An IASH Work-in-Progress seminar, delivered by Dr Simon Buck (Research Fellow: University of Edinburgh’s Historical Links to African Enslavement and Colonialism, 2022-2024)
Who paid for Old College?: Medical Philanthropy, Slavery and the University of Edinburgh
As several higher education institutions in the UK reflect on their historical connections to slavery and colonialism, and their racial legacies today, increasing attention has been given to how slavery-associated and colonial wealth contributed to the development of modern British universities. ‘Audits’ of how funds derived from empire helped to establish academic chairs, student bursaries, and physical infrastructure are vital to understanding the history of higher education and slavery in Britain; and necessary first steps before taking further actions to learn from and make amends for such legacies. But where do we go from here? And what can greater knowledge about universities’ financial links to slavery and colonialism tell us about how professors, students, and alumni also contributed to the development of the racial thought which underpinned enslavement and colonial rule?
Drawing on research conducted as part of the wider Research and Engagement Working Group tasked with investigating the University of Edinburgh’s legacies of slavery and colonialism, this paper looks at the public ‘subscription’ campaign to build Old College in the 1790s, specifically fundraising drives among the medical profession in the Caribbean and India. This paper argues that the colonial medical profession—many of whom Edinburgh alumni with strong professional and personal ties to their alma mater—responded enthusiastically to the campaign partly because the project was perceived as essential to the expansion of the Edinburgh Medical School, and so the maintenance of the ‘health’ of the British Empire. In their roles as physicians, surgeons, botanists, and scientists, medical ‘subscribers’ in the Caribbean engaged in the medicalisation of race and shared research findings (based often on the exploitation of enslaved African bodies and the expropriation of African knowledge) with professors back in Edinburgh. By exploring the backgrounds of the donors and their lifelong connections to the University, this paper not only shows how slavery-associated and colonial wealth financially benefited the University of Edinburgh, but asks why colonial figures engaged in medical philanthropy, and what their motivations reveal about the relationship between racial capitalism and transatlantic knowledge networks.
Please join in-person, or click the link below to join the webinar:
https://ed-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83178441780
Passcode: Kj7gnpP4