SUGAR, SLAVES

HIGH SOCIETY

AND



The Grants of Kilgraston 1750 – 1860

by R.P.J. BLAKE

Sugar, Slaves and High Society

the new book from R.P.J. Blake

This is, above all, a book about the history of a Scottish family The Grants of Kilgraston, but it is also a story of opportunism, wealth, good fortune and tragedies set against the background of slavery in Jamaica.

  • "Richard pulls no punches about the Grants of Kilgraston's involvement in the African Slave Trade..."

    Dr. Steve Goodall, Director of Grantown Museum

  • "This book does a great service to history, and is a gift to posterity. Read it!"

    Jason Brooke, F.R.A.S.

  • "Very interesting and well researched family history of the Grants of Kilgraston."

    Kilgraston School

Making use of a previously unpublished archive and other sources Sugar, Slaves and High Society follows three generations of an upwardly mobile Scottish family and describes how fortunes were made, wealth was squandered, lives were lost at home and abroad, and two brothers became knights of the realm.

Portrait of Charles Grant by Magnus Jackson

The story moves from a desolate glen in Speyside to Halifax, the newly established garrison town in Nova Scotia, and then to Jamaica where slaves worked in terrible conditions to produce the sugar which was required in ever increasing quantities in Great Britain and elsewhere. Kilgraston estate, near Perth, was purchased and the house rebuilt with funds repatriated from Jamaica.

Clan Grant tartan and kilt buckle

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