In 2019, the University of Cambridge announced an “in-depth academic study into ways in which it contributed to, benefited from or challenged the Atlantic slave trade and other forms of coerced labour during the colonial era”.
The two-year inquiry has explored University archives and other records to uncover how the University may have gained from enslavement and the exploitation of labour, through both financial and other bequests. In addition, the inquiry has investigated the extent to which scholarship at the University of Cambridge might have reinforced and validated race-based thinking between the 18th and early 20th centuries. Their report was published in summer 2022.
The University inquiry encouraged colleges to consider undertaking their own inquiries.
As Newnham College was founded in 1871, more than a generation after Parliament’s Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, it might appear that our institution would have no, or very limited, links with enslavement. However, as an institution dedicated to research, learning and education, Newnham should be ready to research its own foundations, reflect upon what it means to have been a beneficiary of late-Victorian philanthropy, and gain understanding of how this was built upon the financial legacies of earlier generations.
Accordingly, the College embarked on its own set of discussions. Undergraduate student representatives proposed to Newnham’s Governing Body a student research project in the College Archives, with the students to be paid for by the College.