Samuel Hayward was identified by the City Review of Heritage Assets with Links to Transatlantic Slavery.
Why he is included in this work
Samuel Hayward was identified by the City Review of Heritage Assets with Links to Transatlantic Slavery. It identified that he might have been related to the Hayward family of Quedgeley who owned a plantation in Tortola in 1690. It also identified the mahogany staircase in Wallsworth Hall as being the produce of enslaved labour.
What we know
Samuel owned property in and around Gloucester and Gloucestershire including Bearlands House and Wallsworth Hall at Twigworth (now Nature in Art). He is recorded as a linen draper and had worked his apprenticeship in London. The Hayward family (including Samuel) owned Barton Fair until 1823 when they sold it to the City Corporation. Samuel also rented 12 and 13 College Green, and sub let these for a profit. His wealth is therefore accounted for by his business and his property investments.
Samuel did have investments in companies that traded in both India and the Caribbean. Samuel inherited from his father John £500 of stocks in the East India Company. John Hayward also owned annuities in the South Sea Company, so there was a family connection to trading activities in the Caribbean.
We have found no evidence that Samuel owned enslaved people or plantations, but this has been claimed due to previously limited biographical information included on the UCL legacies of Slavery Database. The information has recently been expanded and so we can now say with confidence that the Samuel Hayward in the Cathedral does not match any of the three Samuel Haywards recorded as owning or benefiting from enslaved people. This is because he died before two of them claim compensation and the details of his family do not match the remaining Samuel (of Westmoreland in Jamaica).
The guidebooks for Nature in Art state that Samuel Hayward had plantations in Jamaica, but we have not been able to find any evidence for that statement. However, as this has been repeated for many years and well before the UCL Legacies database was created we cannot dismiss this entirely.
What we would still like to find out
We would like to be able to identify why previous custodians of Nature in Art claimed that Samuel had plantations in Jamaica. We are still working to trace the family tree of Samuel of Wallsworth to see if it joins to that of William Hayward of Quedgeley.
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