Ryan Hanley is lecturer in modern British history at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing, 1770–1830 and coeditor of Britain’s History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery. He is the winner of the Alexander and Whitfield Prizes and the Philip Leverhulme Prize. He lives in Bristol, UK.

A History Today Book of the Year 2025“Hanley masterfully reconstructs the fascinating life and underworld milieu of Wedderburn, the biracial seaman, tailor, blasphemer, preacher, pornographer, brothel-keeper, and outspoken opponent of the British regimes of slavery and labor.”—Vincent Carretta, author of Equiano, the African“Ryan Hanley’s extensive research on activist Robert Wedderburn is well-deserving of prominence in the growing pantheon of black lives brought back into the attention of scholars and lay readers.”—Gretchen Gerzina, author of Black England

Ryan Hanley is lecturer in modern British history at the University of Exeter. He is the author of Beyond Slavery and Abolition: Black British Writing, 1770–1830 and coeditor of Britain’s History and Memory of Transatlantic Slavery. He is the winner of the Alexander and Whitfield Prizes and the Philip Leverhulme Prize. He lives in Bristol, UK.

A History Today Book of the Year 2025“Hanley masterfully reconstructs the fascinating life and underworld milieu of Wedderburn, the biracial seaman, tailor, blasphemer, preacher, pornographer, brothel-keeper, and outspoken opponent of the British regimes of slavery and labor.”—Vincent Carretta, author of Equiano, the African“Ryan Hanley’s extensive research on activist Robert Wedderburn is well-deserving of prominence in the growing pantheon of black lives brought back into the attention of scholars and lay readers.”—Gretchen Gerzina, author of Black England