User:Carbon Caryatid/lbs

Legacies of British Slave-ownership

Notes for my own use


 * Objective: to enable the material from the UCL database Legacies of British Slave-ownership to be used by Wikipedia and related projects, within the limits of appropriate licences.
 * Secondary objective: to learn the technical skills to achieve this in an elegant and straight-forward manner.

Templates
Use of templates -- example PASE, Art UK bio

Advantages:
 * Makes data easier to add: only have to add just what is specific to each individual -- template handles all the linking & formatting
 * If the outside body changes its link format, then we only need to update just the template, not 2500 different pages
 * Consistency of output -- outgoing links are always presented in the same way, become a recognisable thing that readers can look for
 * Harvestable -- data is stored in a consistent way, so easy to move onto Wikidata at any later date

Wikidata

 * Wikidata is the linked database, acting as "central storage for the structured data of its Wikimedia sister projects including Wikipedia, Wikivoyage, Wikisource, and others. [It] also provides support to many other sites and services beyond just Wikimedia projects."
 * Mix'n'match is a tool created by Magnus Manske (working in Cambridge) that allows matching of external identifiers to Wikidata items. (Intro blog post here.)
 * If LBS already points to data sources that have identifiers that are being gathered on Wikidata, then we may be able to use that identifier to find the right match on Wikidata automatically. Best of all is if LBS already has e.g. a spreadsheet of all people in their database that have ODNB entries.  But even if we have to go by looking at which slave-holders with WP articles have external links (e.g. in the ref section), that data could be systematically extracted.


 * Add e.g. how much money each person received, and how many slaves this represented. Data display can be turned on or off, but put the info in.
 * Get the identifiers in. Most important.
 * Human eye needed for MnM.
 * Check what external links already exist in WP articles - how many point to LBS URLs already. This can be scraped.

To start with

 * Those people who received lots of compensation money - they are notable as major slave holders, if for nothing else. E.g. Sir John Gladstone, 1st Baronet, father of the prime minister.

Later

 * Find some way of tracking what they did with this money: purchasing estates, commissioning buildings, educating their sons (or daughters?), funding learned societies, buying into a business, launching a political or courtly career, investing in canals or railroads, etc. -- or indeed paying off debts.
 * One thing that struck me was how many people got this cash windfall, but whose will states they left little money. To be looked into further.

Links

 * Info for GLAM partners

Articles of interest
People who have caught my interest, mostly recipients and their families. Also possibly things the compensation money paid for.
 * Louisa Capper, whose husband Rev Robert Coningham inherited slaves from his uncle. They built a house called Rose Hill, where they raised their sons:
 * William Coningham, the art collector and politician
 * James Fitzjames, one of the leaders of the Franklin Expedition
 * The Hibbert family, e.g. George Hibbert, who argued in favour of the slave trade