The Luxborough Galley on Fire, 25 June 1727, John Cleveley the Elder (c. 18th Century)

Dr. Helen Paul bursts the South Sea Bubble, tracing the triangular trade of slavery between London and Britain's colonies in South Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean, via John Cleveley's 18th century painting, The Luxborough Galley on Fire.

Sailing into the dark green waters of the mid-Atlantic Ocean, the Luxborough Galley is in imperilled. Consumed by flames, with no land in sight, its white passengers frantically firefight - to no avail. Commissioned by one of the ship's few survivors for display in Greenwich, John Cleveley's six oil paintings recast the story as one of British heroism - erasing the history of the South Sea Company's colonial profiteering, catastrophic South Sea Bubble of 1720, and scapegoating its enslaved Black passengers for carelessly causing the blaze. Still housed in the National Maritime Museum, on the southern bank of the River Thames, John Cleveley’s rendering exposes London's vast investment into the international slave trade, linking British colonies across the world. By focussing on cannibalism, it unintentionally commemorates the inhumanity, lack of civislisation, and crimes against humanity committed by its white colonial benefactors.

PRESENTER: Dr Helen Paul, lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton, and Honorary Associate Professor at the Bartlett School of Sustainable Construction at UCL.

ART: The Luxborough Galley on Fire, 25 June 1727, John Cleveley the Elder (c. 18th Century).

IMAGE: 'The 'Luxborough Galley' on fire, 25 June 1727'.

SOUNDS: One Man Book.

PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.

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