David Blagbrough has discovered he is related to abolitionist Robert Wedderburn

IN the TV series Who Do You Think You Are? the famous invariably unearth some obscure ancestor buried in the mists of time, but for David Blagbrough it was the other way around. When he began digging into his family roots he found that he was a direct descendant of the renowned early 19th-century black radical Robert Wedderburn.

“You can’t get anyone more English than me so it was the last thing I expected,” he says, his deep brown eyes perhaps conveying a hint of his ancestry. “I had never even heard of him but discovered he played a central role in British history.

“To know you are descended from a radical individual who was at the forefront of protest gives me great pride.”

The retired British Council official lives in Camden Town just three miles away from where his long-lost ancestor set up home in the rough and tumble district of St Giles after arriving in Georgian London from Jamaica in 1778 aged 17.

The son of Scottish plantation owner and a slave, Wedderburn became a preacher and abolitionist known for his firebrand oratory and pamphleteering in which he called for the violent overthrow of slavery, universal suffrage and redistribution of wealth.

His outspoken views led to a two-year prison sentence.

After losing his first wife in the 1790s, Wedderburn got together with “Mary” by whom he had a son, Jabez, and a daughter, Lydia. It is from the latter’s line that David is descended.

“Robert is my fourth great grandparent and his mother, Rosanna, who was born in West Africa, is my fifth,” explains David, 79, and longstanding chair of the Camden Square Conservation Area Advisory Committee.

“Coincidentally, I spent seven years in Nigeria, which I loved, and also did post graduate studies in West African history. Discovering I had links to West Africa through Robert Wedderburn was extraordinary, like coming home.”

The Wedderburn connection came quite by accident while David was poring over ancestry records to find out more about his granddad Henry Stephens, who died before he was born.

“My brother and I have always wondered about my maternal grandfather as we knew nothing about him, we didn’t even know where he was born. When you’re young you don’t ask questions, when you’re older you know what questions to ask but there’s no one around to answer them.”

Robert Wedderburn

The father-of-two managed to unearth some interesting information about Henry but found there were still gaps in his story and continued researching.

“I have been digging around since 2009 and it proved quite difficult in the beginning. You have to be dogged about it. Then about four years ago, I came across this character called Robert Wedderburn,” he says, breaking into a smile.

Until then, Wedderburn’s only known direct descendant was Bill Wedderburn, the pioneering labour lawyer who was made a life peer in 1977. He is David’s “fourth cousin once removed”.

David also stumbled upon a printer called Leonard Wedderburn, who was listed on a ship’s manifest as travelling to China in the 1920s with an address given as 170 Camden Road. “In the late 1970s, the family moved to 160 Camden Road but would frequently find ourselves outside No.170 because the bus stop was there – it seems like a curious coincidence.”

David has since met the Scotland-based Jamaican brewing scientist Geoffrey Palmer, who dedicated his 2007 book on the history of the slave trade to Robert Wedderburn.

Together they visited the family seat of James Wedderburn, Robert’s father, Inveresk Lodge near Edinburgh, now a National Trust property.

Wedderburn senior made a fortune from his sugar plantations in Westmoreland, Jamaica, where he fathered three children by Rosanna.

Although he registered Robert as “free”, he abandoned him, and the boy was later separated from his mother when she was sold on. When Robert visited him in Scotland as a young man seeking assistance, James spurned him.

Wedderburn’s 1824 book, The Horrors of Slavery, which became a key abolitionist text, included a bitter attack on his father. “I would love to one day visit Westmoreland, where Robert was born, and try and trace any biological Wedderburns,” says David. “I have written a booklet on what I have found out so far, but no family history is ever finished.”

So how have other members of the family taken the astonishing discovery?

“They are interested but not as interested as me,” he smiles again. “It has been life-changing for me, exciting and invigorating, giving me new insights and opening a whole range of new contacts and friendships.

“Even though I am relatively well educated, I knew nothing about slavery and it prompted me to learn more about that period of British history and the legacy it has left us with.”

He is currently exploring ways of establishing his own legacy from the unexpected turn of events.

“I would like to build education links between here and Jamaica that would help young people become aware of the hideousness of slavery.

“People say it all happened a long time ago but it is still very much with us.

“For example, the interest on the £20million loan the government took to compensate slave owners like James Wedderburn after slavery was abolished in 1833 was only finally paid off in 2015, meaning that as taxpayers you and I helped pay back that money.”