News | UK-SHHT

Detail of a coloured hand-drawn map showing Rupert's Bay on the left and the narrow Rupert's Valley stretching out to the right, with roads, plots, and buildings marked in. In the bottom right-hand corner there is an unbuilt-on area labelled as African Grave Yard A.

International Research into the Origins of the Liberated Africans

Groundbreaking international research into the regional origins of the Liberated Africans of St Helena.

Katherine Prior

Jul 172 min read

A coloured drawing of a corpulent Napoleon, standing and facing left. He wears a dark-coloured tailcoat with red collar and cuffs adorned with two medals on the left breast, and beige knee breeches, white stockings and black buckled pumps on his feet. A long row of coat and cummerbund buttons outlines the generous curve of his tummy. His brown hair is somewhat unruly, cut just above the collar. The image does not look like standard portraits of Napoleon, but that may be a reflection of the artist's poor portraiture; the drawing has an unsophisticated feel to it.

205 Years

Two original drawings from the collections of Royal Museums Greenwich to mark the 205th anniversary of Napoleon's death on St Helena on 5 May 1821.

Katherine Prior

May 52 min read

View of the narrow end of a long single-storey grey stone building, with a light grey corrogated roof. A narrow deepset doorway features a black and white image of an African person's face with a wreath of real flowers around it. The building is surrounded by lush vegetation, some of which is growing up the walls, and broken-down fence with barbed wire. In the left background is a steep hill.

Funding secured for Memorial to the Liberated Africans

Funding secured for the creation of a permanent slavery memorial and interpretation centre in St Helena dedicated to the 8,000 enslaved Africans who died and were buried on the island following their release from slaving ships by the Royal Navy in the mid-nineteenth century.

Katherine Prior

Apr 21 min read

A composite image of three posters advertising online history talks in October - December 2025.

View our recent history webinars

Interested in the history of St Helena? We have three recent webinars to view on our website, featuring rosy views of the island in the East India Company era, British politicking in the time of Napoleon's exile, and the long history of enslavement and abolition on the island. All free to watch.

Katherine Prior

Jan 61 min read