David Lascelles In Conversation With Dorcas Taylor

The outrage of some has come to be called ‘virtue signalling’ in modern times. It is often associated with the term ’social justice warrior’ where groups or individuals take militant action to correct some perceived injustice. Apparently, it is not enough for people to have politically correct values, they demand recognition and approbation for having them. If you are unclear who I am talking about, you have seen them on TV pulling down statues.

David Lascelles is very far from such a position, despite a family history of exploitation and slave ownership. Indeed, Harewood House, just outside Leeds, was built in 1771on the profits made from plantations in The West Indies worked by slaves abducted from Africa. Discussing this history made for an enlightening evening that was uncomfortable for us, however, it must have been doubly so for him.

But there was no flinching, no attempt to camouflage the truth of what was done; no glossing over the brutality. Equally, there was no attempt to hide the fact that Harewood House contains no reference whatsoever to this history. A dissimulation Lascelles is keen to correct.

The Telling the Truth event was part of the Scarborough Art Gallery’s From Local to Global exposition that seeks to locate Scarborough’s place in the British colonial experience. Curator of the display, Dorcas Taylor, questioned Lascelles about his family’s involvement and his attempts to disinter the truth.

‘Disinter’ because many of the documents, relating to the period of slavery, have been found locked away in the cellars of Harewood House. Lascelles commented ‘now is the time to make the documents available’.

A slide show presentation charted both the Lascelles family’s engagement with slave exploitation and a general history of the changing attitudes at home. Many people know that Parliament abolished slavery in the British Empire in 1807, but it took another twenty five years before the Slave Trade was abolished. As one West Indian politician put it: ‘It’s almost as though the British invented the slave trade so they could claim credit for abolishing it!’

The final part of the evening was questions from the audience – and there were plenty of them. It was probably here that an answer to the issue, ‘What can be done now?’ began to emerge. Lascelles advised against the grand gesture - ‘Do a little, a lot’. He also suggested the ‘little’ should be something joyful, not ‘self lacerating’.

What emerged from Lascelles’ address was the plural nature of history. We need to go beyond the unifocal vision of Our Island Story and pay attention to other points of view.

David Lascelles helped us take a step along that path