Postal Museum says research featured in new exhibition shows how global postal service was ‘tool of empire’

A British shipping company that became the largest in the world at the height of empire continued to use the labour of enslaved people after the abolition of slavery, research has found.

The Royal Mail Steam Packet Company (RMSPC), which received a royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1839, used enslaved workers on the tiny island of St Thomas, which was a Danish colony at the time and is now part of the US Virgin Islands.

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Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/feb/13/british-shipping-firm-enslaved-slave-labour-st-thomas-caribbean-postal-museum