Justin Welby, archbishop of Canterbury and leader of the global Anglican Church, revealed on Tuesday that one of his forebears owned enslaved people on a plantation in Jamaica.
In a personal statement, Welby disclosed that his late biological father, Anthony Montague Browne, a former private secretary to Prime Minister Winston Churchill, had ancestral ties to the enslavement of people in Jamaica and Tobago.
This discovery, which Welby says he learned recently, traces back to Browne's great-great-grandfather, James Fergusson, the fourth baronet of Kilkerran, who owned the Rozelle plantation in St. Thomas, Jamaica. At its peak, the plantation had around 200 enslaved people.
Fergusson was one of many British slaveholders compensated by the government when slavery was abolished in 1833.
Welby noted that he received no financial support from Browne during his lifetime or from his estate after his passing.
The archbishop has been a leading figure in the Church of England's public acknowledgment of its historical involvement in transatlantic slavery. In a report released last year, the church traced part of the origins of its £9 billion ($12 billion) endowment fund to Queen Anne's Bounty, a financial scheme created in 1704 and linked to transatlantic slavery.
At the time, Welby said: "I am deeply sorry for these connections. It is now time to take meaningful steps to confront our shameful history."
