The Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh (RIE) was paid £832 by the British Government as 'compensation' for the loss of labour of slaves at an estate they owned in Jamaica, it has been revealed. Red Hill pen, in St Thomas-in-the-East, was left in the will of Scottish surgeon and enslaver Dr Archibald Kerr.
The hospital owned and leased the estate from 1749 to 1892. The RIE, which was stablished in 1729, drew substantial rents from the property by owning and leasing enslaved people until slavery was abolished across Britain's colonies in 1834, and after abolition, Red Hill employed 'apprentice' black labourers.
Red Hill's annual rent in 1810 was £350 and would the equivalent of approximately £317,400 in today's money. The estate made up a significant amount of RIE's income between 1744 and 1795 - and around 31 per cent of income from all charitable gifts.
