In Bridgetowns newly republican corridors of power, there is, of course, a wholly different viewpoint. Richard Draxs family profited on the backs of black slaves for many generations. Discover Richard Drax's Biography, Age, Height, Physical Stats, Dating/Affairs, Family and career updates. On Friday, the MP said he does not yet legally own the Barbados holdings as these are still going through the probate process and have not yet transferred to my name. Drax passed out from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned in the British Army joining the Coldstream Guards on 9 December 1978 as a second lieutenant; he was given the Personal Number 506831. He retained the rank of lieutenant with seniority from 10 September 1981 to reflect the three years he had served. Yet are we to suppose that China, with its ruthless suppression of the Uighurs and Covid lockdown protesters, is morally superior to the unenlightened slavers of Stuart and Georgian England? About Richard. Oxford and Glasgow universities gave 100,000 and 20million respectively to Caribbean counterparts after it emerged they received donations linked to slavery. He was privately educated at Harrow School . Like many of his ancestors, Drax is a Dorset MP and is probably the wealthiest landowner in the House of Commons, with 5,600 hectares of farmland and woodlands. [21], In May 2022, Drax criticised the decision by Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak to introduce a windfall tax on oil and gas firms to fund economic support for the public during the cost of living crisis, accusing him of "throwing red meat to socialists". Since then, we've grown to have approximately 12,000 offices throughout the United States and . The lineage of Richard Erle Drax Grosvenor and the Drax family was: 207-11; Alan J. Miller, 'Three cheers for Sawbridge Drax', Dorset Life, January 2011, http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2011/01/three-cheers-for-sawbridge-drax/ Accessed 18 June 2012; http://lh.matthewbeckett.com/houses/lh_kent_olantightowers.html; Accessed 18 June 2012; London Gazette, 19819 31 January 1840, p. 197; R. J. Richardson, The lower house, or, the peers and aristocracy (London, G. Vickers, 1859), p. 47. Yet while other plantations have closed, Mr Drax wished to perpetuate his familys heritage, the manager says. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2021-2022. [24], He endorsed Boris Johnson in the October 2022 Conservative Party leadership election. The irony appears to be lost on everyone including VisitScotland, which has now partnered with it in that the only benefit that Tripadvisor claims it gives to the customer for its booking service is that their money is safer with it than with the, presumably wholly untrustworthy, primary provider that it feeds off.Allan DoyleGreenhead, Dumfries. Come on, Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, pay up, pay up and redeem your name!Duncan TomsMachynlleth, Powys. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. I think its more of a moral argument, he said, adding that Mr Drax would be well-advised to save his reputation by accepting responsibility, apologising, and volunteering a substantial sum towards opening a slavery awareness museum, or some similar project. Something went wrong, please try again later. But it is Richard Drax MPs inheritance in Barbados, amassed over centuries by his ancestors ownership and appalling treatment of African people which drags him into the spotlight. Copyright Legacies of British Slavery - UCL Department of History 2023. His first wife (divorced 1997) was Zara Legge-Bourke, younger sister of the royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke, relations of the Earl of Dartmouth. The Estate has been in existence since 1086 and is mentioned in the Domesday Book and . They are using the old class thing and that is not what this election is about, its not what I stand for, and I ignore itI think it shows how desperate they are if all they can do is pick at bits of my family history.'. Erle-Drax's descendant, Richard Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, was elected as Conservative MP for South Dorset in the United Kingdom general election, 2010 using the 'truncated' name Richard Drax. He holds the lordship of the manor of Longburton[citation needed] and is the largest individual landowner in Dorset, owning approximately 13,870 acres (5,610ha), equivalent to 2% of the land in Dorset. Richard Draxs assertion that no one can be held responsible today for what happened many hundreds of years ago might sound a little less disingenuous if he wasnt personally profiting to such a vast extent from the appalling actions of his own ancestors (Wealthy MP urged to pay up for his familys slave trade past, News). The Erle family had owned Charborough House, Dorset, since the C16th and through the marriage, Drax took possession of it. Drax responded to the incident by saying: "I popped in to get some literature and very thoughtlessly parked on those lines which I immediately regretted and apologise to the organisation straight away. It sounds a comparatively modest sum, but by then their 200 years of profits had been invested in English properties and businesses. The Mirror's newsletter brings you the latest news, exciting showbiz and TV stories, sport updates and essential political information. Yet to my mind there is something fundamentally unfair about singling out any individual and holding him responsible for the horrors of slavery; a practice that was mercifully outlawed five generations before he was born after an abolition campaign led by Britain. Its like making my great-great-great-grandchildren pay for my wrongdoings not that slavery was considered to be wrong back then. Beckles says Richard Drax should: One: