Maritime and industrial group Lloyd's Register, owned by one of Britain's largest charities, has apologized for its role in the African slave trade but has been criticized for not doing enough.

The company was founded in 1760 as the Shipping Register Society by merchants and underwriters who met at Edward Lloyd's Coffee House in Lombard Street, London, to provide classification services for ships.

Lloyds Register of Shipping (LR) has issued an apology after commissioning a study into its links to slavery. It also highlights the links between the maritime and insurance industries, the businesses that served both, and the transatlantic trade of people at the time, which set the stage for the global expansion of British financial interests.

The Wilberforce Institute at the University of Hull has published the results of its research, focusing on records from 1764 to 1834.

In a statement on its website, Lloyd's Register said that during this period, Lloyd's Register has been recording information about the seaworthiness of ships for the purpose of buying, selling and insuring ships in the trade. , adding: “It then sold that information to subscribers, many of whom actively participated in the slave economy.

“Some of our early committee members were involved in the transatlantic trade of enslaved Africans. It is noteworthy that since 1764, at least six committee members of the Shipping Register Society were identified as slave owners, while another six was involved in the trafficking of enslaved Africans.

"It is clear from this preliminary research that from its founding in 1760 to the British Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833, we played an important role in supporting the marine systems that fueled the slave economy.

"We deeply regret this history. Acknowledging this legacy is important for our organization, the descendants of those affected, those still living with the consequences of trafficking, and society as a whole."

LR said it had awarded £1 million to the National Archives to start a project to catalog and share archival material and support academic research in the Caribbean and West Africa to "develop new narratives about the history of slavery".

It has also pledged to support a project at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool to enable future generations of communities to study their history.

LR is part of the Lloyd's Register Foundation, one of the UK's largest charities, with 2023 revenue of £560 million.

Laurence Westgaph, of the Liverpool Black History Research Group, said £1m was "minuscule" given the profits generated from exploitation and questioned why the study only looked at records before 1834, when Britain The maritime sector continued to benefit from the plantation economy long after slavery was abolished in Britain, and also in the United States and Brazil.

"While our initial scope of research extends to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, we know that slavery has transcended this date and recognize that we have more work to do," LR said in a statement. .

On its website, the company describes the UK as "a major player in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans", with British ships "forcibly removing and transporting an estimated 3.4 million people on more than 10,000 voyages, including 800,000 en route." die".

LR has no connection with Lloyd's of London, which apologized for its role in slavery in 2020, despite its origins in the same cafe on London's Lombard Street.