Alex Renton.
alex renton: BIOGRAPHY OF HIS SLAVE OWNING ANCESTORS
blood legacy: reckoning with a family’s story of slavery (2021)
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Alex Renton discovered in his Scottish family home papers and corrrespondence revealing his family’s deep involvement in the West Indian slave trade. He presents an unvarnished account of the brutal treatment of slaves - and the hardships and risky lives of the plantation owners. The harsh life of the plantation contrasts in an extraordinary way with the church-going and respectable life of the family members who remained in Edinburgh. One of the most remarkable and disturbing papers which Renton discovers is a letter from the older brother, and Edinburgh lawyer, explaining to his younger brother in the West Indies that a metal monogram is on its way, to be used for branding their slaves. He suggests that his younger brother will appreciate the artistry of the monogram design.
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Alex Renton is the oldest child of the Conservative minister Tim Renton. He was educated at Eton and at the University of Exeter, where he took his English degree. He has worked as a journalist on the Independent and the London Evening Standard. He is also a broadcaster, his programmes including two exposurs of child abuse at leading boys’ boarding schools. With BBC journalist Laura Trevelyan he founded ‘Heirs of Slavery’, an organisation advocating reparations from Britain to countries which had suffered from the slave trade.
