The story of the British Empire and slavery told through one family of the landed gentry, Drax of Drax Hall is a searing exposé of how a single British family built - and preserved- its fortune through centuries of slavery, land ownership, and imperial exploitation.
'Drax of Drax Hall is not just a look into the dark sources of one family’s fortune; it is an indictment of a nation’s refusal to reckon with its past. Lashmar’s book is a necessary, damning reminder that the ghosts of empire are not distant – they are living, breathing and, in some cases, still collecting rent.' - The Observer
'An important and timely book, in which Paul Lashmar uses the story of the Drax family’s history as enslavers in Barbados as a microcosm of Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade… striking' - Laura Trevelyan, journalist and author of A Very British Family: The Trevelyans and Their World
'This book is a must-read' - The New Yorker
Spanning 18 generations and 400 years, Drax of Drax Hall uncovers the grotesque history of the Drax family—one of Britain’s most enduring dynasties, whose vast wealth was founded on the brutal realities of the transatlantic slave trade.
Investigative journalist Paul Lashmar traces the origins of the Drax fortune back to 1627, when James Drax arrived in Barbados and effectively founded Britain’s sugar industry. Using enslaved African labour, the Draxes became pioneers of plantation slavery, codifying and exporting a system of profit and cruelty that would come to define the British Empire.
As the family prospered, their influence spread across the Atlantic. Their legacy remains strikingly intact: today’s Drax heir, Richard Drax, until recently a Conservative MP, still owns the family's ancestral estate in Dorset and a 621-acre sugar plantation in Barbados. Unseated in 2024, he remains a hero amongst culture warriors for his refusal to make any reparations for his family's role in slavery.
Drax of Drax Hall:
• Follows the Drax family from 17th-century Barbados to present-day Britain, charting an unbroken line of wealth and power
• Offers depth and detail, written by acclaimed investigative journalist Paul Lashmar
• Features a powerful foreword by award-winning BBC historian David Olusoga, author of Black and British
• Takes readers from the fields of a sugar plantation to the debating chambers of Parliament, exposing how wealth can translated into political power
This compelling and disturbing account reveals how colonialism, capitalism, and aristocratic privilege were - and still are - deeply intertwined.
'A family story straight out of Game of Thrones - five centuries of exploitation, greed and horrific cruelty, and no regrets whatsoever.' - Alex Renton, author of Blood Legacy: Reckoning With a Family’s Story of Slavery
Paul Lashmar is Reader in Journalism at City St George's, University of London. He has taken an interest in the history of slavery since he developed a Channel 4 series on Britain's slave trade in 1999. He has been an investigative journalist in television and print, and on the staff of The Observer, Granada Television's World in Action current affairs series and The Independent. He is the author, co-author or co-editor of six books. He lives in Dorset.
David Adetayo Olusoga OBE is a historian, writer, broadcaster, presenter and filmmaker. He is Professor of Public History at the University of Manchester. He has presented historical documentaries on the BBC and contributed to The One Show on the BBC and The Guardian.
