Reflections on Queens’ Legacies of Enslavement Project: Old Library Exhibition, ‘Enslavement and Salvation’

Queens' College old library BLOG

The University of Cambridge legacies of enslavement inquiry was instigated in 2019, in the wake of growing public interest in the issue of British universities’ historical links to enslavement. Yet this story of enslavement could not be told without input from the university’s colleges. It was partly with that in mind that a subsequent Queens’ Governing Body meeting invited the college’s librarians and historians to conduct an inquiry into Queens’ College’s legacies of enslavement.

John Ogilby, Africa: being an accurate description(London, 1670)[O.4.23]

Following much discussion between students and fellows, it was agreed that all interested Queens’ members would participate in a wide-ranging project to examine the biographies of as many eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Queens’ members as possible. Given that it was not until the lockdown in March 2020 that work began, the library team drew up guidelines so that students, fellows and librarians could do the research from home…

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