How did slave-produced wealth flow into Britain's drawing rooms, and whose names were erased from the ledgers of history?
Join acclaimed historian Dr Miranda Kaufmann, author of the groundbreaking Black Tudors, as she presents Heiresses: Marriage, Inheritance and Caribbean Slavery, an investigation into how, for almost two centuries, the profits of human exploitation built Britain's wealth and shaped its aristocracy.
Following the lives of nine heiresses, Miranda will trace their tainted money from its origins in the sugar plantations of the Caribbean, revealing the murky world of inheritance, fortune-hunting, and human exploitation. From Jane Leigh Perrot, Jane Austen's light-fingered aunt, to Elizabeth Vassall Fox, Lady Holland, who faked her daughter's death to maintain custody during a tumultuous divorce, these women helped build Britain's empire.
In conversation with actor and author Paterson Joseph, Miranda will also pieces together the lives of individuals who were enslaved, discovering extraordinary stories, including Betsy Newton, who escaped from Barbados to confront her enslavers in London, and Susanna Augier who became a powerful landowner in Jamaica, inheriting her white father's properties.
The legacy of enslavement surrounds us, from Sloane Square to Aston Villa football ground. When slavery was abolished in 1834, British slave owners were compensated £20 million, a government debt fully paid off only in 2015. This is not a story of the distant past, as Miranda will remind us.
"A sobering and significant achievement, this is a book you need to read." Lucy Worsley

The ‘stream and book’ package includes a unique ticket for the stream, and a copy of Heiresses (RRP £30) deliverable to any UK address.
The event will initially be broadcast on 13 November at 6.30pm UK time. It will be available to view up to two weeks after the event has ended and can be accessed Worldwide. If you live in a time zone that does not suit the initial broadcast time you can watch it at any point after the initial showing for two weeks.
If you have any questions, please email [email protected].