EVENTS on the Thames and off the African coast have commemorated the Navy’s role in ending the Atlantic slave trade.

HMS Northumberland escorted a replica slave ship into London, while 2,000 miles to the south the crew of HMS Ocean gathered on the helicopter carrier’s flight deck for a service of remembrance in honour of the victims of slavery – and the British sailors who sought to put an end to the trade.

The Zong is a copy of a ship which played a key role – indirectly – in the abolition of slavery.

Back in 1783, the Zong’s master tossed 133 slaves overboard in an insurance scam. The slaves’ deaths prompted widespread public outcry in Britain and gave impetus to the anti-slavery movement.

The replica of the Zong was shepherded up the Thames by Northumberland from Greenwich to Tower Pier, where the sailing vessel berthed.

“It was a real honour for us to escort the Zong up the Thames because there are clearly strong parallels between the efforts of the Royal Navy 200 years ago and our many varied operations across the globe today,” said Northumberland’s captain Cdr Tom Guy.

It took another 24 years after the Zong tragedy before slavery was outlawed by Great Britain, a landmark ruling commemorated aboard Ocean in the mid-Atlantic.

Conditions in ships of the West Africa Station which waged war on slave traders were grim – rates of death and disease were generally higher than the rest of the Fleet, and the slave traders often put up a fierce fight.

But the RN persevered for seven decades, helping to put an end to the global slave trade.

“We felt it was important that we recognized the part played by our predecessors – those sailors and marines who helped bring an end to the trade. So many died through disease and from wounds received in action against slavers,” said Ocean’s CO Capt Russ Harding.

Fittingly, Ocean’s deployment is a modern-day variant of the anti-slavery campaign. She will eventually take up station in the Caribbean, using her Sea Kings to find drug runners racing across the sea in speed boats.

Northumberland was in London to formally mark the shake-up of the ratings branches of the RN (the ship pioneered the new system two years ago), to throw open her gangway to the public for two days, and to publicise the launch of the memoirs of Lt Cdr James Newton of 847 NAS, Armed Action, a vivid account of the airman’s war in Iraq four years ago.