Five Guineas reward for the return of my slave: Shocking 18th-century adverts appealing for return of runaways reveal harrowing truth of forced labour in Britain

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The harrowing tales of black slaves who were whipped and branded in 18th century Britain have been unveiled for the first time - from newspaper adverts.

They are revealed in a new digital database of runaways that escaped from cruel merchants who grew rich on their forced labour.

Scientists have uncovered more than 800 advertisements placed by masters and owners in English and Scottish newspapers between 1700 and 1780. 

The adverts offering money for the return of the runaway slave give an insight into those enslaved people who lived and died in the UK hundreds of years ago. 

The British empire was a focal point in the slave trade and as the industry grew, the numbers of enslaved people arriving in Britain surged, with some taking the chance to escape.

Those who fled their owners often went to the East End of London, living in squalid conditions in the districts of Mile End and Stepney, as well as Paddington in the north west of the capital.

The adverts were uncovered and compiled into a database by a research effort led by the University of Glasgow and the Leverhulme Trust to tell the stories of the 'heroic individuals, untamed by the haughty tyrants who attempted to bend them down.' 

The harrowing tales of slaves who were whipped and branded in 18th century Britain have been unveiled for the first time - from newspaper ads. This owner offered a reward of five guineas for the return of a 25-year-old man who was 'bred a cook' 

A Scottish slave owner published an ad seeking for a 18-year-old girl who escaped. She was described as having an engraved collar around her neck with the words 'his Negro' on it 

The injuries mentioned in the brief ads above make clear how often slaves - which included men, women and children - were beaten in captivity

The adverts lift the lid on this relatively unknown details of British history, as they offered rewards to anyone who captured and returned the fugitives - often identified by scars from their thrashings.

They were brought into the country by government officials or military commaders returning to home. 

When they arrived in Britain they were sold at auctions, with some going to work at butlers for wealthy families. 

The injuries mentioned in the brief ads make clear how often slaves - which included men, women and children - were beaten in captivity.

They were also forced to wear metal collars and had their faces branded.

Research assistant Nelson Mundell, of the University of Glasgow, said: 'This project shows it wasn't an unusual thing to have slaves walking around the streets of villages, towns and cities the length and breadth of Britain.

'The adverts make for sobering reading as they describe scars and markings from whips or brands.

'It also shows on occasion slaves wore collars or other manacles, sometimes with the owner's name engraved on them, as was the case with an 18 year old fugitive called Ann who escaped from a house in Glasgow.' 

Captives being brought on board a slave ship on the West Coast of Africa (Slave Coast), c1880

 Most fled to the East End of London, living in squalid conditions in the districts of Mile End and Stepney, as well as Paddington in the north west of the capital. This advert calls for the return of a man with 'very large lips' who is believed to have fled to London 

Runaway slaves inadvertently generated records of themselves in the ads. Otherwise they are all but completely absent from historical records

The detailed descriptions are enough to open the window on their dreadful suffering with information on mannerisms, clothes, hairstyles, skin markings, teeth and skills

The database is a result of the university's Runaway Slaves in Britain project. It involved combing through tens of thousands of pages of newspapers to locate ads

Runaway slaves inadvertently generated records of themselves in the ads. Otherwise they are all but completely absent from historical records.

The detailed descriptions are enough to open the window on their dreadful suffering with information on mannerisms, clothes, hairstyles, skin markings, teeth and skills.

Some were employed as sailors and dock workers as well as craftsmen, labourers and washerwomen.

One of the ads, from the Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette dated 16 March 1769, offered 'Twenty Guineas Reward' for his return or 'Five Guineas for such Intelligence' leading to his recapture.

Described as a 'young negro' called Jeremiah or Jerry, it said he had a 'large scar' on one of his wrists.

He was wearing a light-coloured 'Great Coat, dirty Leather Breeches, and White Stockings, and wore a Curl behind, that match'd the other Part of his own woolly Hair; he reads and writes badly, plays pretty well on the Violin, and can shave and dress a Wig.'

Some lucky few escaped poverty and a life of servitude in Britain to become successful businessmen and scholars, like Ignatius Sancho (left) and Olaudah Equiano (right)

The ad continues: 'As the said Negro knows his Master's Affection for him, if he will immediately return, he will be forgiven; if Freedom be what he wishes for, he shall have it, with reasonable Wages; if he neglects this present forgiving Disposition in his Master, he may be assured that more effectual Measures will be taken. He has been pretty much at Bath, and the Hot-Wells, Bristol, with his Master.'

