The University of Cambridge is facing strong criticism from academics over an exhibition that claims Professor Stephen Hawking benefited from the slave trade.
The Rise Up exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum suggests the renowned physicist benefited indirectly by attending Cambridge, which had received money linked to slavery long before he was born.
The exhibition explores the history and legacy of slavery and also names George Darwin, son of Charles Darwin, as another individual said to have benefited.
In response, a group of academics has written to the gallery’s director, Dr Luke Syson, calling for the claims to be withdrawn.
The letter was signed by leading historians Robert Tombs and Lord Andrew Roberts.
Professor Tombs said: “We are sadly accustomed to seeing our great institutions damaging themselves and the country that supports them.
“This case is doubly dispiriting as a great university institution shows itself resistant to argument and indifferent to evidence.
“There seems to be this unbelievable determination to tarnish the reputation of people we are proud of, even when they are completely innocent, like Stephen Hawking.”
The Fitzwilliam Museum, the University of Cambridge’s museum of art and antiquities, is one of 16 Major Partner Museums funded by Arts Council England.
A spokesman for Fitzwilliam Museum said: “We believe that it is profoundly damaging to ignore or minimise the impact of the Atlantic slave trade as a source of wealth for both individuals and institutions in 17th- and 18th-century Britain, and thereafter.
“The academic research on this important matter presented in the Rise Up catalogue is factually correct.
“Among the aims of the Rise Up exhibition and catalogue are to explore the current complexities of historically tainted investments and to illuminate the contradictions in the biographies of individuals whose lives are considered here more completely than has usually been the case.”
A 2022 enquiry into the ‘legacies of enslavement’ found that the University of Cambridge was financially involved in the slave trade, having received donations from those who profited from the trade, educated the sons of wealthy slave owners and employed academics who argued in favour of the institution.
However, Cambridge is also known for its notable abolitionists, such as Wiliam Wilberforce, and even petitioned the House of Commons in the 1700s to outlaw the practice.
