The Register of British Slave Traders, the new historical record for which Radburn was a lead investigator, documents how Britain’s enslaving and trafficking of more than 3 million African people for nearly 250 years was perpetrated as an official national enterprise, led by its monarchs.

The publication of the register, the most comprehensive research project into the investors in Britain’s trafficking of enslaved African people, will further inform calls for King Charles to finally acknowledge the monarchy’s deep involvement in the trade.

The kings and queens who powered the trafficking most ferociously were those after the monarchy was restored in 1660. James, Duke of York, who became King James II, was the governor and a substantial shareholder in the Royal African Company (RAC), founded in 1672, which trafficked more African men, women and children than any other single organisation in the history of the slave trade.