Sugar, Slaves & Seabathing

The Southampton of Jane Austen's Day was a watering place famed for sea bathing, but it was also a town dominated in politics by the 'West Indian Party' , plantation owners who fought against the abolition of slavery, and who made their money from sugar and rum. It was a town of admirals, shipbuilders and colonialists who were at the forefront of the a growing British Empire.

This walk was commissioned as part of the University of Southampton's AHRD funded Maritime Communities research project.