Jane Lydon - Australian Legacies of British Slavery

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In August 1833, British Parliament abolished slavery in the British Caribbean, Mauritius and the Cape. While this momentous event has continued to be celebrated, it is often forgotten that many of those who benefited from slavery had ties to other parts of the British Empire, including the settler colonies of Australia, Canada and South Africa. Between 2020-2024 our team worked to trace the movement of people, goods, capital, and practices from the Caribbean to the newly-established colony of Western Australia, working in collaboration with the National Centre of Biography, the Australian National Maritime Museum, and the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership at University College London. We researched Western Australian colonists and their networks, contributing to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, the People Australia database, and an exhibition at the ANMM. Our project demonstrated the profound importance of British slavery and slave-ownership to the colonisation of Western Australia and has helped frame a set of methods and questions that can be applied to the legacies of slavery in other settler colonial contexts.​

 

Jane Lydon is Wesfarmers Chair of Australian History at the University of Western Australia. Her research centres upon Australia’s colonial past and its legacies in the present. Her most recent book is the co-edited (with Zoe Laidlaw) Legacies of British Slavery in Australia and New Zealand (Manchester University Press, 2026).

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Members and guests are warmly invited to join us before the meeting for drinks and nibbles. 

 

After the talk, members and guests are warmly invited to stay on and join us for a catered two course spit-roast dinner which will be served in the staff dining room adjacent to the Great Southern Room.

The cost is $45 per head - if you would like to pay via credit card please click link - Credit card payment
Including wine and soft drinks

We are grateful to Catherine Clark, CEO and State Librarian, for her generosity in making the 4th floor staff canteen again available to us.

Bookings for the dinner must be received by the morning of Friday 6 November as we have to provide final numbers to the caterer. Please RSVP to Nick Drew by email at: nickdrew@bigpond.com or telephone 0409 290 895 by 2 November 2026.

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