The LJMU (Liverpool John Moores University), Enslavement and Empire Project

For two centuries Liverpool John Moores University and its antecedent colleges have served our local communities. Our thirteen antecedent institutions have all, to varying extents, offered educational opportunities to the working classes at times when further education was so often reserved for elites. This laudable contribution to working-class education has, however, long hidden the extent that the University may have benefitted from and buttressed the economy around slavery; an economy which included the trafficking of enslaved people, financial benefit from ‘ownership’ of the enslaved, and trading in goods produced through the stolen labour of enslaved people. The complicated interwovenness of LJMU’s complicity in enslavement is reflective of the city of Liverpool – a city that was built to an enormous extent on its involvement in the transatlantic trafficking in enslaved people.

This project, with the upmost ethical consideration and transparency possible, aims to fully research the extent that LJMU’s antecedent colleges were complicit in and benefitted from transatlantic enslavement, empire, and the dissemination of racial science. In doing so we hope to be able to fully reckon with this past to understand who we are in the present, and who we want to be in the future. This research coincides with the bicentennial of Liverpool School of Arts in 2025 and is part of a holistic reckoning with our past.  The project runs alongside local efforts to decolonise curricula and to widen participation to underrepresented groups, from undergraduate to postgraduate level. It also runs as an acknowledgement that we cannot continue to fight to make our university a more welcoming and inclusive place without understanding our complicity in making higher education a non-welcoming and exclusive place for so long.

Our work starts with interrogation of Liverpool Mechanics’ Institute.  Through this research we are interrogating the classes taught, the topics of the public lectures, the identities of the donors to building of our Mount St. Building and working in collaboration with local partners to build a resource on World Fairs held at Liverpool Mechanics’ Institution.

This project is funded internally within the Faculty of Arts, Policing and Social Sciences and has the full support of the Vice Chancellor and his Executive Team.

Our key research questions include the following:

How did LJMU’s antecedent colleges benefit from wealth derived from the economy of slavery? 

Were LJMU’s antecedent schools complicit in the spreading of racial ‘knowledge’ derived from slavery and empire? 

To what extent did the educational opportunities offered by LJMU’s antecedent colleges contribute knowledge and the training of a workforce to support the economy of slavery?

Timeline of project:

2018: Staff consultation  

2020: Start of MA module in Liverpool and Slavery 

2023-2025: Postdoctoral researcher recruited to research the history of Liverpool Mechanics Institution, supported by the project team and steering committee.  

Winter 2025: Initial Report on project findings.   

NEW SUB-PAGE: Statement on reparative justice  

LJMU is committed to discussions on reparative justice, and whilst the university has an excellent record in equality and diversity initiatives, we know that there is always more that we can do.  The first step in this process is research into our history.  We will conduct internal and community-based consultations on this topic in due course.  Please register your details here (link to brief survey) if you would like to be kept informed of internal consultations (staff) or community events.