Statue of Edward Colston
The statue of Edward Colston is a bronze statue of Bristol-born merchant Edward Colston, originally erected in The Centre in Bristol, England. Created in 1895 by sculptor John Cassidy on a Portland stone plinth, it was designated a Grade II listed structure in 1977.
The statue has been subject to increasing controversy since the 1990s, when Colston's prior reputation as a philanthropist has come under scrutiny due to his involvement in the Atlantic slave trade. On 7 June 2020, the statue was toppled, defaced and pushed into Bristol Harbour during the George Floyd protests related to the Black Lives Matter movement. The plinth was also covered in graffiti, but remains in place. The statue was recovered from the harbour and put into safe storage by Bristol City Council on 11 June.
Description
In its original state the monument consisted of an bronze statue of Colston on top of a plinth. The statue depicts Colston in a flowing wig, velvet coat, satin waistcoat and knee-breeches as was typical in his day. The plinth is of Portland stone adorned with bronze plaques and figures of dolphins. Of the four plaquesone on each face of the plinththree are relief sculptures in an Art Nouveau style: two of these show scenes from Colston's life and the third shows a maritime fantasy. The plaque on the south face bears the words "Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city AD 1895" and "John Cassidy fecit".Background
Edward Colston
Colston was a Bristol-born merchant who made much of his fortune from the slave trade, particularly between 1680 and 1692. He was an active member of the Royal African Company, and was briefly deputy governor in 1689–90. During his tenure, the Company transported an estimated 84,000 slaves from West Africa to the Americas. Colston used his wealth to provide financial support to almshouses, hospitals, schools, workhouses and churches throughout England, particularly in his home city of Bristol. He represented Bristol as its Member of Parliament from 1710–13. Upon his death, he left much of his wealth to charities. In the 19th century he was seen as a philanthropist. The fact that much of his fortune was made in the slave trade was largely ignored until the 1990s.Statue
The statue, designed by John Cassidy, was erected in the area now known as The Centre in 1895, to commemorate Edward Colston's philanthropy. It was proposed by James Arrowsmith, the president of the Anchor Society. Several appeals to the public and to Colston-related charitable bodies, over the course of a two-year fundraising effort, raised £650, less than the amount needed for its casting and erection. The remaining balance, £150, was given by an anonymous donor. Alumni of Colston's School were also invited to participate. The statue was unveiled by the mayor and the bishop of Bristol on 13 November 1895, a date which had been known for some time in the city as "Colston Day". Further funds were raised after the unveiling, including funds from the Society of Merchant Venturers.On 4 March 1977, it was designated as a Grade II listed structure. Historic England described the statue as being "handsome" and that "the resulting contrast of styles is handled with confidence". They also note that the statue offers good group value with other memorials, including a statue of Edmund Burke, the Cenotaph, and a drinking fountain commemorating the Industrial and Fine Art Exhibition of 1893.
Controversy
20th century
The statue had become controversial by the end of the 20th century, as Colston's activities as a major slave trader became more widely known. H. J. Wilkins, who in 1920 uncovered his slave-trading activities, commented that "we cannot picture him justly except against his historical background". Colston's involvement in the slave trade predated the abolition movement in Britain, and was during the time when "slavery was generally condoned in England—indeed, throughout Europe—by churchmen, intellectuals and the educated classes". From the 1990s onwards, campaigns and petitions called for the removal of the statue, describing it as a disgrace.In 1992, the statue was depicted in the installation Commemoration Day by Carole Drake, as part of the Trophies of Empire exhibition at the Arnolfini, a gallery in a former tea warehouse in Bristol's harbour. Drake's installation combined a replica of the statue swinging above rotting chrysanthemums, a favourite flower of Colston, in front of a projected photograph of schoolgirls at Colston School covering his statue with flowers in 1973 and the audio of the school hymn "Rejoice ye pure in heart". In the 1994 catalogue of Trophies of Empire, Drake stated the work refers to:
In January 1998, "SLAVE TRADER" was written in paint on the base of the statue. Bristol City councillor Ray Sefia said: "If we in this city want to glorify the slave trade, then the statue should stay. If not, the statue should be marked with a plaque that he was a slave trader or taken down."
