Articles, records and resources relating to the history of the city of Preston
Paid for by a slave trade fortune
At the ceremony to mark the laying of the foundation stone for St Thomas’ Church in August 1837, the vicar of Preston, the Rev Roger Carus Wilson, paid fulsome tribute to the church’s benefactress:
‘… previous erections of this kind having made considerable demands upon the private means of this locality, I happened to hear that a benevolent gentlewoman, Miss Catherine Elizabeth Hyndman, had left a considerable sum of money in trust to be devoted to the erection of churches of the establishment. … The bequest consisted of two sums, of £21,833 and 26,624, or amounting together to little short of £50,000. On hearing of these circumstances, I made application on the behalf of my neighbourhood, and in May last I had the happiness to receive intelligence that my application, backed as it was with the obvious exigencies which suggested it, was successful.’ 1
Miss Hyndman’s bequest provided £5,600 (other sources suggest it was £4,500) to pay for the building of the church. The Hyndman Trust set up to manage that bequest retained the right to nominate the minister for the church. 2
What the vicar’s tribute did not mention was that Miss Hyndman’s bequest came from her inheritance of a half share in her family’s fortune from the West Indies slave trade. Nor was it mentioned in the various histories of the town. It is only in recent years that the extent to which the Anglican Church profited from the slave trade has come to light and the disclosures led to the closure of the Hyndman Trust two years ago, nearly two hundred years after it was set up.
In Preston, the first Anglican church that benefitted from slave trade money was St Peter’s, now the UCLan Arts Centre. The land on which the church is built was given by the inheritor of the fortune of the Atherton family of Preston, made from their sugar plantations in Jamaica. Atherton money also helped fund Preston’s first bank. Aidan Turner-Bishop included the family in an article on Preston’s connections with the slave trade for the Preston Historical Society website:
‘Probably the Preston family most deeply involved were the Athertons of Greenbank. Their estate, including the house was sold in 1850 for development. It was the land north of Fylde Road. “Greenbank” mansion stood near the site of the UCLan car park in Greenbank Street, formerly Goss’s printing machinery works. Richard Atherton (1738–1804), a “draper and woollen merchant”, inherited the Green Park Estate in Jamaica.’
The estate was passed by marriage to a James Allan Park, whose father, Sir James Allan Park, the recorder of Preston, laid the foundation stone of St Peter’s Church in 1822. His son had donated the land for the church, in the hope, according to the Manchester Guardian, that a new church would make their adjoining estate more attrcative to builders. The Guardian accused the father accused of ‘unparalleled humbug’ and his son of property speculation (Piety and profit in 19th-century Preston).
The family wealth of Carus Wilson’s successor as vicar, the Rev John Owen Parr, was also built on the slave trade. His grandfather was lord mayor of Liverpool and one of its principal slave traders: a Liverpool-registered slaver owned by the family and named Parr was the largest vessel in the British transatlantic fleet, built to accommodate 700 slaves.
The Hyndman Trust continued until very recently, latterly administered by Simeon’s Trustees ‘a leading and long-standing Church of England patronage trust, with patronage interests in 165 benefices across 33 dioceses’. It was founded in 1836 by Charles Simeon, a leading Evangelical clergyman of the early nineteenth century. 3
The Simeon’s Trustees website provides a potted history of the Hyndman Trust:
‘The Trust is named after Catherine Elizabeth, the daughter of Robert Hyndman who came from Ireland and spent many years abroad and his wife Elizabeth Christian had two children, Catherine and John. It is not known when Catherine was born or baptised but John was baptised in 1812. Just two years later, in 1814 Robert died and the family moved to England.
‘John went to Trinity College Cambridge and later became a barrister. During his time at Cambridge John, it is assumed, attended Holy Trinity Church; family records indicate he knew Charles Simeon and was impressed by him.
