2025 Emden Lecture delivered by Professor Catherine Hall

On Friday 24 January, St Edmund Hall was delighted to welcome Professor Catherine Hall, Emerita Professor of History and Chair of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, University College London, to deliver this year’s A B Emden Lecture.

Catherine’s well-received lecture – “Slavery and capitalism across the C18 Atlantic world” – explored how we can understand and explain the past that has shaped our present and has consequences for our contemporary world. The talk focused on England and Jamaica from the mid 18th century to the early 19th century and, in particular, Edward Long, an 18th-century historian of Jamaica.

Catherine has written extensively on the history of Britain, gender and empire, including Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class 1780–1850 (1987), co-authored with Leonore Davidoff; Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination, 1830–1867 (2002); Macaulay and Son: Architects of Imperial Britain (2012); and, with others, Legacies of British Slave-ownership (2014). From 2009 to 2016 she was principal investigator on the Legacies of British Slavery project. Her latest book is Lucky Valley: Edward Long and the History of Racial Capitalism (2024), which tells the story behind the history of a slave-owning family that prospered across generations together with the destruction of such possibilities for enslaved people.

The lecture is part of an annual series in memory of A B Emden, a distinguished medievalist and historian of universities who was Principal of the Hall from 1929 to 1951. Established in 1992, the Emden Lecture attracts eminent historians from around the UK and beyond to speak on topics of particular contemporary relevance to a non-specialist audience.

Catch up on the lecture via the Hall’s YouTube channel.