If you visit Harewood House without the advantage of a car, be warned, it is a fifteen minute walk from the main entrance on the A61 Leeds to Harrogate road before you reach the house itself – that gives you an inkling of the scale of the estate. As I approached, I found myself wondering how many enslaved people you would have had to own to be able to afford to build a house like this?
The answer to my question seems to have been about 3,000 judging by the information made available inside the house and viewable online: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vT832jImba4qExHhFfovMtwopd7DmO4QIp_NBFAyi1rSyYy6ERG5y4Uj8c6uPgpnrvRf66e9OgArPLO/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=60000&rm=minimal&slide=id.g8c2f059153_0_208
The house was completed in 1771 when the family moved in.
At the time of emancipation in 1833, the 2nd Earl of Harewood claimed compensation for 1,277 enslaved people and received over £3 million at today’s prices. That Harewood House owes its very existence to profits from the trade in enslaved human beings is beyond question.
Not all the owners of country estates are willing to be open about the roots of their family fortune but the present Earl does not shy away from his family’s history:
“I believe very strongly that we can change things in the present, but for better or for worse there is nothing that any of us can do about history and the past.”
David Lascelles, Earl of Harewood
In ‘the present’, the Harewood House Trust supports a wide range of educational projects and it was one of those projects that prompted my visit.
If you are a regular follower of Historycal Roots you will be aware of Bertie Robinson, the black footman at Harewood House. Until the 22nd October an exhibition about Bertie will be on display at the house.
My photos are intended to place the exhibition in their setting in the house, there is far more information in the excellent digital guide that you can view here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vT0g6Bd-FHcP80k8R4CqtkNZ10pfkKxLlE8rlYEGOFhVdI78zajlyO03rbbzmW0ZN2bgEN9mHOajVAQ/pub?start=true&loop=false&delayms=60000&rm=minimal&slide=id.gd794bdbe71_0_0
The digital guide doesn’t include any images of ‘downstairs’ at Harewood, an area of the house that Bertie would have been very familiar with.
The kitchen range 
The downstairs dining room
The exhibition was researched by members of the Diasporian Stories Research Group based in Leeds. The principal researchers were Audrey Dewjee and Allison Edwards with support from David Hamilton. Members of staff at Harewood threw themselves enthusiastically into the research, finding all sorts of things in Harewood’s own archives that enhanced Bertie’s story (‘they throw nothing away here’ as one of the volunteers on duty when I visited said). A former Harewood House Trust Director, Terry Suthers, helped too. It was a real collective effort which has paid handsome dividends.
Nothing can quite beat seeing an exhibition ‘in the flesh’ so to speak and there is plenty more to see and do at Harewood. Although I resisted (just) the temptation of a cream tea on the terrace overlooking the grounds designed by Capability Brown, there is no reason why you should!