Location
M Shed, Princes Wharf
Sandbach Tinne was part of a multi-national conglomerate in the 19th century, that monopolised much of the lucrative Demerara sugar trade. Their influence on the British empire is only just beginning to emerge. Genealogical research by Malik Al Nasir (PhD Candidate, University of Cambridge – St Catharine’s College) uncovered their web of mercantile interests, from enslavement of Africans, to the indentureship of Asians, from 1780 onwards. The company only ceased trading in 1975. Many of the institutions, business subsidiaries, brands and legacies they spawned, still exist to this day in some form. The Bank of Liverpool, the Liverpool Royal Institution, the Liverpool Atheneum, the Liverpool Botanical Gardens, Demerara Distillers, the Saville Row Gin Company, the Liverpool News Exchange, the Aigburth Hall Estate, the town of Seaforth and the Liverpool Manchester Railway Company, are just a few of the entities that were founded by Sandbach Tinne family members.
This conference, born out of ‘Sandbach Tinne Project’ (https://www.cdh.cam.ac.uk/media/blog/the-sandbach-tinne-programme/) has been co-curated by Malik Al Nasir and Yesternight Productions, with University of Bristol, to bring together a group of academics and community researchers, who study various aspects of the families and business entities that intersected with the “House” – as Sandbach Tinne was known – with a view to identifying objects, ephemera and relics of this conglomerate for digitising, in order to tell an epic story of the British empire which has not yet been told through research papers, interactive and physical exhibits.
Bristol Digital Futures Institute at University of Bristol, are hosting the event at the M-Shed on Bristols waterfront, with panel discussions, moderated Q & A’s and presentations, to inform the public but also a group of strategic partners in the ‘Sandbach Tinne Project’, who hold Sandbach Tinne related collections – or are researching them – as to the scope and scale of both the collections, and the influence of this long forgotten titan of the British empire.
Speakers include; David Alston, (Slaves & Highlanders), Ged O’Brian (Founder of the Scottish Football Museum), Mylynka Kilgore Cardona (Asst. Prof. Texas A&M University-Commerce) who’s thesis was on The Six Lives of Alexine Tinne and Malik Al Nasir (PhD Candidate at University of Cambridge).