The Rum Story Re-Imagined
The Rum Story Re-Imagined is an ambitious, much needed project to improve The Rum Story over the next five years. A partnership project between Whitehaven Harbour Commissioners and Anti Racist Cumbria. Its first phase has been made possible by The National Lottery Heritage Fund, with thanks to National Lottery Players, and is running throughout 2025, into early 2026.
The Rum Story is a visitor attraction, which engages with the history of the Jefferson’s family business – rum, shipping and the trading and enslavement of people from Africa. The history of the Jefferson family sits alongside a wider history of Whitehaven as a significant shipping port, built first on mining and then by the wealth generated by the Transatlantic trade of enslaved African people.
The way this history is told currently aligns with how it is told by the wider heritage sector, as it dilutes the extent of Britain’s role and how it profited.
Here is a short video that shows you what The Rum Story is currently about and what it looks and feels like.
Our aims
These are our aims for the project over the next five years:
- Lots more people from all walks of life visit The Rum Story and come back
- The attraction is more accessible, thought-provoking and innovative
- A complete history is told, including less well-known narratives
- People get interested in our shared heritage – curious about how past links to present
- Local people actively participate in preserving and sharing Whitehaven’s heritage
- The team becomes upskilled on best practice in telling histories of enslavement
- Wider social and economic benefits are generated for the local area
We want to tell The Rum Story’s history in a truly representative way that is relevant to a wider, modern audience. An important part of history is re-engaging with it so we can ensure that parts of the history that have been erased in the past are heard and included. This is especially true for the history of the Transatlantic trade of enslaved African people and Britain’s role in it.
It can be a challenging and triggering history to confront, but by doing so The Rum Story can make a real difference and bring change to its local communities, to Cumbria, and beyond.
What is happening?
Katy Haigh
We have recruited a project manager, Katy Haigh to lead this piece of work. Katy will help us to connect The Rum Story’s coastal community with a global story in a way that is authentic, bold, educational and engaging. Katy, from West Cumbria, has always worked in community, education and arts roles. She loves working with adults and young people from all walks of life on meaningful projects that make tangible differences to people’s lives.
Phase 1 (2025-26) is focused on finding out how people think we should go about achieving the project aims and will end with the production of a recommendations report, and us implementing some of these recommendations to improve the attraction. Phase 2 (2026-2030) will be about putting the rest of the recommendations into place.
We are working with people from Whitehaven and further afield who know about living and working here, rum and The Rum Story, the trade and trafficking of enslaved African people, Whitehaven’s past, anti-racism, anti-oppression, heritage, arts, learning and engagement, tourism, accessibility and sustainability.
We are reaching out to individuals, businesses, cultural, creative and community organisations, schools, universities, think tanks, funders, government, museums and visitor attractions to gather their feedback and ideas. People can get involved by taking part in workshops, events, surveys, meetings and paid and volunteering roles on the project.
