EXCLUSIVE: Businessman says Britain has ‘very little to apologise for’ over slave trade as he raises funds for new £70,000 statue in honour of Royal Navy sailors who died helping to free more than 150,000 slaves

• Management consultant Colin Kemp, 76, launched the project last week
• West Africa Squadron took up 50 per cent of Royal Navy budget at its peak 

A businessman who has proposed a £70,000 plan to build a memorial to the 17,000 sailors who lost their lives fighting to end the slave trade says Britain has ‘very little to apologise for’.

Semi-retired management consultant Colin Kemp, 76, has launched a fundraising campaign to build a monument to the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron, which freed more than 150,000 slaves over the course of six decades in the 19th century.

At its peak, the squadron took up 50 per cent of the navy’s budget – after Britain banned the slave trade in 1807. 

Mr Kemp has secured the backing of renowned sculptor Vincent Gray, who has designed a statue that could be installed in Portsmouth, the home of the West Africa Squadron. 

The proposed monument depicts a slave before abolition, a naval officer and a freed slave. 

A businessman who has proposed a £70,000 plan to build a memorial to the 17,000 sailors who lost their lives fighting to end the slave trade says Britain has ‘very little to apologise for’. Above: The monument proposed by semi-retired management consultant Colin Kemp, 76

Speaking to MailOnline, Mr Kemp said: ‘I am patriotic, I think we have got very little to apologise for. Slavery was obviously awful, no one in their right mind could support it but it happened.

READ MORE: As Charles backs inquiry into royals and slavery, we humbly invite His Majesty to consider the full picture – why doesn’t anyone talk about the decades the Royal Navy spent hunting down slave ships… and freeing 150,000 poor souls on board? 

‘Doing the statue completes the story. Britain did good, we were the first to stop it.’

The West Africa Squadron was formed in 1808 to help in the abolition of the slave trade.

Around 2,000 sailors died in direct combat, while a further 15,000 died after succumbing to diseases and illness on their voyages. 

At their peak in the 1840s and 1850s, British anti-slavery operations involved 36 ships and 4,000 sailors. 

The operation amounted to around two per cent of government expenditure. Overall, 1,600 slave ships were captured and its prisoners liberated. 

The squadron ceased operating in 1867, after the transatlantic trade had been suppressed. 

Mr Kemp said: ‘I like history, but I had never heard of the West Africa Squadron. 

‘I started looking into it. It’s absolutely fascinating. 

‘One of the most fascinating things is that at its peak it took half of the royal navy budget, or the equivalent of 2 per cent of GNP, which in today’s terms would be an enormous amount of money.’

He added: ‘I commissioned a piece of research, of 189 people only one had heard of the WA Squadron, I think that needs putting right. 

‘We stood alone and did it on our own.

The Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron, freed more than 150,000 slaves over the course of six decades in the 19th century. Above: A painting by Reverend Robert Ross-Lewin – the chaplain on anti-slavery ship HMS London – showing Royal Navy sailors chasing a slaver ship near Zanzibar

Anti-slave ship the Black Joke had itself been used to carry slaves until it was captured and transformed by the Royal Navy. Above: A painting depicting the Black Joke’s capture of Spanish slave ship the Almirante 

The captain of the Black Joke, Lieutenant Henry Downes, spent every idle hour charting El Almirante’s likely route, accounting for location, currents and season

‘I think that sums it up entirely. I will never defend slavery. I am proud of what we did to stop it.’

Asked if he agrees with increasing calls for Britain to pay reparations to nations affected by the slave trade, Mr Kemp added: ‘I think it is absolute rubbish, it’s nonsense. We have quite a large overseas aid budget. 

‘I don’t agree with slavery. It was awful, it was terrible, but no, we should not pay reparations.’

His project, which has so far raised nearly £900 since being launched last weekend, has already received some backlash online.

After it was supported on X – the social media platform formerly known as Twitter – by respected law professor Dr Wanjiru Njoya, some critics took aim at the project. 

Dr Njoya had said: ‘Thousands of British sailors died fighting slavers off the West African coast.

‘Yet today many people have not heard of this squadron. Their sacrifice is forgotten.

After it was supported on X – the social media platform formerly known as Twitter – by respected law professor Dr Wanjiru Njoya, some critics took aim at the project

Critics took aim at Dr Njoya’s support for the proposed memorial to the West Africa Squadron

‘Please support this sculpture if you can. We should remember them and ensure future generations will remember them.’

She added in another post that Britain ‘stood for liberty’. 

But one critic said: ‘”Britain stood for liberty”, are you joking?’ 

Another replied: ‘You’re entitled to your view and to campaign for a memorial to the Royal Navy West Africa Squadron, Wanjiru. 

READ MORE: How the Royal Navy captured a notorious slaveship and used it to FREE 3,000 Africans from captivity in a swashbuckling story from Britain’s imperial past in 1827 

‘You’re not entitled to appropriate British and West African history and inanely accuse ‘us’ of a lack of gratitude.’

Mr Kemp, from Chichester, hopes that, if his fundraising target is reached, the memorial could be completed within six months and then installed at a yet-to-be-determined location in Portsmouth. 

Sculptor Mr Gray previously designed a monument to Battle of Trafalgar hero Horatio Nelson, which was installed in Chichester. 

It was handed a design award by the Sussex Heritage Trust last year. 

In 1827, sailors of the West Africa Squadron caught the Henriqueta slave ship off the coast of West Africa.

It had recently been laden with more than 500 would-be slaves. It was bound for the Bahia, a sugar-cultivating region in Brazil.

The men of HMS Sybille fired cannon balls at the ship’s rigging to destroy its sails and masts whilst sparing the lives of those onboard.

The Navy then set about transforming the Henriqueta into a ship that could hunt down slave vessels.

Renamed the Black Joke, she seized 11 slave ships on behalf of the crown and some of her 50-strong crew were freed Africans. 

Around 3,000 liberated Africans – rather than being transported across the Atlanic – were resettled in Freetown, Sierra Leone, the capital of British West Africa.

In 1829, the Black Joke engaged in a battle with the notorious slave ship the El Almirante. 

The heavily-armed, purpose-built vessel had received warning that the Navy were coming but the men of the Black Joke still triumphed.

The El Almirante was captured and onboard were found cryptic letters revealing the location of secret slave-trade routes to Havana. 

Colin Kemp, 76, is a semi-retired management consultant from Chichester

In 1831, the Black Joke captured a Spanish slave ship, the Primero, after a chase that lasted a whole day. 

The slave deck was found to be packed with 311 people, with more than half being children. 

After a little over two years of work for the Navy, the Black Joke was declared unfit for service and was set ablaze off the coast of Freetown. 

To donate to the West Africa Squadron memorial campaign, go to https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/westafricasquadron. 

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