More than £4 million of St Andrews University funds derives from historical slavery or colonial activities, it has been revealed.
In all, 24 active endowment funds have direct links to the slave trade or imperialism.
The amount makes up 10% of donations, which themselves form a tiny fraction of university funding.
However, St Andrews principal Professor Dame Sally Mapstone says it should spark debate on how colonial exploitation benefited the university.
The slave trade link was uncovered during research by members of St Andrews University’s School of History.
It was commissioned in 2021 by Dame Sally, who wanted to gain more understanding of the subject.
At the time, debate was raging across the UK over what should happen to statues and street names dedicated to 18th and 19th century slave traders.
Researchers also found items in St Andrews University collections, including cultural artefacts, were “collected in imperial or colonial contexts”.
“Some may have been acquired in circumstances that we would now regard as unacceptable,” they said.
St Andrews University ‘derived long-term benefits’ from slave trade
Dame Sally has now outlined the key findings in an email to students and staff.
She says: “The university has derived some long-term benefits from gifts and benefactions from donors associated with the ownership of or trade in enslaved people.
“The university continued to receive benefactions from individuals whose business interests depended on enslaved or unfree labour until well into the late nineteenth century.”
Dame Sally adds: “Our predecessors did not take the care we might have hoped for with some items in our collections, including human remains, knowledge of whose provenance remains incomplete.”
The principal says the findings raise important questions about the practices and wealth which shaped St Andrews.
What happens next?
The slavery connection is far from unique to St Andrews University.
However, Dame Sally says she is committed to publishing the report and learning from it.
A series of workshops and seminars will be organised to examine how the issue still impacts culture in St Andrews.
Staff from the university’s school of English have also travelled to Australia to speak to indigenous communities.
They will work together to consider how best to reflet this aspect of history in the school’s teaching.
Conversation