Blackheath and Deptford played prominent roles in Britain's slave trade - one as a port and the other where the traders lived. Andre Erasmus takes a look at this black period in history and some famous people and institutions who gained their wealth trading in human beings...

Just off the A233 near Casear's Well (the source of the River Ravensbourne) and the Keston Ponds, is an old bench nestled in some woodland on a highpoint overlooking Kent.

It was here, in 1788, MP William Wilberforce told Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger of his intention to abolish slavery.

This mission took the religious MP years to achieve, the trade only being abolished in 1833. It put an end to a thriving trade which spanned some 200 years and included people like the Royal Family from Charles I and Elizabeth I through to Charles II, the "philospher of liberty" Samuel Pepys, Sir Francis Drake, to the founders of Barclays Bank, the owners of Lloyds of London and even the Bank of England.

Slavery was a thriving trade in the 17th and 18th centuries with many of the rich and privileged, who built their mansions on Blackheath, involved in the trade.

They chose the heath because of its proximity to London's docks with its connections to the sugar trade, which for most of its history, depended on the slave labour of Africans on the plantations in the Caribbean.

A number of residents of the Lewisham area also profited directly from the slave trade.

One was Francis Baring, after whom Baring Road in south east London is named.

He is said to have made his first money trading in slaves when he was just 16, indicating his family's immense wealth and business connections with the West Indies.

The family business later developed into Barings Bank, destroyed by the the trading of Nick Leeson in 1995.

Among the merchants around Blackheath involved with slavery were John Angerstein, the founder of Lloyd's of London, who owned a third share in a slave estate in Grenada. He built Woodlands House at Blackheath between 1772 and 1774, where his family remained until the 1780s. He is buried in St John's Church, in Blackheath.

Another was Ambrose Crowley, an iron merchant who was living in Greenwich in 1704.

He made his fortune producing manacles, ankle irons and collars, essential for securing the slaves during the journey from Africa in barbaric conditions.

The wealth generated by the barbaric practice of slave-trading created the industrial revolution and lined the pockets of the aristocracy and the City of London.

In fact, involvement in the slave trade was seen as a respectable occupation in London during the 17th and 18th centuries. Even the National Gallery in London was founded on it, while Lloyd's of London and the Bank of England were immersed in the trade.

According to research by Dr Nick Merriman, of the Museum of London, these companies included Barclays Bank, founded by Alexander and David Barclay, who were among 84 Quaker slave traders operating, according to the records of the Society of Friends.

Dr Merriman also estimated Sir Fancis Baring earned nearly £7 million from a business of dealing in slaves which went back 70 years.

The founding collection of pictures at the National Gallery, in London, was given by John Angerstein. He had built up his art collection with the money made from the slave trade and his activities as one of Lloyd's underwriters insuring the slavers.

Humphrey Morice, Bank of England governor between 1716 and 1729, owned six slave ships.

The Royal Dockyard at Deptford played a significant role in the slave trade.

In 1553, The Primrose, a ship built at Deptford two years earlier, would provide the first contact between the English and African Kingdom of Benin.

Deptford became a centre for those interested and involved in the slave trade and its business in the Caribbean.

Official Navy records show the slave trade was to "enrich England for centuries to come and correspondingly depopulate and impoverish Africa".

Another of Deptford's famous slave traders was Sir Walter Raleigh.

One family appeared to have dominated Kentish shipbuilding along the Thames the Pett family who had been master shipbuilders since the time of Edward VI. The woodland providing much of trees for this shipbuilding was named after them Pett's Wood.

The history of south London's links with the slave trade is still evident with street names, pub names and statues.