The database is a result of the university's Runaway Slaves in Britain project. It involved combing through tens of thousands of pages of newspapers to locate ads.

Only those on the run for at least a week would have led to publication. They represent a far larger number as many masters did not place ads.

The population of the black community in the UK surged in the 18th century, as the British empire expanded.

African and Afro-Carribean slaves were shipped across the world to work on plantations owned by the British.

But others were ferried into the UK, arriving in huge numbers in the main ports at the time, London, Liverpool and Bristol. 

Estimates at the time suggested in London alone, there were about 10,000 living in the capital, which was around one per cent of the capital's population.

However, some lucky few escaped poverty, and a life of servitude to become successful businessmen. 

The Port of Liverpool, England. This is a scan of an original engraving from 'The Modern Universal British Traveller' published by J Cooke in 1779. At this time ships out of Liverpool dominated the transatlantic slave trade

Bare-knuckle boxer Bill Richmond 

Bill Richmond made his career as a boxer, and he became known as 'The Black Terror'

Bill Richmond was an American bare-knuckle boxer, who was born a slave in New York in 1763.

But he spent most of his life in the UK. 

He was a servant of Lord Percy, the Duke of Northumberland, who took him to England in 1777.

He went to school in Yorkshire, and was an apprentice for a cebiet maker in York.

In the early 1970s, he married a local white English woman. He had several children, records show. 

By 1795 he and his family moved to London, where he became an employee of Thomas Pitt, a British peer and naval officer. 

But he made his career as a boxer, and he became known as 'The Black Terror.'

 When he retired he bought the Horse and Dolphin pub in Leicester Square and set up a boxing academy.

He died at his home in London, England in 1829.

Lord Percy, the Duke of Northumberland, who took Mr Richmond to England in 1777

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Ignatius Sancho, who was born on a slave ship, became famous literary celebrity in London.

And former servant Cesar Picton became a coal merchant in Kingston-upon-Thames, and was wealthy enough when he died to leave behind two acres of land, a house, and shops. 

One of the most famous was Olaudah Equiano, who went on to become a radical reformer and best-selling author.  

Simon Newman, professor of History at the university's College of Arts, said: 'We do not have the words or sometimes even the names of bound or enslaved people who were brought to 18th century Britain.

'In many cases all that remains are the short newspaper advertisements written by masters who were eager to reclaim their valuable human property.

'These advertisements are important because they remind us that slavery was routine and unremarkable in Britain during the first three-quarters of the 18th century.

'This is made very clear by the placement of these newspaper notices offering enslaved people for sale or seeking the recapture and return of enslaved runaways.

'These advertisements appeared next to the mundane and every day news items and announcements that filled the pages of the burgeoning newspaper press.

'Slavery was not an institution restricted to the Caribbean, America or South Asia, and these short newspaper notices bring to life the enslaved individuals who lived, worked, and who attempted to escape into British society.

'This is an important resource for the understanding of slavery and telling the stories of the enslaved and slavery in Britain.'

The ads paint a fascinating picture of those who ran away in an attempt to be free of servitude.

They cover all regions of England and mainland Scotland - providing a rich source of information about the slave trade in 18th century Britain.

The ads include information about the work of the enslaved and the lives, businesses and homes of their masters and mistresses. 

An ad in the Bath Chronicle from February 5 1763 placed by 'John Stone Esq of Chipenaam' tells of a 21 year old runaway slave called Gloucester.

It reads: 'Slender grown, marked with a long scar down the middle of his forehead and speaks English tolerably well.'

An advert from the Edinburgh Evening Courant dated 13 February 1727, from The Mitchell Library, Glasgow, offered a two Guineas Reward for the return of a teenage girl.

It stated: '... a Negro Woman, named Ann, being about 18 Years of Age, with a green Gown and a Brass Collar about her Neck, on which are engraved these words ['Gustavus Brown in Dalkieth his Negro, 1726.'

Another ad was headed A BLACK SLAVE run away.

Offering a five guinea reward, it stated: 'ON the 11th current there run away from the house of Col. Munro of Novar, in Rossshire, A BLACK SLAVE, a native of the East Indies, called CAESAR. He is about 25 or 26 years of age, about five feet four or five inches high, has long black hair, and was bred a cook.'

Research from the project has already helped inspire a graphic novel entitled Freedom Bound and due to be published later this year and the award-winning short film '1745'.

