Lecture: ‘Renewal and Reconciliation: The Codrington Reparations Project’

We welcome Revd Dr Duncan Dormor to give our third annual Brathwaite Memorial Lecture. Duncan is the General Secretary of USPG (the United Society Partners in the Gospel), formerly known as SPG (the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts). In 1710, SPG received a bequest from Sir Christopher Codrington of two estates on Barbados. The estates totalled 700 acres and included a population of enslaved African men, women, and children. SPG owned and ran the estates until 1838 One of those involved in the running of the estates was John Brathwaite, who later acquired the freehold of a house in Epsom and lived there with his niece Mary Ashley (hence Ashley House, Ashley Road and the Ashley Centre). John Brathwaite is buried in a vault at St Martin’s and, as we know, his memorial has been the subject of much pain and controversy over the past few years. Between the years 1712 – 1838, the Codrington Estate was managed as a plantation business. Although conditions improved towards the end of this period, the use of the whip ‘in the field’ was not abolished until September 1829. (U)SPG’s stewardship of the Codrington Estate ended in 1983. Last September, when USPG announced The Codrington Reparations Project, Duncan gave the following statement: 

“USPG is deeply ashamed of our past links to slavery. We recognise that it is not simply enough to repent in thought and word, but we must act, working in partnership with Codrington whose descendants are still deeply impacted by the generational trauma that came from the Codrington Plantations”. USPG explains further on their website: Though USPG has long been engaging critically with its past including a substantial amount of research into Codrington, we are aware that it is not enough just to offer an unreserved apology. It must be more than mere thoughts and words. As an organisation that is committed to championing justice, we seek to honour the command in 1 John 1: 6-7 and move now towards honest reparative action. "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin." 1 John 1:6-7