apologise to African people and the people of the Caribbean. King Charles IIs brother, James, was president of the Royal African Company, the biggest supplier of slaves, and shares were held by such lauded figures as the philosopher John Locke and diarist Samuel Pepys. As author Matthew Parker states in his definitive book The Sugar Barons, by the end of the 17th century virtually every British merchant and investor was implicated in the slave-driven sugar economy. Though Drax Hall is advertised as a holiday attraction, one of his descendants is the target of an increasingly vindictive campaign, orchestrated by civil rights activists backed by the ruling Barbados Labour Partys special envoy on reparations and economic enfranchisement. Mr Drax has no plans to return any time soon.. Once we have made him pay, we are coming after the Royal Family.. There is precedence for compensating descendants of slaves. Daily Mirror, 5 May 2010; Dorset Echo, 6 May 2010. Drax denied the accusations, saying that he used the shortened version of his name only because of the "logistic mouthful", while Cameron's comments were a "throw away joke". Others countered that, while the deeds of the Drax dynasty could never be condoned, they had already done much to benefit the community. To provide help and inspire confidence in our clients and communities everywhere. It provided a sound education for the superstar singer Rihanna. The Buff Bay plantation was a sugar estate next to the Buff Bay River, south of Charlestown in Jamaica. It was suggested the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, has asked wealthy Conservative candidates to shorten their names to appear more in touch with normal people. In January 2016, the Labour Party unsuccessfully proposed an amendment in Parliament that would have required private landlords to make their homes "fit for human habitation". Within three weeks, his ministerial circular envisaged a variety of services for mentally ill people. Proud to say I have achieved my APM Project Management Qualification (on the second attempt albeit), with help from Richard Leach who has been delivering a | 12 LinkedIn Tom Henderson LinkedIn: #engineering #power #projectmanagement | 12 So, it seems, this highly charged stand-off is set to drag on. [14], Drax campaigned for Brexit during the 2016 referendum. He owns the Drax Hall sugar. The Draxes also owned a slave plantation in Jamaica which they sold in the 18th century. [2][3], Drax passed out from the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and was commissioned in the British Army joining the Coldstream Guards on 9 December 1978 as a second lieutenant. Drax retained his seat in the 2015 general election with an increased majority and the 2017 general election. Companies House said failure to keep records updated could result in action. He cant be allowed to get away with this, Mr Denny told me this week. He was privately educated at Harrow School before going to the Royal Agricultural College in Cirencester where he graduated with a diploma in rural land management in 1990, receiving a further diploma in journalism in 1995. In Barbados, the imposing plantation house, Drax Hall, built around 1650, still stands the oldest house in the western hemisphere and sugar is still grown on the plantation. It has a Reparations Commission, whose chair is Sir Hilary Beckles. The Drax Hall plantation is not referred to in Richard Draxs Register of Members Interests declaration, and we could not find any family document referring directly to the plantations in the public domain since his great-grandmothers will in 1916, when the Baroness Dunsany bequeathed her estates and plantations in Barbados to her son, Richards grandfather. Black life mattered only to make millionaires of English enslavers and the Drax family did it longer than any other elite family.. Though Barbados appears to be prospering, and is now rated a high-income economy, he describes it as a post-slavery society still struggling to recover. Early life [ edit] Drax was born on 29 January 1958 in Westminster, London, into a landowner family. His great-uncle was the celebrated writer and playwright the 18th Lord Dunsany, and his maternal grandfather was General the Lord Weeks. He also added other assets we highlighted as missing, including land in North Yorkshire and property in Dorset and in Surrey. Should individual Danes be forced to compensate the United Kingdom for the rape and pillage of Viking invasions? Iniquitously, the government paid the 45,000 Britons still owning slaves at the start of Queen Victorias reign vast sums in compensation for giving them up. , money, salary, income, and assets. Richard Drax MP's 150m personal fortune was extracted on his ancestors' network of Caribbean plantations, where 30,000 slaves lost their lives. The Foreign Secretary's lead amongst MPs grows", "The ten landowners who own one-sixth of Dorset", "Obituary of Henry Walter Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax", "MP Richard Drax, his wife, the lesbian housekeeper and the threesome that never was", "Barbados plans to make Tory MP pay reparations for family's slave past", "Benedict Cumberbatch's ancestors got rich from slavery in Barbados. As always you can unsubscribe at any time. A fraction of his family fortune, accumulated during centuries of slavery, could do good today for people . [citation needed], His first wife (divorced 1997) was Zara Legge-Bourke, younger sister of the royal nanny Tiggy Legge-Bourke, relations of the Earl of Dartmouth. He's the MP with the Downton Abbey lifestyle. [1] This was so new and startling that even Powell called it a colossal undertaking, while recognising that his ideas required care in the community (a phrase he did not use). 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