Robert Halliday Gunning was a physician who gained immense wealth from Brazil's goldmines and later became a philanthropist, particularly dedicated to Edinburgh University. He is believed to have owned enslaved individuals during a time when slavery was criminalized in Britain. Recent research revealed that Edinburgh University profited significantly from donations linked to slavery and colonialism. Gunning’s later life actions, including philanthropic donations, appear to be driven by guilt and an attempt to secure a positive legacy. A letter indicated his contributions were meant to relieve his conscience regarding his past.
Gunning, a former Edinburgh medical student and anatomist, had been enmeshed in Brazil's enslavement-based gold mining industry. Decades after slavery was criminalised in Britain, he was widely believed to own up to 40 enslaved people—a charge he denied.
A recently discovered letter suggests his gifts were a calculated act of reputation washing. He told the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, I have come forward without being asked, to relieve my conscience, and leave behind what I cannot take away when life ends.
The scale of Edinburgh University's entanglements with transatlantic slavery and colonialism has been exposed by new research, commissioned by the university. It has established that Edinburgh raised the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds from donors implicated in slavery.
Gunning was one of hundreds of Edinburgh graduates who made fortunes from the slave trade, serving as doctors on slave ships, administrators, or were slavers themselves.
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