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1.    What first got you interested in history?

My grandmother was a great lover of history; she wanted to study it at university, but she became profoundly deaf when she was a teenager and then the Second World War intervened. She would tell me stories about Tudors and Stuarts, and she also visited local schools to recount her memories of the Blitz in London. Her love of history was infectious, and she inspired my interest in the past.

2.    What is your specialist area and how did you end up focusing on this?

I studied for my MA in Art Gallery and Museum Studies during 2007, the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. The Heritage Lottery Fund gave £20 million to cultural organisations to mark the anniversary so I wrote my dissertation about the politics of representation in relation to slavery, race and public history. I wanted to know more about the origins of racial thinking that underpinned collecting practices and displays, which meant going further back in time to consider the history of transatlantic slavery. I joined the Legacies of British Slave-ownership project team at University College London (UCL) as a PhD student and wrote my thesis on George Hibbert, a proslavery West India merchant and art, book and botany collector. This research eventually became my first monograph The Bonds of Family: Slavery, Commerce and Culture in the British Atlantic World (MUP, 2020).

3.    What is it about your specialist area that fascinates you?

The history, legacies and representation of slavery continue to shape the world we live in today. We can discern the social, cultural, political and economic afterlives of slavery within the present. I find the way that this history connects people, places, and ideas over time fascinating – it gives meaning to the work, even if that meaning can sometimes be difficult and complicated to grapple with.

4.    What is your research project about?

My most recent project focuses on the teaching of slavery in British schools. Between 2008–13, transatlantic slavery was a compulsory part of the national curriculum and it is still frequently taught. Despite the sensitivity of the subject there is little support for teachers to help them understand the historiography or develop appropriate pedagogical strategies for engaging with the topic. I partnered with professional educators at the Institute of Education, UCL to develop a teacher training programme and a book based around a series of key principles for teaching. We hope it will start a dialogue about how and why we teach this history.

5.    Why did you decide to pursue this project?

There are a lot of public misconceptions about the history of transatlantic slavery, especially in an era of increased polarisation and misinformation. The history of slavery, including its impact on the development of racial thinking and the legacy of racism, are challenging issues to confront in the classroom. Teachers need to be supported to deliver the critical skills and knowledge that students need to navigate these complexities.

6.    What is the project’s argument?

We argue teachers need to engage with evidence-based historical knowledge and appropriate pedagogical approaches so that they can teach the history of slavery ethically and effectively. Providing accessible training, information and resources is key to making sure that teachers have the tools they need to transform their practice.

7.    What is its significance to your specialist area, the broader field of history, and our understanding of human experience?

My commitment to the project is rooted in the belief that historical research should be accessible outside of the academy. I hope that the project will demonstrate to other historians working in different fields the value of partnering with educators to bring their work into the classroom so that young peoples’ experience of learning about the past will inspire them to become the next generation of historians.

8.    What were the most enjoyable, and difficult, parts of the project?

The most enjoyable part of the project was working with the students and teachers that have participated in the different education initiatives that underpinned the work. One student described her learning process as ‘mental reparations – it repaired me mentally’ – it is a huge privilege to have that kind of impact. The extraordinary dedication and innovation of the teachers was also inspiring, especially given the huge constraints of time and workload that they face.

9.    Can you choose one or two ‘favourite’ sources and tell us about them?

One of the key resources that we drew on for source material for teachers was a project that I previously worked on – The Legacies of British Slave-ownership. It is an online database of slave-owners put together using archival documents covering the period 1763–1833. It includes digitised information drawn from the slavery compensation records, slave registers, plantation records, inventories, wills, maps and almanacs. The data is searchable by area making it an ideal way to connect slavery with local history, closing the geographical distance between the Caribbean and Britain. It is also organised by legacy strands so that teachers can easily identify recognisable case studies that help students connect the past to the present. Teachers do not have time to trawl through archives looking for material so digital academic projects can provide a way for them to access historical sources more easily.

10.    What advice would you give to those who want to study history, whether as part of a degree at university, or beyond a university context?

History is such a powerful subject, it gives us the critical analytical skills to make sense of the world around us. It also has the potential for building shared understanding. I have worked in public and academic history, and both have demonstrated to me the ways that telling different stories about the past can build connection and community. In an increasingly fractious age that is work worth doing.

11.    What are you planning to work on next?

I want to examine the relationship between slavery and industrialisation through a study of the Greg family who owned both Quarry Bank Mill and plantations in Dominica and St. Vincent. The framework offers an opportunity to consider the intersections of race and class within different labour histories in Britain and the Caribbean. It also provides a route into thinking about how slavery and empire shaped one of the defining moments in British history.