We would like to thank Rosemary Mecklenburgh and the Mecklenburgh and Harrison families for sharing their donation story with us.
A note for the Cowrie Scholarship Foundation
We write this note as the children and grand-children of Robin Harrison who was Warden of Merton College, Oxford from 1963 to 1969. Over the past few years, since the shocking information about the loans taken out to fund compensation to slave owners in the 1830s came to our attention, we have been researching our family tree. We were disturbed to learn that Robin’s Great-Great-Grandfather had been a slave owner in Jamaica. As far as we have been able to establish he had owned one slave, John Lawrence Freeman and we were glad to discover that he was freed in the 18th century. We are sure that our ancestors would have owned other slaves to work in his house. However. we are confident that as his son, who was alive in 1833, lived in England and did not own any slaves, that our forebears had not benefitted from the compensation paid to slave owners after the Act of 1833.
Nevertheless, the scandalous treatment of the Windrush generation, the increased risks faced by BAME frontline workers from COVID 19, and the murder of George Floyd led us to contemplate what Robin’s reaction would have been having he been alive today. In his professional life, Robin worked hard to combat the inequalities that existed then in Higher Education. We remember his strong views about the Windrush generation and the injustices of the Immigration Acts of the early 1960s.
Furthermore, we believe that Robin would have strongly supported the Cowrie ScholarshipFoundation with its aim of funding 100 Black and [disadvantaged] students through university in the nextdecade. We have already raised £2500 for the Foundation by auctioning furniture and other items which had been inherited from our parents. The remainder of our families has agreed to donate to the Foundation 10% of what we inherit from our Aunt Katharine when her estate is finalized.
We chose the Cowrie Scholarship Foundation because we felt that its aim was excellent and achievable and also because one of us knew one of the Trustees, Professor Chris Jackson, and much admired him with his aim of improving BAME representation not just at the undergraduate level but withinacademia as a whole. The family has now met Professor Richard Oreffo, Founder and Trustee of the Foundation via ZOOM and we are even more committed to this Charity as we found him equally inspiring.
Rosemary Mecklenburgh on behalf of the Harrison and Mecklenburgh Families
If you have a donation story we would love to hear from you-
httpsss://cowriescholarshipfoundation.org/contact-us/
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