Comments on: Sir Edward Codrington

By: Historical Writers’ Forum Blog Hop – Mary Queen of Scots – Jennifer C. Wilson

Tue, 13 Oct 2020 07:01:22 +0000

[…] you can see, on the 11th, Lynn Bryant told us about Sir Edward Codrington, and next up, on the 15th, fellow Ocelot Nancy Jardine is talking about General Gnaeus Julius […]

By: Lynn Dawson

Lynn Dawson — Mon, 12 Oct 2020 09:20:17 +0000

In reply to Paula lofting. I'm glad you enjoyed it. He's a really good example for me, of a historical figure who comes across as enormously likeable in his correspondence, and his relationship with Jane shines through every letter. It was a very modern partnership as well, they really talk about things and share ideas and opinions. I think that's why I felt slightly shocked when I found out his slaving connections, but I think it's very important to put that aspect of him alongside the other.

By: Paula lofting

Paula lofting — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 21:56:12 +0000

Lynn what a fantastic post. It’s just as easy to look at the negative aspects of people in history and to turn away from the positives as it is vice versa, but what I have always been told by historians is that we cannot judge historical personages By the same standards as we would apply to people today. Codrington was a man of his time and by all accounts was not afraid to risk his life to save others. As you said, we know he was engaged directly in saving the Greeks but e don’t know to what extent he involved himself in the Management of his plantation and the slaves he owned. I look forward to reading what your research turns up. I rather suspect that his letter to his wife gives us a glimpse of a man who was in some way beginning to change. Let’s hope so! Well done!

By: Lynn Dawson

Lynn Dawson — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 16:54:08 +0000

In reply to Nancy Jardine. I agree with you. The Codrington family were big plantation owners, so Edward Codrington would have grown up in a family that took slavery for granted, but things were obviously changing. That little paragraph to his wife is so tantalising, because it feels like part of an ongoing conversation. I also think that the plantation and the slaves on it were jointly owned with his siblings, and we definitely know that his brother was very anti-abolition, right up to the bitter end. So much we don't know.

By: Nancy Jardine

Nancy Jardine — Sun, 11 Oct 2020 10:53:19 +0000

Thank you, Lynne! A finely balanced article of Codrington. I think it’s hard to tell from our 21st C standpoint which aspects would have been uppermost in the minds of slave owners. It looks like Codrington, being such a busy man, may have spent little time on even thinking of the slaves he owned. Perhaps it was just an aspect of his inheritance he gave no thought to?
I just watched the film ‘Amazing Grace’ again, about Wilberforce, and it reminded me of my school history lessons of the late 1960s. Slavery was part of the programme of work, but only in terms of the Abolitionists eventually getting Parliament on board. There was never a ‘discourse’ on what owners actually thought of their property.