About Heiresses by Miranda Kaufmann: Talk and Book Launch

Join Miranda Kaufmann, author of the ground-breaking Black Tudors, as she explores the hidden ways slave-produced wealth poured into Britain through inheritance and matrimony.

Following tainted money from its origins in Jamaica, Barbados and Antigua to its disposal on country houses, gilt furniture and opulent paintings, Heiresses exposes how, for almost two centuries, generations of women became enslavers and plantation owners in their own right and brought huge fortunes back to Britain.

This is the story of nine heiresses whose assets enabled them to marry into the top tiers of the aristocracy and attracted the attention of fortune-hunters.

Among them is Sarah Newton, whose family's wealth from Barbados plantations enabled her to marry into the grandeur of Aston Hall. But behind the elegance lies a brutal history, revealed through excavations and overseers’ letters that shed light on the lives of the enslaved who made that wealth possible.

Ticket includes access to Aston Hall on the day of the event.

Part of our Birmingham Heritage Week Celebrations

More about Miranda Kaufmann

Miranda Kaufmann is the author of the Wolfson History Prize and Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize-shortlisted book Black Tudors: The Untold Story (2017) which has sold over 50k copies. She read History at Christ Church, Oxford and is now an Honorary Fellow of the University of Liverpool, a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and of the Royal Society of Arts, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, where she co-convened the 'What's Happening in Black British History?' workshop series from 2014 to 2022. She served as Lead Historian for the Colonial Countryside project collaborating with National Trust houses from 2019 to 2021; and has taken her work into schools with her Teaching Black Tudors project and to the world with her Black Tudors: The Untold Story course with FutureLearn. She lives in North Wales. Miranda will be donating her profits from the book to reparative causes