David Cameron was revealed to have slave-owners in his family background in 2013 when researchers from University College London examined compensation payments made to Britain’s most powerful families following the UK abolition of slavery in 1833.
The records showed Gen Sir James Duff, an army officer and MP for Banffshire in Scotland during the late 1700s, was Cameron’s first cousin six times removed. Duff, who was the son of one of Cameron’s great-grand uncles, the second Earl of Fife, was awarded £4,101 – equivalent to more than £3m today – to compensate him for the 202 slaves he forfeited on the Grange sugar estate in Jamaica.
The British government paid out £20m to compensate some 3,000 slave-owning families for the loss of their “property” – some 40% of the Treasury’s annual spending budget. Sir John Gladstone, the father of the 19th-century prime minister, William Gladstone, received £106,769 (about £83m today) for the 2,508 slaves he owned across nine plantations.
The research also showed that Cameron’s wife, Samantha, has slave-owning links as she is descended from the 19th-century businessman, William Jolliffe, who received £4,000 in compensation for 164 slaves after owning an estate in St Lucia.
• The headline of this article was amended on 29 September 2015. The original said Cameron had a slave-owning ancestor. However, as the text of the article explains, Sir James Duff was the son of one of Cameron’s great-grand uncles - and therefore could not accurately be described as his ancestor, which is defined as someone from whom one is directly descended.
