yet to confront today fully.

Author: Paul Lashmar
ISBN-10: 0745350518
ISBN-13: 9780745350516
Publisher: Pluto Press (UK)
Language: English
Published: 03/20/2025
Pages: 448
Format: Hardcover
By Paul Lashmar
By Paul Lashmar
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Paul Lashmar is Reader in Journalism at City, University of London. He has taken an interest in the history of slavery since he developed a Channel 4 series on Britain's slave trade in 1999. He has been an investigative journalist in television and print, and on the staff of The Observer, Granada Television's World in Action current affairs series, and The Independent. He is the author, co-author, or co-editor of six books. He lives in Dorset.

David Adetayo Olusoga OBE is a historian, writer, broadcaster, presenter and filmmaker. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester. He has presented historical documentaries on the BBC and contributed to The One Show on the BBC and The Guardian.

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