Researchers shed new light on Scotland's slave owners

The 800,000 slaves, who toiled on plantations, received nothing and were forced to work as 'apprentices' for up to six more years.

Now an analysis of records by researchers at University College London (UCL), is shedding light on the 40,000 slave owners who claimed compensation in 1834 - including 3,000 slave owners who lived in Britain.

The recipients included Scottish merchant Sir John Gladstone, the father of 19th century prime minister William Gladstone. He received the largest total payout, for 2,500 slaves which were valued at more than £105,000 - equivalent to £80 million today.

But the Slave Compensation Commission archive also reveals examples at the other end of the scale: some were women, who had 'inherited' slaves and received annuities based on plantation profits.

Maria Macandrew from Edinburgh, was awarded just over £74 for three slaves. She wrote a letter pleading for more money, saying: "I am a poor widow with a large family to provide for."

The findings will be revealed in a new two-part BBC 2 series 'Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners', which begins on Wednesday. It not only explores who gained from the massive compensation payments handed to slave owners, but how the money was used to shape the economy and culture of the nation.

Professor Catherine Hall, who is leading the research team at UCL told the programme: "We were surprised by how many 'ordinary' Britons owned enslaved people.

"It's not just London, it's not just Bristol, it's Scotland, it's Northumberland - it is everywhere that there are slave owners and we were astonished at the number of women slave owners that there were."

Sir John Gladstone was among a generation of traders who bought sugar plantations in Guyana, which lies on the coast of South America but is part of the Caribbean. By 1820, there were over 300 plantations in the former British colony, which were being worked by over 100,000 slaves.

The appalling conditions which the slaves had to endure are revealed in the register for the Wales plantation, one of Gladstone's properties. A total of 53 died in just three years - a mortality rate of 13%, which was not unusual.

But when slaves across Guyana launched a coordinated but unsuccessful rebellion in the summer of 1823, Gladstone claimed they were being treated well. In a public letter he wrote: "They are supplied with more food than they can consume. They are well provided with clothing, suitable for the climate and their situation. They have the Sabbath and their other holydays (sic) to dispose of for the purposes of religion, if so inclined."

The Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 led to the government paying out £20 million in compensation the following year - a huge sum which amounted to 40% of the total government expenditure for 1834.

Dr Nick Draper, an economic historian at UCL said: "The bank bail-out is really the closest we have come to seeing this form of state-sponsored transfer payment and is made for the same reasons.

"The slave system supports networks of credit in Britain that are central to Britain's wellbeing and the collapse of those credit systems would have been a very significant thing for the city of London and for Britain as a whole."

The historians have also analysed financial records to find out how the profits from slavery compensation were spent.

Their work has revealed that just years after receiving the huge payout, the Gladstone family was one of the major investors in the Grand Junction Railway, which connected Lancashire and the Midlands in the 1830s - and is now part of the West Coast Main line.

Hall said the research was important for the present day to bring a greater understanding of the role of slavery in the nation's past.

"It is not just the history of white people, not just the history of black people - it is the history of all of us," she said.

Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners will be broadcast on BBC 2 on Wednesday 15 July at 9pm.