Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery

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Paul Lashmar David Olusoga

Drax of Drax Hall

How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery

Paul Lashmar, David Olusoga

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Hardback

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English

Pluto Press
08 June 2025

Genealogy, heraldry, names & honours; Colonialism & imperialism; Slavery & abolition of slavery; Economic systems & structures

While the British landed gentry were to profit from chattel slavery in the West Indies, the Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax family of Dorset pioneered it.

Spanning 400 years and 18 generations, Drax of Drax Hall is a story that has never been told. It all started when James Drax, one of the first settlers in Barbados in 1627, effectively founded the British sugar industry. His descendants went on to write the book on how to run a slave plantation. For more than two hundred years, the family enslaved up to 330 people at any time and became enormously rich.

Today, the bloodline is unbroken, and former Tory MP Richard Drax heads the family from his vast Charborough Estate in Dorset. With physical assets worth at least £150m-not to mention the 621-acre sugar plantation in Barbados, the Drax Hall Estate-he was the wealthiest landowner in the House of Commons. Unseated in 2024, he remains a hero amongst hard-right culture warriors for his refusal to make any reparations for his family's role in slavery.

Drax of Drax Hall is a history that lifts the lid on this grotesque family. Through enclosure at home and enslavement abroad, their exploits expose the ugly realities of colonialism and empire-the legacies of which we have yet to fully confront today.

By: Paul Lashmar
Foreword by: David Olusoga
Imprint: Pluto Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9780745350516
ISBN 10: 0745350518
Pages: 448
Publication Date: 08 June 2025
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Foreword by David Olusoga Introduction 1. Drax Hall, Barbados 2. The Erles of Charborough 3. Barbados and the Civil War 4. After Restoration 5. The Royal Years 6. The Wicked Squire 7. Four Barrels and a Smoking Gun 8. Nemesis Bilbiography Index

Paul Lashmar is Reader in Journalism at City St George's, University of London. He has taken an interest in the history of slavery since he developed a Channel 4 series on Britain's slave trade in 1999. He has been an investigative journalist in television and print, and on the staff of The Observer, Granada Television's World in Action current affairs series and The Independent. He is the author, co-author or co-editor of six books. He lives in Dorset. David Adetayo Olusoga OBE is a historian, writer, broadcaster, presenter and filmmaker. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester. He has presented historical documentaries on the BBC and contributed to The One Show on the BBC and The Guardian.

Reviews for Drax of Drax Hall: How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery

'An important and timely book, in which Paul Lashmar uses the story of the Drax family’s history as enslavers in Barbados as a microcosm of Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade. What’s so striking is the extent to which the current day wealth of the Drax family can be linked to their ancestors’ enslavement of Africans beginning in 1627' -- Laura Trevelyan, journalist and author of <i>A Very British Family: The Trevelyans and Their World</i> 'A family story straight out of Game of Thrones - five centuries of exploitation, greed and horrific cruelty, and no regrets whatsoever. Old-school investigative reporting married with a fearless historian's eye for the truth produces this - shocking, fascinating, enraging. A brilliant book that anyone still trying to defend Britain's colonial history in the Caribbean will choke on' -- Alex Renton, author of <i>Blood Legacy: Reckoning With a Family’s Story of Slavery</i>