Mr Atkinson’s Rum Contract

‘Rarely has family history been so vivid’ JENNY UGLOW‘An extraordinarily original work’ AMANDA FOREMANWhat would you do if you found out that your ancestors were slave owners? Richard Atkinson was in his late thirties, and approaching a milestone he had long dreaded – the age at which his father died – when one day he came across a box of old family letters gathering dust on top of a cupboard.This discovery set him on an all-consuming, highly emotional journey, ultimately taking him from the weather-beaten house of his Cumbrian ancestors to the abandoned ruins of their sugar estates in Jamaica.Richard’s searches led him to one forebear in particular, an earlier Richard At…