Committee to Decide on Colston Plaque Wording

Approval for the text of a new plaque, intended for the vacant plinth previously occupied by a controversial slave trader’s statue, is anticipated shortly. On June 7, 2020, demonstrators in Bristol toppled the statue of Edward Colston and subsequently cast it into the harbour. In February of the previous year, a city council committee granted planning permission for the plaque, stipulating that the suggested text must be revised to acknowledge Colston’s involvement in the slave trade. The development control B committee is scheduled to vote next Wednesday on whether to grant planning permission for the most recent iteration of the plaque. According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the current proposed inscription states: “On 13 November 1895, a statue of Edward Colston (1636 – 1721) was unveiled here.”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 7 June 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.” This most recent text omits the phrase “celebrating him as a city benefactor” from its initial sentence, a point of contention for certain committee members. For several years, individuals, including local historians and councillors, have expressed differing opinions regarding the installation of a plaque on the plinth to elaborate on Colston’s history in the slave trade. In 2018, the council had previously decided that a new plaque should be positioned beneath the statue, which at that time remained on the plinth, to clarify that Colston enslaved more than 84,000 Africans and only contributed to charities aligned with his perspectives. The initial plaque, installed in 1895, made no reference to the slave trade, instead characterizing Colston as “one of the most virtuous and wise sons of the city”.