Overwriting, Underwriting - The Connector Project

Overwriting-Underwriting is the first pilot of the £1 million Connector Project, an initiative of National Museums Liverpool's International Slavery Museum, funded by Lloyd's Register Foundation. The pilot is run in partnership with the Centre for the Study of International Slavery, which will be the host organisation for the 2026-27 CSIS Connector Fellows.

In the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, merchants and investors used underwriting to insure ships, cargoes and slaving voyages against loss. By spreading commercial risk, insurance made voyages involving the trafficking and exploitation of enslaved Africans more secure as investments. It was one of the less visible structures that helped the transatlantic slave economy operate at scale. Underwriting helped sustain a system that generated enormous profits through human suffering.

Overwriting-Underwriting will examine the people, firms and institutions involved in these networks, with a particular focus on North West-based underwriters and shipowners and their connections to Liverpool, London and North Wales.

From September 2026, a cohort of six researchers, aged 18-25, from descendant communities, and known as the Overwriters, will begin exploring these networks through archival collections in Liverpool, London and North Wales. The pilot has been developed by Research Associate, Lucy Moynihan, whose work has shaped the pilot's themes, archive strategy and community participation model.

Through Overwriting-Underwriting, we will ask new questions of the archives to better understand the networks, individuals and institutions involved. Just as importantly, we are opening up that investigative process by working alongside young people and descendant communities, whose perspectives are vital in shaping how these histories are researched and understood.

Participants will receive research training, access to archival collections, and mentoring from historians and project partners. Their findings will contribute to the development of the wider Connector Project and to new public interpretations of the histories of slavery, commerce and insurance.

Malik Al Nasir, Project Manager for the Connector Project, said:

"Connector is built on a simple principle: descendant communities should not only be the subjects of historical research; they should help shape and lead it. Overwriting-Underwriting demonstrates how museums, universities, researchers and communities can work together to investigate histories that have often remained hidden in institutional archives.

"This first pilot will establish a model for the wider Connector Project, showing how archival research can be collaborative, rigorous and publicly meaningful. It is not only about recovering the past but about developing new ways to understand and respond to the legacies that continue to shape society today."