Archbishop of Canterbury reveals ancestral links to slavery: Justin Welby’s relatives enslaved people on Jamaican plantation, then compensated by UK government

The Archbishop of Canterbury has revealed his family’s links to slavery.

Reverend Justin Welby revealed that his ancestor owned enslaved people on a plantation in Jamaica and was compensated by the British government when slavery was abolished.

In a personal statement, Dr Welby reaffirmed his commitment to addressing the legacies of slavery.

The Church of England’s most senior bishop revealed that he recently discovered that his biological father, Sir Anthony Montague Browne, who was Winston Churchill’s private secretary, “had an ancestral connection to the enslavement of people in Jamaica and Tobago”.

Montague Browne, the son of a colonel in the British Army, was born in May 1923. He studied at Magdalen College, Oxford, and then joined the RAF. He died in 2013 at the age of 89.

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has revealed that his ancestor owned enslaved people on a plantation in Jamaica and was compensated by the British government when slavery was abolished.

Sir Anthony Montague Browne, who was a private secretary to Winston Churchill, “had an ancestral connection with the enslavement of people in Jamaica and Tobago”.

The Church of England announced last year that it was setting up a £100m fund to tackle the legacy of slavery

Britain’s role in the slave trade began in 1562 and by the 1730s the country was the largest slave trading nation on the planet.

A bill to abolish slavery failed to pass in 1805, for the eleventh time in 15 years.

But parliament outlawed the practice two years later, with a new law passed in 1833 banning the slave trade in the British colonies.

The Church of England announced last year it was setting up a £100m fund to tackle the legacy of slavery, with a separate report calling for it to be increased to £1bn to tackle “the scale of moral sin and crime.”

At the time, Dr Welby described the move as “the start of a multi-generational response to the appalling evil of transatlantic chattel slavery”.

His revelation about his family’s links came less than a week after he warned that changing the law on assisted dying would leave those most vulnerable.

Writing in the Daily Mail, the Church of England’s most senior bishop said “the pressure to end life early would be intense and inescapable” if the law is revised.