In a way this could almost be in the Corona thread - but the reason I'm posting it here is that for all Rashid's expertise as a community activist, I think it is wrong to riff on about Henry Tate's slave plantations when he wasn't even born when the slave trade was abolished.
I append a brief biography of Henry Tate after the video.
Sir Henry Tate, 1st Baronet (11 March 1819 – 5 December 1899) was an
English sugar merchant and philanthropist, noted for establishing the
Tate Gallery in
London.
Life and career
Born in
White Coppice, a hamlet near
Chorley,
Lancashire, Tate was the son of a
Unitarian clergyman, the Reverend William Tate, and his wife Agnes
néeBooth. When he was 13, he became a grocer's apprentice in
Liverpool. After a seven-year apprenticeship, he was able to set up his own shop. His business was successful, and grew to a chain of six stores by the time he was 35. In 1859 Tate became a partner in John Wright & Co. sugar refinery, selling his grocery business in 1861. By 1869, he had gained complete control of the company, and renamed it as Henry Tate & Sons. In 1872, he purchased the
patent from German
Eugen Langen for making
sugar cubes, and in the same year built a new
refinery in Liverpool. In 1877 he opened a refinery at
Silvertown, London, which remains in production. At the time, much of Silvertown was still marshland.
[1] Tate was a modest, rather retiring man, well known for his concern with workers’ conditions. He built the Tate Institute opposite his Thames Refinery, with a bar and dance hall for the workers' recreation.
[2]
Tate rapidly became a millionaire and donated generously to charity. In 1889 he donated his collection of 65 contemporary paintings to the government, on the condition that they be displayed in a suitable gallery, toward the construction of which he also donated £80,000. The National Gallery of British Art, nowadays known as
Tate Britain, was opened on 21 July 1897, on the site of the old
Millbank Prison.
Tate made many donations, often anonymously and always discreetly. He supported "alternative" and non-establishment causes. There was £10,000 for the library of
Manchester College, founded in Manchester in 1786 as a
dissenting academyto provide
religious nonconformists with
higher education. He also gave the College (which had retained its name during moves to York, London and finally Oxford), £5,000 to promote the ‘theory and art of preaching’. In addition he gave £20,000 to the (homoeopathic)
Hahnemann Hospital in Liverpool in 1885. He particularly supported health and education with his money, giving £42,500 for
Liverpool University, £3,500 for
Bedford College for Women, and £5,000 for building a
free libraryin
Streatham. Additional provisions were made for libraries in
Balham,
South Lambeth, and
Brixton. He also gave £8,000 to the
Liverpool Royal Infirmary, and £5,000 to the Queen Victoria Jubilee Institute, which became the
Queen's Institute for District Nurses.
Tate was made a
baronet on 27 June 1898.
[3] He had refused this title more than once until – after he had spent £150,000 to build the
Millbank Gallery, endowed it with his personal collection, and presented it to the nation – he was told the
Royal Family would be offended if he refused again.
[2]
In 1921, after Tate's death, Henry Tate & Sons merged with
Abram Lyle & Sons to form
Tate & Lyle.
[2]
In 2001, a
blue plaque commemorating Sir Henry was unveiled on the site of his first shop at 42 Hamilton Street,
Birkenhead. In 2006 a
Wetherspoons pub in his home town of
Chorley was named after the sugar magnate.
Personal life
Tate married Jane Wignall on 1 March 1841 in Liverpool.
[4] They had three sons. Tate lived at Park Hill by
Streatham Common,
South London, and is buried in nearby
West Norwood Cemetery, the gates of which are opposite a public library that he endowed. Park Hill became a nunnery after his death until refurbishment as housing around 2004.