The Tinne family's house at 32 Lange Voorhout looks austere among all its fancy neighbours, but appearances can be deceptive. The puissant rich Tinnes were merchants, ship owners, plantation owners and slave traders. In the early 19th century, Philip Tinne made a fortune importing sugar, molasses, coffee, rum and tropical hardwood from his South American plantations in Demerary - a Dutch colony where Guyana now lies. Philip did so with English business partners and their plantations had names like Vauxhall, Westminster, Diamond and Providence.
When the British abolished slavery in 1834, the Tinne & Co firm received compensation of 173,000 pounds from London for releasing all enslaved Africans on its plantations. That is now converted to about £126 million.
Meanwhile, production on Demerary's sugar plantations continued as usual, but now with Chinese and Indian contract workers as well as former enslaved Africans who continued to work as paid labourers. The company's fleet of more than 30 sailing ships transported the contract workers from India and China to Demerary and European passengers and goods to and from the Far East.
When Philip Tinne died in 1844, his daughter Alexine was eight years old and among the wealthiest Dutchmen of the time. Alexine was talented and had a keen interest in land and ethnography. She appeared in imaginative, self-designed dresses and with remarkable hats in public and rode fast on horseback across Lange Voorhout. Alexine pioneered as a photographer and became a famous explorer, most notably as one of the first Western women to cross Africa. She did take her canopy bed, her dogs and a whole procession of servants with her, but Alexine had a great aversion to slavery. She became angry when she herself was accused of it and, according to reports, she even bought 100 slaves free on one of her journeys. In 1869, the then 33-year-old Alexine crossed the Sahara with an expedition of 102 camels, but was ambushed and did not survive the attack.