The ceiling of the Thomas Chapel was identified by the City Review of Heritage Assets with Links to Transatlantic Slavery.
Why he is included in this work
The ceiling of the Thomas Chapel was identified by the City Review of Heritage Assets with Links to Transatlantic Slavery. It is a memorial to Christopher William Codrington whose family were major slave owners in Barbados, Barbuda and Antigua.
What we know
Following the death of Sir Christopher William Codrington in 1864 his friends decided that they wanted to raise money for a memorial to him. The subscription was raised by articles in the local press and was co-ordinated by a committee chaired by Earl Ducie. Whilst the money was being raised the subscribers decided that the most appropriate monument would be to pay for the restoration of a chapel at the Cathedral.
The south-east chapel of the Ambulatory was chosen and the restoration included a painted ceiling in the Gothic style. For a while this was known as the Codrington Chapel, before coming to be known as the Chapel of English Saints due to the windows in the chapel. When the chapel was restored and remodelled again in 1992 the sign recording the donation in memory of Sir Christopher was removed, and the chapel was renamed the Thomas Chapel after the subject of the new Tom Denny windows.
Sir Christopher William Codrington inherited sugar plantations from his father and left them to his son. The plantations in Antigua were not sold until 1944. Christopher William’s father Christopher Bethel Codrington received over £31,000 in compensation between 1835 to 1836.
Barbados has a strong connection to the Codrington family as an earlier member of the family had donated two plantations to the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel in 1710. A college was established which still trains priests to this day. The plantations were known as the Codrington Estate and the Society ran them as a business, including owning and exploiting enslaved people until 1838. USPG (the Society’s new name) has acknowledged its part in this and has begun a programme of reparative action called: Renewal and Reconciliation.
As the Barbados lands had been given away in 1710, the chapel’s restoration is not connected to either Codrington College or the Codrington Estates there.
What we would still like to find out
We do not know whether the design of the artwork was influenced by the connections to the West Indies.
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