Robert Beckford writes about the decision to keep a statue of William Beckford, a former master of the Ironmongers’ Company, on display in the Guildhall in London (A plaque on a statue can’t cover a cruel slave trader’s mass murder. My ancestors deserve better, 19 September).
The Ironmongers’ Company commemorates another enslaver, Sir Robert Geffrye, whose portrait hangs on the main staircase of the Ironmongers’ Hall. There is also a statue of Geffrye outside the Museum of the Home in Hackney in east London. He was a director and shareholder in the Royal African Company, as well as being the part owner of a slaving ship, the China Merchant. The Royal African Company trafficked more enslaved Africans to the Americas than any other single institution during the entire period of the transatlantic slave trade.
