TREE - The Beginning
Oct 25
By Matt Johnston, Founder of the Trust for Records of Enslavement and Emancipation (TREE)
When we opened the doors at Dyrham Park for the TREE Foundation’s launch, it felt like something that had lived in our family for generations was finally being shared with the world.
What began as a handful of old documents, folded, faded, and kept safe by my father, has become a public foundation dedicated to truth, remembrance, and education.
Together with Sunday, who co-founded TREE, we stood alongside the National Trust, Bath Preservation Trust, Wiltshire & Swindon History Centre, Deptford People’s Heritage Museum and many others who understand that history is only powerful when it is shared honestly.
“We wanted people to see that these records still speak to us today.”
- Sunday Johnston
Launch Day: A Moment of Beginning
The TREE Foundation officially came to life inside the historic walls of Dyrham Park, a National Trust estate that carries its own deep connections to the colonial era. The setting could not have been more fitting - a place where the past is visible in architecture, land, and lineage.
Guests arrived to the sound of live strings, greeted by the sight of seven framed original artefacts displayed on easels, each paired with a full-size interpretation panel explaining its story and historical context. The atmosphere was thoughtful but hopeful; a space where truth, care, and curiosity could sit together.
Educators, curators, historians, and supporters from across the region joined us to see these records up close, some for the first time outside a private family collection. Conversations moved easily between reflection and research, with questions about how to teach this history to children, how to preserve fragile paper, and how to speak about injustice without losing humanity.
Sunday stood alongside me to open the event, sharing why this history matters to her generation and why it must be told with honesty and courage. Together, we introduced TREE’s mission to preserve, interpret, and make accessible the records of enslavement and emancipation for all.
The afternoon closed with quiet reflection and an unmistakable sense that something new had begun.
What is TREE?
The Trust for Records of Enslavement and Emancipation (TREE) is a UK-based heritage foundation that preserves, interprets, and digitises original slavery-era documents from the Caribbean and Britain.
TREE’s work began with a family archive, handed down across generations, and has grown into a public trust dedicated to research, education, and remembrance. Our mission is to make these records accessible, understood, and respectfully presented, turning private evidence into shared history.
We use original documents to tell the human stories behind the systems of enslavement and compensation that shaped Britain’s past. Through exhibitions, publications, and teaching materials, TREE helps audiences confront history with clarity and empathy.
At the heart of our work is a simple belief: records of pain can become tools of progress when they are preserved with care and studied with honesty.
Archive in Focus: The Culloden Estate Inventory, 1817
Content note: The following section includes historical material relating to enslavement and the valuation of human lives. Reader discretion is advised.
The Inventory and Appraisement of the Culloden Estate, Tobago (1817).
It lists enslaved people by name, trade, and assigned value. Beneath the handwriting lies an economic system that reduced people to numbers but also preserved their names for future generations to rediscover.
Carpenters, watchmen, field workers, and children appear in the same column as livestock and tools. The neat handwriting and careful sums remind us that these were official ledgers of human lives, treated as property within an economic system.
For many of those named, this may be the only surviving record of their existence. Their identities, once recorded for profit, are now preserved for remembrance.
TREE’s transcription work is bringing these names back into view, making it possible for researchers, teachers, and descendants to read them again after more than two centuries.
This document sits at the heart of Ledger of Lives, the forthcoming book that will publish these records in full, alongside commentary and interpretation.
Through TREE’s work, those names are being read again.
Education in Progress
TREE’s education packs for KS2, KS3 and KS4 are being developed in partnership with teachers and exam specialists. Each pack connects students with real primary sources, helping them explore Britain’s role in enslavement, abolition, and remembrance with care and confidence.
If you are a teacher or school leader who would like to bring these materials into your classroom, you can view a sample and download directly from our TES page.
Register your school’s interest here
What’s Next
The launch at Dyrham Park was only the first step. TREE is now moving into a new phase of work that will bring these records to wider audiences, both in print and in person.
Over the coming months, we will be:
Continuing the transcription and interpretation of key documents from the TREE Archive
Developing new education resources in partnership with teachers and historians
Preparing for a series of public talks and exhibitions that will connect local heritage with global history
Behind the scenes, we are also working on Ledger of Lives, the forthcoming publication that will bring the full TREE archive together in one place for the first time.
Each project we undertake builds toward one aim - to ensure that the people whose lives were once reduced to lines of ink are remembered as individuals, not as entries in a ledger.
Please get in touch to find out more
Partner with TREE
TREE works with organisations that want to make a lasting contribution to truth, education, and remembrance.
Through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) partnerships, sponsorship, and collaborative projects, companies can help:
Fund the preservation and digitisation of original slavery-era records
Support educational resources that reach classrooms across the UK
Co-host exhibitions and public programmes that open up honest conversations about Britain’s colonial history
Our partners do not just donate; they stand beside us in reshaping how heritage is told and understood.
Get in touch for further details about our Sponsorship and CSR Pack: info@treefoundation.org.uk
Closing Reflection
Standing in front of the documents at Dyrham Park, I was struck by how far they had travelled - from plantations in the Caribbean to a public gallery where they could finally be seen and understood.
For years, these records existed in our family’s care, protected but perhaps not knowing that one day they would form the foundation of something larger. Sunday stood beside me at the launch, reminding everyone that this work is not only about the past, but about how her generation chooses to inherit history: openly, honestly, and with purpose.
TREE was created to bridge those generations. It exists so that truth can move from silence to study, from family memory to public record.
Thank you to everyone who has joined us at the beginning. The journey from remembrance to restoration has started, and there is much more to come.
With gratitude,
Matt Johnston
Founder, TREE
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