Bristol Colston statue goes on permanent display
Nearly four years after it was pulled down by Black Lives Matter protestors it is now in a museum full time
A launch event has been held this afternoon (14 March) to celebrate Bristol's infamous Edward Colston statue going on permanent display at the M Shed.
The depiction of the slave trader was famously torn down by Black Lives Matter protestors on 7 June 2020 and thrown in the harbour, with its plinth having sat largely empty in the city centre ever since.
It goes on permanent display in the harbourside museum after the We Are Bristol History Commission and 80 per cent of respondents to a survey said it should.
A temporary display in 2021 was visited by 100,000 people.
Marvin Rees, the Mayor of Bristol, said: "We have followed the findings of the We Are Bristol History Commission, carrying on from the city-wide conversation about what to do with the Colston statue.
"There were 14,000 responses to the survey, which returned a clear consensus for the statue to be preserved in its current state and exhibited in one of our Bristol museums, drawing on the principles of the temporary M Shed display in 2021.
"The resulting display at M Shed will present the history of Colston and the statue in a nuanced, contextualised, and engaging way, which is important for Bristol’s communities to explore our city’s history and what it means for us today.”
As was the case in 2021, the statue will be displayed inside a glass case from Friday 15 March.
A selection of placards left at the empty plinth after the Black Lives Matter march will be displayed around the statue and purposely block it from view to the rest of the room, so that those who might be insulted by seeing it, do not have to.
Meanwhile a timeline, allowing visitors to contribute their own events on the themes or racism, the statue, politics and culture will also be featured along with an interactive screen.
Councillor Asher Craig, Deputy Mayor of Bristol and Chair of the Bristol Legacy Foundation, said: “This display aligns with our vision of creating a safe space for dialogue and understanding around Bristol’s heritage.
"Working alongside Bristol's African Heritage community, we've strived to amplify less-heard voices, recognising that the fight against racism goes beyond symbolic gestures.
"Our goal is to encourage open dialogue, acknowledging the struggles with racism and embracing the complexities of our collective history.
"Bristol's legacy is a work in progress, and this extended display is a testament to a shared commitment to understand, learn, and evolve."
The story of Edward Colston and the statue
Edward Colston lived from 1636 to 1721 and had strong ties to Bristol, though he lived for most of his life, in London.
During his adult life he came to be the head of the Royal African Company, which monopolised the trade in enslaved Africans until 1698.
Historians estimate he played an active part in the trade of over 84,000 enslaved people including 12,000 children, of whom 19,000 died whilst crossing the Atlantic.
As an MP for Bristol in later life he campaigned to keep the slave trade legal, but upon his death he left £71,000 to charity (comparable to around £16 million today) and helped fund schools, hospitals and other sites in the city during his life.
Nearly two centuries after his death the statue was erected in the city centre by a small number of donors as a symbol of civic pride, with a plaque declaring Colston a "wise and virtuous son" of Bristol.
Throughout the 20th Century there were repeated unsuccessful attempts to have the statue removed by democratic means, before it was eventually removed by force, drawing international headlines.
In 2022 four protestors charged with criminal damage for pulling it down were found not guilty of criminal damage, despite admitting their involvement.
During a trial at Bristol Crown Court lasting several weeks Rhian Graham, Milo Ponsford, Jake Skuse and Sage Willoughby successfully argued that removing the statue was justified because its existence constituted a hate crime.
Marvin Rees and the statue
The story of the statue's toppling drew international attention, having happened in response to the murder of black man George Floyd in the US by a serving police officer.
However, it perhaps attracted even more attention because the current city Mayor Mr Rees, when first elected, became the first directly elected black Mayor of a major European city.
He is also descended from enslaved Africans himself and speaking publicly on Wednesday for the final time as Mayor, Mr Rees talked about the moment the statue came down and his thoughts and actions afterwards.
"I kind of felt that at that period of time, I was most fully me," he told historian David Olusoga on stage at the Bristol Beacon.
"Because of the fullness of my identity and track record."
Mr Rees talked about meeting a man who had organised a counter protest later in the week, to protect Bristol's Cenotaph.
"It's difficult to show what you prevented happening, but we didn't end up with the level of violence that they had in London, for example.
"I went and met some of the guys, I said I wanted to know what's going on and that was positive.
"I was told that there was chat on some of the Facebook sites that, we met the Mayor, he's listening and understands us and the fact that he was a black, mixed race guy, he went to meet and listen and understand, probably mattered."
During a speech earlier in the evening Mr Rees talked about gaining a "greater sense of belief in the authenticity" of them, than of the anti-racist protestors and the Colston Four, who brought the statue down.
"I stress feeling - because it’s been natural and involuntary, a product of a shared story," he said.
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