A hands-on guided 'walkshop' through the streets of Liverpool to uncover the links between science and the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Led by Professor Carl Larsen and students from the University of Liverpool, this walking tour begins at the Victoria Gallery and Museum, the founding site of the University of Liverpool. The university itself, established in 1881, was built upon philanthropy linked to the city’s rapid growth, largely fuelled by the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

From this historic building, and former site of the Ashton Street Lunatic Asylum, we will take a leisurely three-mile walk through Liverpool’s backstreets to uncover this complex and often hidden history. Our path will take us to significant locations that reveal how the city’s intellectual, cultural, and scientific institutions are deeply intertwined with the wealth and networks of enslavement.

A key stop is the former Liverpool Royal Institution on Colquitt Street, at the Parr Street junction. Parr Street is named after Thomas Parr, an enslaved people trader and banker, who sold the building to the Institution. Founded in 1814 by Liverpool merchants and inaugurated by the abolitionist-sympathiser William Roscoe, the Institution aimed to promote literature, science, and the arts. Yet, many of its founders were directly involved in slavery as traders or plantation owners. When it closed, its colonial-era collections were decanted to city institutions, including the University of Liverpool and the World Museum Liverpool. Even Roscoe, celebrated as an emancipist, benefited from the city's slavery-linked economy by paying ship captains and surgeons to collect plants and seeds from their voyages..

We will explore how medicine and science were also enmeshed in this system. Surgeons for slave ships were trained at the former Liverpool Royal Infirmary. Beyond treating crews and enslaved people, they collected plant and animal specimens from colonies, feeding into networks that allowed collectors like Henry Smeathman to amass their collections, a privilege facilitated by familial connections within the port’s administration.

The tour will also engage with the troubling legacy of scientific racism, exemplified by figures like Dr. Charles White. In 1794, White came to Liverpool to conduct anatomical examinations of Black residents, using such studies to promote racist hierarchies.

Finally, we will visit more familiar landmarks, such as the Athenaeum and the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, with a critical lens. The School was established to treat diseases affecting plantation workers and trade ship crews. A direct medical legacy of the slave trade and colonial commerce.

This journey is not just about the past; it is about our responsibility in the present. We aim to proactively examine how the foundations of learning, culture, and health in Liverpool were shaped by this history, ensuring these hidden relationships are acknowledged and understood.

Description supplied by the event organiser.