Alexandra Ward

Profile

I completed my History undergraduate degree at the University of Leeds in 2018 and returned two years later to undertake an MA in Race and Resistance. My main focus throughout has been on researching the history of St Helena, a small Atlantic island with a pivotal and often overlooked role in Britain’s Slavery and Abolition past. During this time I also mentored final year undergraduate students on the completion of their dissertations, using my expertise in this field.

In between my academic experience, I have worked within the education sector in the UK and abroad. In October 2022, I returned to the University of Leeds to undertake a PhD on a part-time basis, which has been generously funded by the White Rose College of the Arts & Humanities (WRoCAH).

Twitter: @alexandraward_.

Awards

• Beresford Prize, 2018 – Awarded for distinguished work in the field of social and economic history
• Marion Sharples Prize, 2021 – Awarded for the best dissertation by a taught MA student

Research interests

My PhD research explores the horrifying and largely unknown human consequences of Britain’s Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade through the lens of St Helena’s emigration scheme. As a by-product of legal Abolition, this scheme functioned from 1840 until the mid-1860s, forcibly transporting thousands of Africans ‘liberated’ on the remote Atlantic island to the British West Indies. Through exploration of the scheme as a whole and the conditions ‘liberated Africans’ were subjected to on board, I contend that St Helena’s so-called ‘emigration scheme’ maintained its central link to the Atlantic Slave Trade through its re-exploitation of previously enslaved African men, women and children, all under the name of ‘liberation’ and ‘emancipation’. Crucially, this research counteracts the well-established notion of Britain’s Abolition ‘triumph’ often celebrated in public and political discourse and particularly visible since the ‘Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade’ in 2007.

This research sits within broader topics of interest, including (but not limited to) the following fields:

• History of St Helena
• Slavery and Forced Migrations
• Resistance and Forced Migrations
• Resistance and Abolition
• Atlantic History
• Caribbean History
• African Diaspora
• Empire and Colonialism

I welcome correspondence and avenues for collaboration on any of these topics.

Other activities

This year I am a PGR Teaching Associate tutoring on HIST1520 Global Decolonisation. I am also a WRoCAH Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Ambassador.

I am a member of the following research groups and associations:

• Friends of St Helena
• Royal Historical Society
• Empires and Aftermath

Qualifications

• BA (Hons) History, 1st
• MA Race and Resistance, Distinction