What a World! A creative look at Penrhyn's collection and the culture of colonialism

Books featured in the What a World exhibition at Penrhyn Castle

At Penrhyn Castle, we tell its story through the building, paintings and objects we care for. What a World takes a look at pieces in the collection linked to our colonial past, the transatlantic slave trade and the culture of colonialism.

Since 2018, we’ve been experimenting. We’ve used Penrhyn’s collection to explore histories far beyond the Castle walls – those of the people and places who paid for the construction and furnishing of Penrhyn.  

Here you can find out more about this process and explore a taster of what awaits you when you visit.

Croeso i Beth yn y Byd! - Welcome to What a World!

To create What a World!, we worked with Shaza, Fatimah, Leon, Adam, Abhay, Victoria, Julia, Alice, Khalid, and Zahraa from Our Lady’s Primary School in Bangor. They chose 9 objects and paintings, in order to explore the castle's links to colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

At the same time, staff and volunteers worked in the archives to expand our understanding of Penrhyn’s connections to enslaved people on Jamaican sugar plantations.

Through this project, the children and the Castle team worked with historians and with poets Martin Daws and Aneirin Karadog. Responding creatively allowed us to interact and think about the collection and our global histories in a different way.

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Meet the objects

Books featured in the What a World exhibition at Penrhyn Castle
the book, A short account of the African slave trade, by Robert Norris open in front of library shelves
An ornate Victorian teapoy at Penrhyn Castle. made from South American rosewood and covered in Middle Eastern-inspired designs.
An close up of detail on an ornate Victorian teapoy at Penrhyn Castle. made from South American rosewood and covered in Middle Eastern-inspired designs.
Stuffed birds in a glass dome at Penrhyn Castle
Stuffed birds in a glass dome at Penrhyn Castle
An ian Egyptian statue of Osiris
An ian Egyptian statue of Osiris
A document box on a table at Penrhyn Castle. According to its label, this box held ‘Jamaica documents’.
A document box on a table at Penrhyn Castle. According to its label, this box held ‘Jamaica documents’.

'A short account of the African slave trade', by Robert Norris

Robert Norris was a slave trader. He wrote this book in defence of the slave trade. Of the captive Africans transported over the Atlantic, he said: “The voyage from Africa to the West Indies was one of the happiest periods of [their] life.”

'A short account of the African slave trade', by Robert Norris

Inside the book, he wrote ‘By Desire of the Author’. This suggests that Norris gave it to Richard Pennant, Lord Penrhyn – a gift from one anti-abolition campaigner to another.

Teapoy

This teapoy is evidence of the global trade networks that rich families like the Pennants could access and enjoy. The word ‘teapoy’ comes from both Hindi and Persian. This one is made from South American rosewood and covered in Middle Eastern-inspired designs.

Teapoy

It held Jamaican sugar and Chinese tea. Teapoys were an important feature of fashionable drawing rooms, which people, especially women, would gather round to socialise.

Bird Dome

This glass dome contains a crowded display of birds native to different parts of Africa. Taxidermy displays were very popular in the nineteenth century home, though we don’t know when this came to Penrhyn. Taxidermy itself was seen as a respectable hobby, especially for young women.

Bird Dome

It’s hard to look away from the brightly coloured beauty of the birds. But Alice’s poem in response to this bird dome is written from the position of the glass dome which ‘traps’ them. Her straightforward questions and her fresh way of seeing things are a reminder of the power of a child’s perspective.

Osiris

Osiris is the oldest object in the house. It could be a souvenir from George Sholto Douglas-Pennant’s years abroad in the Middle East in the 1850s or 70s.

Osiris

During the nineteenth century, travelling and collecting ancient objects was a rite of passage for the well-off. Souvenirs were displayed at home as status symbols, to show off the owner’s appreciation of ancient culture.

Jamaica document box

According to its label, this box held ‘Jamaica documents’. The Pennants owned land in Jamaica for over 300 years. For over a century, their sugar plantations were worked by thousands of enslaved African people.

Visit the Bangor University Archives to find out more 

The papers relating to their Jamaican estates are held at Bangor University Archives.

Reflecting on the exhibition and the process we went through to make it, Leon told us:

“It’s important to talk about these objects because it’s everybody’s history. It’s dark, unpleasant and brutal. Take the Bird Dome, they’ve taken something beautiful and treated it as if it was not living, as if it was property. This castle is beautiful, these objects are beautiful, but they come from cruelty, some of them come from cruelty to enslaved African people.

“Writing these poems has made me reflect and think back on the story of Penrhyn. I’m not a very emotional person to tell the truth but it is important to think about our past and other people’s past, why does this castle exist?

“We need to look at the beauty of the past but also recognise our mistakes and build a better future. Why make the same mistakes again?”

Please visit our Opening Times section for latest opening arrangements.

Sugar and slate

The Denbigh sugar plantation in Jamaica.

Penrhyn Castle and the transatlantic slave trade 

Behind the formidable architecture, Victorian grandeur and fine interiors, present day Penrhyn Castle’s foundations were built on a dark history. One of exploitation, Jamaican sugar fortunes and the transatlantic slave trade.

Penrhyn Slate Quarry by Henry Hawkins (1820-81) at Penrhyn Castle, North Wales.

Penrhyn Castle and the Great Penrhyn Quarry Strike, 1900-03 

Learn more about the history of the Great Strike of Penrhyn 1900-03, the longest running industrial dispute in British history.