It is an insult to the memory of Henry Tate, and to the reputation of the gallery that his money and paintings helped to create in 1897, to suggest that the Tate’s establishment was based on gains from the slave trade, as implied by your correspondent Ian West (Letters, 3 April).
Henry Tate was 14 years old when the act abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire became law in 1833. He made his money from a chain of grocery shops in Liverpool and in the 1870s from sugar refineries in Liverpool and London. He was never the owner of sugar plantations in the Caribbean or elsewhere. Throughout his life he also made many generous donations to charities, particularly those involved with health and education.
In 1997, I produced a documentary film for the BBC exploring 100 years of the Tate – Mr Tate’s Gallery – and in previews and reviews had to contend with the same ignorance about the founding of the gallery.
John Bush
Mentmore, Buckinghamshire
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