National Trust being led away from its core purpose.

Another letter in The Week (November 21) which I totally agree with!

The National Trust’s mission.

To The Times

Those who doubt that Hilary McGrady (“National Trust told to learn from slave row”) is on a mission to lead the National Trust away from its core purpose of looking after the buildings and land placed in its care need only read the autumn edition of the trust’s magazine.  In it, the director of volunteering, participation and inclusion says: “At the National Trust we have a duty to play a part in creating a fairer, more equitable society.”  It is clear that the National Trust Acts from 1907 to 1971 place no such duty on the trust.

However, the actions of the director-general and her staff suggest they have this ambition at the centre of their strategy.  The trust must not become a vehicle for those endeavouring to use for social and political purposes.  The trustees have a responsibility to ensure that the director-general and her staff focus on the trust’s charitable objects.  If they fail to do that, the Charity Commission should step in and do the job for them.

Dr Alan Hearne, Woodstock, Oxfordshire

The National Trust discovers Britain had colonies and links to the African slave trade - who would have known such a thing?

The National Trust seems to have just discovered that Britain once had colonies – who would have known such a thing if they had not informed us!?  And – shock, horror, - Britain was once involved in the African slave trade.  I can’t imagine that this would be startling news to anyone who was given a half decent education.  I learnt about such things at junior school in the late 1950s.

Be that as it may, in order to keep up with the wokies in academia the National Trust’s historians have compiled a list of properties which have links with colonialism and the slave trade.  The fact that practically everything British has such links does not appear to have occurred to them, therefore the national list, not surprisingly, is a long one.

In Somerset there are four properties listed: Clevedon Court, Bath Assembly Rooms, Barrington Court and, amazingly, Glastonbury Tor.

Barrington Court’s presence on the National Trusts dossier is due to the fact that the house, acquired by the Trust in 1907, was leased in 1920 to Colonel Arthur Abram Lyle, the grandson of the founder of Abram Lyle & Sons, a sugar producing company.  The business was founded after the abolition of slavery so for some reason the Trust went to great lengths to find a connection to a supposedly morally dubious past.

Here is Barrington Court’s “crime sheet” from the Trust’s national report “Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery.”:

The National Trust acquired Barrington Court in 1907, in a derelict condition. From 1920, Barrington was leased and restored by Colonel Abram Arthur Lyle (1880–1931), using architectural salvage collected from other houses. Lyle was the grandson of the founder of Abram Lyle & Sons, a sugar-producing company of which the colonel became director, and which merged to form Tate & Lyle in 1921. Both businesses were established after the abolition of slavery. The early nineteenth and early twentieth century British sugar industry was predominantly supplied by Caribbean plantations, founded under colonialism and supported by enslaved labour.

As for Glastonbury Tor being on the Trust’s dossier, words fail me!  It strikes me that those running the National Trust cannot be happy in their job if they think many of the properties in their care have dishonourable links.  Perhaps they should resign and let pragmatists take their place.