Laura Trevelyan

It is my great pleasure to introduce to you today a remarkable individual whose career and dedication have made a significant impact on journalism and the pursuit of reparatory justice. Laura Trevelyan, a former BBC journalist, has transitioned from a distinguished career in journalism to becoming a passionate advocate for addressing historical injustices linked to the transatlantic slave trade in the Caribbean.

Laura Trevelyan is best known for her role as a journalist at the BBC, where she served from 1993 until 2023. During her thirty-year tenure, she reported on some of the most pivotal events of our time. Covering topics from the Northern Ireland peace process, In the mid-1990s, the 2001 UK General Election and the tense lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War and other major events across the as the 2016 and 2020 US Presidential Elections, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic in New York, and the riot at the US Capitol in 2021. Good to see that her degree in politics, gained here at the university of Bristol, was put to good use; although I doubt, she anticipated the joy of operating in such tumultuous political landscape.

When she is not in the newsroom, Laura volunteers in several non-profit organisations in New York, including City Squash, an after-school programme, the Brooklyn Kindergarten Society, and the Royal Oak Foundation.

I had the pleasure of crossing path with Laura last year not through her incredible journalistic work or her volunteering but through her work on reparatory justice.  A journey the university has also recently embarked on.

In 2022, Laura started on a personal and transformative journey with the documentary "Grenada: Confronting the Past." In this documentary, she investigated her family's historic links to the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans, uncovering that her ancestors owned over 1,000 enslaved people and six sugar plantations on the island of Grenada. This revelation led Laura and her family to issue a public apology in February 2023 for their role in slavery. Laura also made a substantial donation to the University of the West Indies to fund educational projects in Grenada. She later visited the island, meeting with Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell and reiterating her family's apology in person.

Laura is an Honorary Associate Fellow at the PJ Patterson Institute for Africa Caribbean Advocacy, a position she has held since October 2023. Her advocacy work has continued to grow, with her becoming a co-founder of Heirs of Slavery, a group of British people whose ancestors profited from the enslavement of Africans in the Caribbean. This group encourages other families with similar histories to acknowledge their past and calls on the British government to engage in reparatory justice talks with Caribbean governments.

In November 2023, Laura co-hosted a narrative podcast with the Labour MP Clive Lewis called Heirs of Enslavement, produced by Persephonica (producers of The News Agents). Laura and Clive are linked by Grenada - where Clive’s ancestors could have been enslaved by Laura’s. Joined by this painful history, Laura and Clive travelled to the Caribbean and then to Britain, asking what reparatory justice for slavery means and how it can be achieved.

One of the responses is repair through education. The Trevelyan Grenada Reparations Fund, a UK charity, of which Laura is a trustee, was set up in 2024 and raises funds to be used for the purposes of education in Grenada.

Laura Trevelyan's story is one of transformation, accountability, and advocacy. It is a story that inspires us to confront our past, seek justice, and strive for a better future.

Laura resides in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and three sons. I hope you will agree that her journey from a distinguished journalist to a passionate advocate for reparatory justice serves as an inspiration to us all.

Vice Chancellor, I present to you Laura Trevelyan as eminently worthy of the degree of Doctor of Letters Honoris causa."