21st century
In a 2014 poll in the local newspaper, the Bristol Post, 56% of the 1,100 respondents said it should stay while 44% wanted it to go. Others called for a memorial plaque honouring the victims of slavery to be fitted to his statue. Bristol's first elected mayor, George Ferguson, stated on Twitter in 2013 that "Celebrations for Colston are perverse, not something I shall be taking part in!" In August 2017 an unauthorized commemorative plaque was affixed to the statue's plinth, declaring that Bristol was the "Capital of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1730-1745" and memorialising "the 12,000,000 enslaved of whom 6,000,000 died as captives". The plaque was made by sculptor Will Coles, who stated that his aim was "to try to get people to think". The plaque was removed by Bristol City Council in October of the same year. In 2018, Thangam Debbonaire, Labour MP for Bristol West, wrote to Bristol City Council calling for the removal of the statue. A petition to remove the statue had garnered more than 11,000 signatures.An unofficial art installation appeared in front of the statue on 18 October 2018 to mark Anti-Slavery Day in the UK. It depicted about a hundred supine figures arranged as on a slave ship, lying as if they were cargo, surrounded by a border listing jobs typically done by modern-day slaves such as 'fruit picker' and 'nail bar worker'; it remained for some months. The labels around the bow of the ship said 'here and now'. Another artistic intervention saw a ball and chain attached to the statue.
Rewording the plaque
In July 2018, Bristol City Council, which was responsible for the statue, made a planning application to add a second plaque which would "add to the public knowledge about Colston" including his philanthropy and his involvement in slave trading, though the initial wording suggested came in for significant criticism and re-wording took place.The initial wording of the second plaque mentioned Colston's role in the slave trade, brief tenure as a Tory MP for Bristol, and criticised his philanthropy as religiously selective:
The Society of Merchant Venturers, an organisation of which Colston was a member, objected to the wording and a Bristol Conservative councillor called it "revisionist" and "historically illiterate".
A second version, co-written by an associate professor of history at the University of Bristol, was proposed by the council in 2018, giving a brief description of Colston's philanthropy, role in the slave trade, and time as an MP, while noting that he was now considered controversial. This wording was edited by a former curator at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, creating a third proposal that was backed by the Bristol Civic Society. However, this wording was criticised by Madge Dresser, the historian behind the second proposal, as a "sanitised" version of history, arguing the wording minimised Colston's role, omitted the number of child slaves and focused on West Africans as the original enslavers. It was also reported that the third version had been written by a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers. A bronze plaque was cast with wording as follows:
However, after the plaque was cast, its installation was vetoed in March 2019 by Bristol's mayor, Marvin Rees, who criticised the role of the Society of Merchant Venturers in creating the wording. A statement from the mayor's office called the final wording "unacceptable", claimed that Rees had not been consulted and promised to continue work on a second plaque. In June 2020 the Society of Merchant Venturers stated it was 'inappropriate' for the society to have become involved in the rewording of the plaque in 2018.
Toppling and removal
On 7 June 2020, during the global protests following the killing of George Floyd in the United States, the statue was pulled down by demonstrators who then jumped on it. They daubed it in red and blue paint, and one protester placed his knee on the statue's neck, recalling the African-American Floyd's death under a knee of a white policeman. The statue was then rolled down Anchor Road and pushed into Bristol Harbour.Superintendent Andy Bennett of Avon and Somerset Police stated that they had made a "tactical decision" not to intervene and had allowed the statue to be toppled, citing a concern that stopping the act could have led to further violence and a riot. They also stated that the act was criminal damage and confirmed that there would be an investigation to identify those involved, adding that they were in the process of collating footage of the incident.
