The story of the British Empire and slavery told through one family of the landed gentry, Drax of Drax Hall is a searing exposé of how a single British family built – and preserved- its fortune through centuries of slavery, land ownership, and imperial exploitation.

‘Drax of Drax Hall is not just a look into the dark sources of one family’s fortune; it is an indictment of a nation’s refusal to reckon with its past. Lashmar’s book is a necessary, damning reminder that the ghosts of empire are not distant – they are living, breathing and, in some cases, still collecting rent.’ – The Observer

‘An important and timely book, in which Paul Lashmar uses the story of the Drax family’s history as enslavers in Barbados as a microcosm of Britain’s involvement in the transatlantic slave trade… striking’ – Laura Trevelyan, journalist and author of A Very British Family: The Trevelyans and Their World

‘This book is a must-read’ – The New Yorker

Spanning 18 generations and 400 years, Drax of Drax Hall uncovers the grotesque history of the Drax family—one of Britain’s most enduring dynasties, whose vast wealth was founded on the brutal realities of the transatlantic slave trade.

Investigative journalist Paul Lashmar traces the origins of the Drax fortune back to 1627, when James Drax arrived in Barbados and effectively founded Britain’s sugar industry. Using enslaved African labour, the Draxes became pioneers of plantation slavery, codifying and exporting a system of profit and cruelty that would come to define the British Empire.

As the family prospered, their influence spread across the Atlantic. Their legacy remains strikingly intact: today’s Drax heir, Richard Drax, until recently a Conservative MP, still owns the family’s ancestral estate in Dorset and a 621-acre sugar plantation in Barbados. Unseated in 2024, he remains a hero amongst culture warriors for his refusal to make any reparations for his family’s role in slavery.