UK-St Helena Heritage Trust

02/04/2026

Congratulations to everyone at the St Helena National Trust and LAAC for getting the No. 1 Building slavery memorial project to lift off. And huge thanks to the Commonwealth Heritage Forum for their funding support.

02/04/2026

St Helena Government (SHG) is pleased to announce the launch of “Our Island, Our Space, Our Responsibility,” a new community campaign delivered through a cross-portfolio collaboration between Economic Development (ED), Safety, Security and Home Affairs (SSHA) and Environment, Natural Resources a...

02/04/2026

27/03/2026

This is surely the loveliest louse going!

𝗩𝗼𝘁𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗽𝗶𝗸𝘆 𝘆𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘄𝗼𝗼𝗱𝗹𝗼𝘂𝘀𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝘄𝗶𝗻 $𝟭𝟬,𝟬𝟬𝟬 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗶𝘁𝘀 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻!

St Helena’s endemic spiky yellow woodlouse is competing in the Uproar Conservation Challenge, hosted by the Indianapolis Zoo and the IUCN Species Survival Commission.

While every species involved receives support from the $50,000 grant pool, the grand champion earns a $10,000 prize for the specialist group dedicated to their protection. Let’s get our unique endemic species to the top!

Voting ends 20 March, 3:59am GMT. Cast your vote in Round 1 now:
https://www.indianapoliszoo.com/uproar-conservation-challenge/

📸Liza Fowler

27/11/2025

27/11/2025

On this day in 1784 (241 years ago): Clara Rich, one of the enslaved, is baptised at St. James’ Church. She will go on to found one of the island’s most successful schools.
https://sainthelenaisland.info/importantpeople.htm

25/11/2025

We're delighted to announce that a very generous pledge of £2,000 from The St Helena Independent News has almost got us to lift off point with our campaign to send a conservation engineer to St Helena to devise stabilisation repairs for the island's vulnerable historic fortifications. Huge thanks to Vince Thompson of the Indy for his commitment to St Helena's heritage.

We're thrilled to announce a pledged donation of £2,000 from The St Helena Independent, St Helena's weekly online newspaper, towards our campaign to send a conservation-accredited structural engineer to St Helena in January. This very generous contribution has helped us raise enough other gifts and...

25/11/2025

Tomorrow evening, folks! Wed, 3 Dec, 6pm GMT. It's our last free history talk for 2025!

https://bit.ly/StH0312

Join us on Wed, 3 December at 6pm GMT to hear author Colin Fox trace St Helena's long journey from reliance on enslaved labour to free, waged labour - and how it generated historical records that are vital for St Helenian family history researchers today.

The fascinating thing about St Helenian history is that for over 200 years the island has a pivotal role in world events, but it does things ever so slightly differently to the rest of the world. The story of the abolition of slavery on the island is no exception, as Colin's detailed research reveals. Things just happen differently on a remote island governed by a trading company and where everybody knows everybody else.

The abolition of slavery on St Helena is the prequel to the island's role as an under-resourced base for the anti-slavery patrols of the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron between 1840 and 1867. Without the history of enslavement or the presence of the Liberated African Establishment, St Helena would have a very different history and St Helenians would be a very different people.

Colin Fox is a former editor of Wirebird, the journal of The Friends of St Helena, who have a fabulous set of history resources on their website. If you're interested in St Helenian family history - or indeed any other type of history on St Helena - check them out!

11/11/2025

Tomorrow evening, folks. Free history talk about the life of Britain's top military engineer on St Helena during Napoleon's exile, who was also quite a fan of the famous prisoner. Just a bit awkward for cordial relations with his colleagues...

Thank you to historian Peter Hicks from Fondation Napoléon for joining us online from Paris to explore the career of Major General Anthony Emmett of the Royal Engineers.

Cute fact: In his twilight years the Major General married a much younger lady. She was still drawing a widow's military pension in 1914, 103 years after her husband first saw action at the Seige of Badajoz in Spain in 1811.

Join us online, Wednesday 12 November, 6pm GMT.
Registration link here: https://bit.ly/StH1211

05/11/2025

Our latest newsletter has just landed! And it includes news of a fabulous donation from St Helena Independent News to our campaign to get a conservation engineer to St Helena to devise stabilisation repairs for High Knoll Fort and other fortifications.

Plus there are registration links for our next two online history talks, and a link to the recording of John McAleer's fascinating talk last month on the importance of St Helena to the East India Company's empire in Asia.

Welcome to our latest round-up of news and online events at the UK-St Helena Heritage Trust. If you have any queries about our work, history talks or fundraising campaigns, please get in touch with our director, Katherine Prior. Please sing out too if there’s a topic that you would like to see cov...

04/11/2025

We've two great St Helena history talks coming up in November and December. Check out our website for all the details. They're free!
https://www.uk-sthelenaheritagetrust.org/news-1