Paul Lashmar – Drax of Drax Hall – How One British Family Got Rich (and Stayed Rich) from Sugar and Slavery
The Dorset-based Drax family are the only colonising family to still own a plantation in the West Indies. As global movements for racial justice continue to challenge the legacies of empire, Drax of Drax Hall offers a vital case study of how Britain’s colonial wealth survives—and thrives—in plain sight.
From the violent origins of British colonialism in the Caribbean to the quiet entrenchment of inherited privilege in the English countryside, this is a history that lays bare the enduring legacies of empire—and the families who still profit from them.
Through meticulous research and gripping storytelling, Paul Lashmar exposes the deep roots of inequality, the persistence of elite privilege, and the unfinished business of reparations. Drax of Drax Hall tells the full, unflinching story of the ancestors that pioneered the British sugar industry and created the blueprint for slave-based plantation economies.
In this final event in the BridLit calendar 2025, journalist Paul Lashmar will be in conversation with Alan Smith, First Estates Commissioner of the Church of England about his book Drax of Drax Hall. The event will be chaired by David Olusoga, who wrote the foreword to the book.
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