slavery

The BBC has made the decision to edit episodes of Horrible Histories, which featured sketches including child workers and slavery, after they failed to meet strict guidelines.

The BBC has edited and removed sketches from Horrible Histories. The broadcaster decided to edit the programme after it failed to meet guidelines for children’s programmes.

The broadcaster has also removed an entire episode of the show featuring slavery, Victorian child workers and chimney sweeps. Horrible Histories is based on the bestselling book series of the same name by Terry Deary, which was intended to pique children’s interest in history.

The show, produced for CBBC, debuted in 2009 and aired 11 series before ending in 2014. At least seven sketches or scenes have been removed from the show, including one showing Madame Tussaud making wax masks from severed heads, according to The Times.

Another sketch, no longer available on BBC iPlayer, depicted white actors using darker makeup to portray ancient Egyptians or Incas.

Actor Mathew Baynton, who played characters including William Shakespeare and Guy Fawkes on the programme, previously said it could be argued the show did “blackface” in its depiction of Egyptians.

Speaking to The Telegraph in 2022, he said: “We didn’t do blackface, for example, but you could argue that we did. Because I played Egyptians, you know, for example, where you’d get a spray tan, essentially, and stand in your pants.”

The episode, which has been removed, is said to have featured a sketch teaching children about slavery in ancient Rome by depicting a Roman galley as an airline flight, with enslaved rowers chained to their oars and told they will not be allowed to escape if the ship sinks.

Another sketch showcased how children in the Victorian era were sent into dangerous and narrow chimneys, with one young boy being sent into the chimney and being told: “Try not to die.”

A spokesperson for the BBC said: “The edits to Horrible Histories were made seven years ago, in consultation with the programme makers, to ensure the series meets our editorial guidelines for children’s programmes.”

The news comes after the BBC removed several sketches from That Mitchell and Webb Look when the show aired on iPlayer, having decided that some of the material “no longer works today”.

The sketch comedy show, starring comedians David Mitchell and Robert Webb, who wrote and starred in the programme, originally ran for four seasons between 2006 and 2010. It also took home a BAFTA in 2007.

To celebrate the sketch comedy programme’s 20th anniversary, the national broadcaster added four seasons of the smash-hit show onto iPlayer for fans to enjoy – but with a few notable omissions.

A total of 11 sketches had been edited out amid fears of racism and ethnic stereotyping. “That Mitchell and Webb Look has been made available on BBC iPlayer,” the broadcaster said in a statement. “This is a 20-year-old sketch show; in consultation with the programme makers, we have included the ones that still work today and not the ones that don’t.”

As per The Times, material removed from the programme included scenes featuring war re-enactors in blackface, a joke about Jimmy Savile, and an indigenous tribe living in a garden centre.

One now-deleted sketch shows Mitchell playing a woman in a burka in a scene that sends up reality TV programming. The sketch then cuts to the pair – as themselves – discussing whether or not the sketch itself is actually offensive.

The Mirror has approached Horrible Histories author Terry Deary for comment.

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Jamaica’s campaign for reparations from the United Kingdom is part of a broader push for countries to pay for their roles in the transatlantic slave trade and hundreds of years of slavery.

Momentum is building. In March, a United Nations resolution said the claims represent a step towards a remedy for the descendants of enslaved people. Most Western countries abstained from the vote, and the United States opposed it.

In June, African and Caribbean nations met in Ghana – where hundreds of thousands of people were forced onto slave ships. They put together a plan for reparatory justice, which would include debt relief and other support for African nations.

Last month, a UN committee said governments are obliged by law to consider paying damages.

So, will the legal argument boost the case for reparations?

Presenter: Dareen Abughaida

Guests:

Hilary Beckles – vice-chancellor of the University of the West Indies and chairman of the Caribbean Community and Common Market (CARICOM) Reparations Commission

Lawrence Goldman – emeritus fellow in history at St Peter’s College, University of Oxford, and former editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography

Patrick Vernon – British historian and social commentator knighted in 2026 for his services to racial equality and social justice

Petition to King Charles questions the legality of slavery under English law and UK’s responsibility for reparations.

A Jamaican delegation to the United Kingdom has said it will file a petition addressed to King Charles III to seek legal guidance on the question of slavery reparations.

This is the first time a British Commonwealth state will use this legal route “for the cause of reparatory justice”, the Jamaican delegation said, as the visit to London kicks off Monday.

Jamaica’s Ministry of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport said its minister, Olivia Grange, will lead the delegation “to advance Jamaica’s push for reparations for the African ancestors who suffered under hundreds of years of enslavement”.

The ministry added that it will meet with the British Museum to discuss “the repatriation of cultural artefacts taken from Jamaica”.

The petition will ask the king, Jamaica’s head of state, to answer three questions on the transatlantic slave trade to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the Caribbean island’s highest court of appeal based in London.

Under the Judicial Committee Act of 1833, the UK monarch has the authority to refer legal matters to the court for an advisory opinion.

The questions include: whether the enslavement of Africans in Jamaica was legal under English common law, whether it violated international law, and whether the UK has a legal obligation to provide a remedy for the harm caused by slavery.

Grange said she would not speculate on whether Jamaica was asking the UK to pay reparations for the slave trade.

“We want the answers. Once we get the answers, or once we get a response to those questions, then the next steps will be determined,” she said.

“We understand the Jamaican government is seeking a petition to be heard before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council,” a Buckingham Palace spokesperson said in response to Jamaica’s inquiry.

The palace acknowledged the king’s constitutional role in the petition as Jamaica’s head of state but said he had no role in deciding the substance of the claim.

British merchants enslaved and forcibly transported 600,000 to 1 million Africans to Jamaica between the 17th century and the early 19th century.

Shortly after abolishing slavery in 1833, the UK paid slave owners $27m in compensation, amounting to 40 percent of the Treasury’s annual income. To raise the cash, the government took out considerable loans, finally paying off its debts in 2015.

The Jamaican government estimates that the country is owed about $10bn, but the UK has repeatedly refused to pay for historical slavery.