Penrhyn Estate
Penrhyn Estate, best known today for Penrhyn Castle and the Penrhyn Quarry at Bethesda dates from Medieval times. Its links to Black Welsh History, however date from the Seventeenth Century.
It was in 1655 that Gifford Pennant arrived in Jamaica, acquiring land in the Parish of Clarendon. The family were originally from Flintshire and were related to the Griffith family, owners of the Penrhyn Estate in Carnarvonshire. By the time his son and heir, Edward died in 1736, the Pennants owned 610 slaves on sugar plantations on their land. Edward's sons, John and Samuel owned between them over 5,000 acres of land in Jamaica. John inherited all the land after Samuel's death in 1750. Both had come to Britain, becoming absentee landlords. Samuel was Lord Mayor of London in 1749. John's son from his marriage to the Jamaican heiress Bonella Hodges, Richard Pennant may have been born on the journey from Jamaica.
It was Richard (right, in the portrait by Henry Thomson, copyright The National Trust, Penrhyn Castle) who would inherit half of the Penrhyn Estate through his marriage to the heiress Anne Susannah Warburton in 1765, buying the other half in 1785.
The money to buy the estate and begin the improvements in North Wales, including the purchase of the rights to quarry for slate and the building of Port Penrhyn, near Bangor, therefore, came from the profits of Jamaican Sugar and Slavery.
Richard Pennant was in a position to defend his interests as well. Between 1767 and 1780, and between 1784 and 1790, he was MP for Liverpool, one of the main British ports to profit from the Slave Trade. He was also, between 1785 and his death in 1808 Chairman of the Standing Committee of West India Planters and Merchants in London. In both posts he was in a powerful position to lobby for the defence of the Slave Trade and the continuation of slavery in the British West Indies. From 1785 he was 1st Baron Penrhyn (an Irish title that allowed him to still sit in the House of Commons, when elected.)
He was succeeded by his cousin, George Dawkins (1764 - 1840), a descendant of Gifford and Edward Pennant. Dawkins added the Pennant name, but did not inherit the title Lord Penrhyn which died with his predecessor. Owner of the Penrhyn Estate - and the Jamaican plantations, Dawkins-Pennant further improved the estate, including building the Penrhyn Castle we see today. It seems that he was also intent on protecting his interests in the Slave Trade, being a member of the committee of the West India Association. This body lobbied for plantation owner's interests and for measures to prevent the emancipation of slaves.
Dawkins-Pennant (right, portrait by John Jackson, copyright The National Trust, Penrhyn Castle) was also a member of Parliament (for Newark, 1814 - 1818 and New Romney 1820 - 1830). Like Richard Pennant he could use his power to speak out against the ending of slavery in the British Empire.
When slavery was abolished he received compensation of £15,000 in 1835 for 764 slaves that he had owned on four Jamaican plantations. It must be remembered that all that money came to him: his emancipated slaves did not see a penny of it.
After the end of the Slave Trade, the profitability of the Jamaican Sugar Plantations declined, but the rise of the Penrhyn Quarry would soon make good any losses.
Richard Pennant and George Dawkins-Pennant improved transport locally and opened up the Penrhyn Quarry to become the greatest slate quarry in the world, when the Industrial Revolution and the growth of cities led to Wales "roofing the world".
The money to invest in these improvements, however, originated not from Welsh Slate, but Jamaican Sugar, and not from Welsh quarrymen, but from African slaves.
For more information on the subject and the people associated with the Slave Trade, please view UCL's Legacies of British Slave-ownership.
For more on Penrhyn Castle, please view Dr Marian Gwyn's Sugar and Slavery: The Penrhyn Castle Connection.
For information on the British country houses and the links to Empire, please view the National Trusts's Colonial Countryside project.