Reaction
On 7 June, the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, called the toppling "utterly disgraceful", "completely unacceptable" and "sheer vandalism". She added, "it speaks to the acts of public disorder that have become a distraction from the cause people are protesting about." The Mayor of Bristol Marvin Rees said those comments showed an "absolute lack of understanding".On 8 June Mayor Rees said that the statue was an affront, and he felt no "sense of loss ," but that the statue would be retrieved and it was "highly likely that the Colston statue will end up in one of our museums." The historian and television presenter David Olusoga commented that the statue should have been taken down earlier, saying: "Statues are about saying 'this was a great man who did great things'. That is not true, he was a slave trader and a murderer."
Police Superintendent Andy Bennett also stated he understood that Colston was "a historical figure that's caused the black community quite a lot of angst over the last couple of years", adding: "Whilst I am disappointed that people would damage one of our statues, I do understand why it's happened, it's very symbolic."
Rees made a statement suggesting that "it's important to listen to those who found the statue to represent an affront to humanity and make the legacy of today about the future of our city, tackling racism and inequality. I call on everyone to challenge racism and inequality in every corner of our city and wherever we see it." In an interview with Krishnan Guru-Murthy, he said, "We have a statue of someone who made their money by throwing our people into water... and now he's on the bottom of the water." In a separate interview, Rees commented that the statue would probably be retrieved from the harbour "at some point", and could end up in a city museum. Rees confirmed that placards left by protesters will be put on display at M Shed museum in Bristol.
A spokesperson for Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said that he "absolutely understands the strength of feeling" but insisted that the democratic process should have been followed, and that police should hold responsible those involved in the criminal act.
Labour leader Keir Starmer said the way the statue had been pulled down was "completely wrong" but it should have been removed "a long, long time ago". He added "You can't, in 21st Century Britain, have a slaver on a statue. That statue should have been brought down properly, with consent, and put in a museum".
The Society of Merchant Venturers, in a statement on 12 June, said that "the fact that it has gone is right for Bristol. To build a city where racism and inequality no longer exist, we must start by acknowledging Bristol's dark past and removing statues, portraits and names that memorialise a man who benefitted from trading in human lives."
Retrieval and storage
At 5am on 11 June 2020, the statue was retrieved from Bristol harbour by Bristol City Council, who plan to clean it to prevent corrosion, and then exhibit it in a museum without removing the graffiti and ropes placed on it by the protesters. Whilst cleaning mud from the statue, M Shed discovered an 1895 issue of Tit-Bits magazine containing a handwritten date, 26 October 1895, and the names of those who originally fitted the statue.Police investigation
The day after the toppling, the police stated that they had identified 17 people in connection with the incident, but had not yet made any arrests. On 22 June 2020 the police released images of people connected to the incident, and asked the public for help identifying the individuals. On 1 July, a 24-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of criminal damage to the statue.Subsequent events
Following the toppling of the statue, a similar monument to Robert Milligan, the slave-factor largely responsible for the construction of the West India Docks, was removed peacefully after opposition in east London. On 9 June 2020, the same day as Tower Hamlets council had the statue of Robert Milligan taken down, the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan called for London statues and street names with links to slavery to be removed or renamed. Khan set up the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm to review London's landmarks.After the statue was removed, a petition began to have a statue of Paul Stephenson erected in its place. The former Bristol youth worker is a black man who was instrumental in the 1963 Bristol Bus Boycott, inspired by the US Montgomery bus boycott, which brought an end to a then-legal employment colour ban in Bristol bus companies.
In what a local councillor believed was retaliation, the headstone and footstone for the enslaved man Scipio Africanus were vandalised in the churchyard of St Mary's Church, Henbury, on 17 June. The attacker broke one of the stones in two and scrawled a warning to "put Colston's statue back or things will really heat up."
In the early morning of 15 July 2020, a statue by Marc Quinn was added to the empty plinth, without permission of the authorities. The statue, entitled A Surge of Power 2020 depicts a Black Lives Matter protester with raised fist. Quinn described it as a "new temporary, public installation". Bristol City Council removed the statue on the morning of 16 July, and said it would be held in their museum "for the artist to collect or donate to our collection".