New historical research indicates that the Bank of England and the broader British financial system were extensively entangled in the enslavement and transatlantic trafficking of millions of African people over several centuries. Findings from historians compiling the Register of British Slave Traders show that the financial system's participation in this enslavement was more widespread than previously recognized or admitted.
Specifically, the research uncovered that dozens of the Bank of England's directors and its original founding subscribers were also significant investors in the trade of enslaved Africans. The Bank of England, which has been the government owned central bank since its nationalization by Clement Attlee's Labour administration in 1946, had these financiers involved from its very inception.