I’ve read the articles in both the Guardian (by Afua Hirsch, 19 September) and the Observer (by Kevin McKenna, 23 September) on the report outlining the involvement of the University of Glasgow, and the wider city, in the slave trade. The university is now considering establishing a centre for the study of slavery that will be a welcome addition to the four currently based in English universities.

However, establishing a research centre is not the same as uncovering the involvement of an institution in profiting from slavery. I recently discovered a fairly wealthy family living in the middle of Nottinghamshire, as far from the sea as one could be. Yet the family wealth, it later transpired, was derived from an 18th-century ancestor who moved to Bristol and manufactured ropes for slaving vessels. More well known, perhaps, is the example of the Lascelles family, cousins to the Queen, and owner of Harewood House in Yorkshire, who built their stately pile on profits from Caribbean sugar.

The truth is that probably many, if not most, of today’s wealthy families and big institutions derived much of their wealth from slavery.

Professor Gary Craig

Visiting professor, Newcastle University

• We welcome both Glasgow’s openness and the articles by Kevin McKenna and Afua Hirsch, but note the two authors’ failure to acknowledge investment in slavery studies at various British universities during the last decade or so. That includes a pioneering multimillion-pound partnership between the University of Hull, Hull city council, and other agencies in setting up the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, which was formally opened in 2006 by President John Kufuor of Ghana, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as patron.

The institute is now a world-renowned leader in promoting research and public understanding of slavery past and present, was home to the revised Global Slavery Index launched in 2014, and has worked with universities on both sides of the Atlantic. Among other things, it has partnered Atlanta’s Emory University in building the slave voyages website (slavevoyages.org), it advised the British government on the 2015 Modern Slavery Act, and it works closely with the city of Hull in promoting its annual Freedom festival held in early September. It was honoured to receive a Queen’s Anniversary Award for its work in 2016.

However Glasgow University chooses to invest in repairing its historical wrongs, we look forward to working with it, as appropriate, to further promote research, learning and public understanding in the UK and elsewhere of slavery and emancipation.

John Oldfield and David Richardson

Wilberforce Institute, Hull

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