Row over wording of plaque planned for empty Colston plinth ‘thrashed out over email’

A row over the wording of a new plaque planned for the empty Colston plinth will be “thrashed out over email” by councillors.

Historians suggested two short paragraphs be written on the plaque, but these were criticised for downplaying and “glossing over” the slavetrader’s acts.

The statue of Edward Colston will go on public display in the M Shed museum next month, after Bristol City Council was granted retrospective listed building consent to move it from its plinth. Protesters toppled the controversial statue and rolled it into the harbour in June 2020.

Councillors on the cross-party development control B committee voted to approve the consent on Wednesday, February 21. But plans to put up a plaque on the empty plinth sparked a row, with some even suggesting that the statue should one day be returned to its original place.

The suggested wording on the plaque was: “On November 13, 1895, a statue of Edward Colston (1636–1721) was unveiled here celebrating him as a city benefactor. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the celebration of Colston was increasingly challenged given his prominent role in the enslavement of African people.

“On June 7, 2020, the statue was pulled down during Black Lives Matter protests and rolled into the harbour. Following consultation with the city in 2021, the statue entered the collections of Bristol City Council’s museums.”

Planning officers will take alternative suggestions via email from councillors on the committee, before drafting new text to appear on the plaque. The final wording will be voted on the next time the committee meets, on April 10.

Green Cllr Lorraine Francis said: “It doesn’t represent my African heritage in any way, shape or size. It’s like a trigger back to school, because all it actually says is ‘the enslavement of African people’. It makes me feel a little bit wobbly to see that. I think it’s totally, wholly inappropriate given all the things we could say on it. I don’t like that.

“It’s absolutely appalling that people were being enslaved, being killed, children being killed, on boats that were crammed with thousands of people, that we had their bodies everywhere. People were forced away from their home and their heritage to come to a country against their will.”

The statue will appear in an exhibition about protests. One day however, it could be displayed in a new slavery museum, Green councillors suggested, or the plinth too could be removed. Tory councillors meanwhile said ideally the statue would eventually return to its plinth, “if people weren’t so hot-headed”.

Conservative Councillor Lesley Alexander said: “It’s a shame that it was ever pulled off its plinth, but in the circumstances I think the museum is probably the best place for it in the current time. Hopefully it will keep most people happy.

“Otherwise it’s a red flag to a bull if it goes back up on the plinth. It might be that in the future, people aren’t so hot-headed about it, and it can go back on the plinth. But that might be wishful thinking."