The British were the first to abandon the slave trade. They did this in 1807 when there were still huge profits to be made, and they did it for mainly moral reasons.

BRITAIN'S ROLE IN THE RISE AND FALL OF TRANSATLANTIC SLAVERY 

In 1807, William Wilberforce drew up the Slave Trade Act which finally to abolished the industry in Britain

The transatlantic slave trade was launched by Portuguese traders with the construction of sub-Saharan Africa's first permanent slave trading post at Elmina in 1492.

But it soon passed into Dutch then English hands and, by the 18th century, was seeing tens of thousands of Africans shipped through 'the door of no return' each year on squalid slave ships bound for plantations in the Americas.

European traders would sail to the west coast of Africa with manufactured goods which they exchanged for people captured by African traders.

The European merchants would then cross the Atlantic with ships full of slaves on the notorious 'Middle Passage'.

Conditions were so torrid that many of the captors, who often had barely any space to move, did not survive the journey.

For those who did survive, conditions did not improve much.

They were sent to toil on plantations across the modern-day United States, the Caribbean and South American nations such as Brazil, producing crops including sugar, coffee and tobacco for consumption back in Europe.

By the 1660s, British involvement had expanded so rapidly in response to the demand for labour to cultivate sugar in Barbados and other British West Indian islands that the number of slaves taken from Africa in British ships averaged 6,700 per year.

A century later, Britain was the foremost European country engaged in the slave trade. Of the 80,000 Africans chained and shackled and transported across to the Americas each year, 42,000 were carried by British slave ships.

Plantation owners were often cruel taskmasters, forcing their captives to work without rest for many hours and meagre rations.

The owners themselves - often the younger sons of British aristocrats who crossed the Atlantic to find their own riches after their fathers' wealth was passed down to their older brothers - made fortunes which many used to build lavish homes across the English countryside.

But by the end of the 18th Century, the first calls for full abolition of slavery were being made in Britain.

Fuelled by a series of court judgements freeing slaves and the influence of religion, many leading figures joined the chorus for abolition.

At first, the campaign was countered strongly by those who profited from it. But then independent MP William Wilberforce took the helm of the growing anti-slavery movement and its wave of action gathered pace.

An etching showing slaves packed on board a slave ship from the New York Public Library

 In the 1790s, Wilberforce was persuaded to lobby for the abolition of the slave trade and for 18 years he regularly introduced anti-slavery motions in parliament.

The campaign was supported by many members of the Clapham Sect and other abolitionists who raised public awareness of their cause with pamphlets, books, rallies and petitions.

In 1807, Wilberforce drew up the Slave Trade Act which finally to abolished the industry in Britain.

It did not free those who were already slaves, however, and it was not until 1833 that a second act was passed giving freedom to all slaves in the British empire.

The first British-owned slave to win his freedom through the courts was James Somersett, an enslaved African, owned by customs officer Charles Stewart in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 1771, soon after he was brought to Scotland, Somersett ran away but was re-captured and put on a ship bound for Jamaica. But three people claiming to be Somersett's godparents from his baptism as a Christian in England, John Marlow, Thomas Walkin, and Elizabeth Cade, made an application before the Court of King's Bench for a writ of habeas corpus.

After a month of consideration, judge Lord Justice Mansfield ruled that James should be set free. He called the case 'odious' and said that 'the claim of slavery can never be supported'.

This was hailed as a great victory by James and his supporters and set an important precedent, widely taken to mean that when a slave sets foot on English soil, he becomes free. It wasn't until Wilberforce's 1807 act, though, that owning foreign slaves on foreign lands was outlawed.

The ancestors of a host of well-known Britons have been linked to the slave trade in recent years.

Among them is prime minister David Cameron whose first cousin six times removed, General Sir James Duff, in addition to benefiting from slavery while it was legal in the British empire, was given £4,101, equal to more than £3 million today ($4.7 million dollars), for the 202 black people he enslaved on the Grange Sugar Estate in Jamaica.

Nineteenth Century businessman William Jolliffe, a relative of Cameron's wife, Samantha, also reaped the rewards of slavery, receiving £4,000, or around £3.25million in today's money, in government compensation for having to free 164 slaves in St Lucia following abolition.

Others whose families benefitted from slavery include, Lord Coe, actor Benedict Cumberbach, secularist Richard Dawkins, former minister Douglas Hogg, authors Graham Greene and George Orwell and poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning.