Harewood House, home of the Lascelles family, is known for its lush and sumptuous interiors, sprawling Grounds and expertly crafted architecture, but less is known about its complex history.

Content warning: this article includes details of the experiences of enslaved people and historical illustrations that may be distressing.

Regarded as one of England’s ‘Treasure Houses’, Harewood House’s history, like most prominent British institutions, is closely linked to slavery and colonialism. Here, you’ll learn more about this intricate history.

The wealth that created many of England’s historic houses and collections often stem directly and indirectly from profits earned from the Transatlantic trade of enslaved African people. This involved the trafficking and enslavement of between 12 to 15 million African people, who were taken from their homelands and transported from Africa to the Caribbean and the Americas, where they were forced to work on plantations to produce goods including sugar, cotton and tobacco.

In addition to England’s historic houses, many significant British institutions profited from the trade of enslaved people, including banks and financial institutions such as Barclays and Lloyds, as well as The Bank of England and The City of London – then the financial hub of the British Empire, educational establishments such as The University of Oxford and Cambridge, The Church of England, The Royal African Company and The East India Company.

Harewood’s connection to slavery dates back to the mid-17th century. In the early days, before the Lascelles family became the Earls of Harewood, they were a farming and trading gentry family who had owned land in Yorkshire since the late thirteenth century. The family established a foothold in colonial trade in the 1600s, and grew to own estates, alongside a warehouse and shipping business, as well as exporting and importing sugar using their own ships.

It was the next generation of the family who cemented the Lascelles family’s ties to the Caribbean – three brothers named George (1681-1729), Henry (1690-1753) and Edward (1702-1747). George arrived in Barbados in 1706, and Henry and Edward joined in 1711/1712 and 1715, respectively. During this time, the Lascelles family became involved in the trade of enslaved people, following Henry’s marriage to Mary Carter, the daughter and heiress of a wealthy merchant and enslaver, Edwin Carter. Henry began trading in enslaved people in 1713, and over the course of four years, Henry and his brother, George were involved in the importation of over 1,000 enslaved people. The scale and breadth of their operations became vast, with Henry pioneering a scheme known as the “floating factory” between 1736 and 1744. Here, a ship moored permanently off the coast of Guinea in West Africa held newly enslaved people, to be collected and transported by other vessels to the Caribbean.