‘John and Catherine’s mother died in 1834 and, perhaps unusually, bequeathed her estate equally between Catherine and John. Sadly, just nine months after her mother’s death, Catherine Elizabeth Hyndman died, a spinster, on 16 June 1835, in Torquay. She died before her mother’s will had been proved, in addition she died intestate having made no will of her own. John aged only 23 became administrator of both estates.
‘Catherine Elizabeth had left just a few notes, letters and comments indicating her wishes about her estate. Guided by these, John decided to put the bulk of Catherine’s estate into two trust Funds. One was Miss Catherine Elizabeth Hyndman’s Bounty to the Church of England (now known as Hyndman’s Trustees) set up for a variety of ecclesiastical purposes including the purchase and acquisition of advowsons thus giving the right to appoint to parishes. The Declaration Document is dated 6 December 1836.’ 4
When the Simeon’s Trustees discovered the Hyndman slave trade connection they closed down the trust:
‘In 2020 it was discovered that the Hyndman family received compensation from the British government when slaves were freed. The family wealth was gained from sugar plantations in Demerara (now Guyana) through the use of slave labour.’
‘After much prayer, discussion and consultation it was agreed to begin the process of closing the trust. The process of transferring the patronage interest in the 29 Hyndman benefices began in 2021. PCCs were asked to indicate whether they would wish the trustees to transfer patronage to Simeon’s or to another patronage body. The majority were content to move to Simeon’s Trustees.’ 5
In the following extract from a letter to the Church Times in 2021 the writer used Catherine Hyndman as an example of the way the Anglican Church had profited from the slave trade, pointing to Anglican churches:
‘… built with the proceeds of African slaves, not to mention the compensation received by slave-owners on its abolition in 1833. One such beneficiary was Miss Catherine Elizabeth Hyndman, whose “Bounty to the Church of England” built, extended, or renovated many churches. This was half funded from compensation for her 628 slaves, the rest, no doubt, coming from her family’s profits from exploiting other slaves.’ 6
Catherine’s brother, John Beccles Hyndman, administered the trust set up by her bequest and possibly augmented it with his own contribution according to one account:
‘Both lay and clerical Anglican slave-owners bequeathed physical legacies to the Church. After the death of his sister Catherine Elizabeth Hyndman in June 1835, John Beckles Hyndman (a slave-owner in British Guiana and the father of the pioneering British Marxist H. M. Hyndman) provided £150,000 for the building of Anglican churches (‘As low as possible’) through the Hyndman Trustees.’ 7
That reference to ‘As low as possible’ is revealing, since it suggests John Hyndman favoured the Evangelical wing of the Anglican Church. Yet it was the Anglican Evangelicals who had been at the forefront of the campaign to abolish the slave trade. It may seem strange today that a member of the Evangelical wing of the Church should devote his inheritance from the slave trade to building churches in England, rather than to helping those poor souls, the victims of the trafficking.
Hyndman’s Trustees retained the patronage of St Thomas’ Church well into the last century. 8 According to Wikipedia:
‘The church was declared redundant on 1 November 1983. In May 1987 it was in “civic, cultural or community” use, and from 6 February 2001 it has been used for “worship by other Christian bodies”. From 2014 it was the Preston Elim Pentecostal Church. From 2018 it became known as St Thomas Centre, after it was purchased and used by City Church Preston.’ 9
It seems rather hypocritical for Simeon’s Trust to continue “administering” the Hyndman Trust Fund after declaring that it was all dirty money. The money, with a new label, is STILL money derived from slave labor. If you want to wash the guilt away, the money should be donated to the government of Jamaica or sent to the African countries that the slaves were taken from. I guess people don’t really change.
It seems rather hypocritical for Simeon’s Trust to continue “administering” the Hyndman Trust Fund after declaring that it was all dirty money. The money, with a new label, is STILL money derived from slave labor. If you want to wash the guilt away, the money should be donated to the government of Jamaica or sent to the African countries that the slaves were taken from. I guess people don’t really change.
That was my thinking, too.