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LONDON\u2014Campaigners for slavery reparations and scholars have \u200bcriticised the British monarchy after King Charles posed with Caribbean officials at a London reception \u200cbeneath a portrait of George IV, who profited from enslaved labour on plantations in Grenada.<\/strong><\/p>\n Charles hosted on March 10 several Caribbean representatives at St. James\u2019s Palace for the annual Commonwealth Day reception, attended by, among others, the foreign ministers of \u200bJamaica, St. Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago.<\/p>\n Grenada\u2019s high commissioner to Britain, Rach\u00e9r Croney, \u200bwas also in attendance, alongside other Caribbean diplomats.<\/p>\n A group of 29 guests at the \u2060reception posed for a photograph with Charles and British foreign minister Yvette Cooper beneath a large portrait \u200bof George IV. The image was subsequently shared across several accounts of some Caribbean foreign ministries as \u200bwell as by a high commissioner.<\/p>\n GEORGE IV WAS ENRICHED BY GRENADIAN ESTATES: RESEARCHER<\/p>\n Research by independent scholar Desir\u00e9e Baptiste shared with Reuters last year, found that 1,000 pounds ($1,331.20) \u2013 about 103,000 pounds today \u2013 were paid into George IV\u2019s private coffers from two \u200bCrown-owned Grenadian estates worked by hundreds of enslaved people in the 18th and 19th centuries.<\/p>\n George IV\u2019s reign \u200blasted from 1820 to 1830.<\/p>\n Experts said the finding increases pressure on the monarchy to confront its historical ties to slavery, \u200cincluding \u2060issuing a full apology and acknowledging the ways it profited from it.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is offensive to have his portrait up,\u201d Arley Gill, chairman of Grenada\u2019s National Reparations Committee, said. \u201cIt is doubly offensive to have persons of African descent with the king below a photograph of him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cIt just rubs salt in the wounds.\u201d<\/p>\n Gill said the \u200bcriticism of the photograph \u200bpresented an opportunity for \u2060some Caribbean representatives to better educate themselves on the history of slavery.<\/p>\n Buckingham Palace did not immediately reply to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Baptiste called the photograph a \u201cdiplomatic misstep\u201d \u200bby the palace and urged Charles to \u201cdeepen his understanding\u201d of the monarchy\u2019s \u200binvolvement in slavery.<\/p>\n Robert \u2060Beckford, a British professor of theology of Jamaican heritage, said the group photograph was an act of \u201chistorical amnesia.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cStanding beneath royal portraits normalises forgetting,\u201d Beckford added.<\/p>\n Charles, who expressed sorrow over slavery in a 2022 speech to Commonwealth leaders, \u2060has backed a \u200bPhD study on the royal family\u2019s role in slavery.<\/p>\n A 2023 \u200bGuardian report found that King William III, who reigned from 1689 to 1702, received 1,000 pounds in shares of the Royal African \u200bCompany, which trafficked thousands of enslaved Africans to the Americas.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n