A Civics Lesson From a Slaver: Re-examining Bristol's Statue of Edward Colston

On the 7th of June, 2020, the statue of slave trader Edward Colston that had stood in the centre of Bristol since 1895 took a swim in the harbour, helpfully assisted by 10,000 Black Lives Matter protestors.

The statue had long been controversial. Its supporters argued that it was important to honour the man who had given much of his wealth to charitable causes in Bristol; its opponents pointed out that his fortune was amassed largely though the transporting of an estimated 80,000 slaves from Africa to the Americas between 1672-1689, and that it was wrong and harmful to memorialise such a man. Ultimately, after campaigns to remove the statue or at least add an updated plaque to the plinth failed, protestors taking part in the global Black Lives Matter protests took matters into their own hands, pulling the statue down and covering it with graffiti before rolling it into the harbour.

This was not the first action taken against Colston - the Colston Hall music venue announced plans to change its name in 2017, and in 2019 St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School (the best school in Bristol according to this very unbiased former student) renamed its Colston House to Johnston House after scientist Katherine Johnson - but it reignited the examination of the relationship between the city and the slaver, leading to a wave of changes across the city as schools, streets and businesses updated their names to remove any Colston references (my personal favourite was the pub the Colston Arms, which temporarily renamed itself Ye Olde Pubby Mcdrunkface before settling on The Open Arms in December 2021).

Central to this continuing reexamination was, still, the statue - while tearing it down had ended the debate of if it should stay standing, it started a debate on what to do with it next.

After the thoroughly soggy slaver was hoisted out of the harbour the council, having seen first hand how strongly Bristolians felt about the matter, decided to launch a public survey. To aid this and to spark further discussions, in the summer of 2021 the statue was put on display for the first time since its toppling, at a temporary exhibition at the M-Shed (a local museum focused on Bristol’s history).

Titled ‘Colston Statue: What Next?’, this exhibition focused on the history of the statue and the debate surrounding it, as well as the events of the 7th of June 2020 and the reaction from across the world - unfortunately I missed this exhibition while it was on, but it has been preserved online here. It did not claim to be a comprehensive historical record but rather aimed to spark discussion and encourage the public to let their opinions be heard. This it did rather successfully, with the public survey garnering 14,000 responses, over half of which were from Bristol residents. How this temporary exhibition treated the statue however is worth analysing.

Rather than standing tall, the statue was laid horizontally on small wooden blocks, cleaned of mud from the bottom of the harbour but still covered in graffiti. Behind projected onto the wall was a fictionalised conversation debating next steps, asking if people could ‘connect across political difference.’ Displaying the statue in this manner sent a clear message - preserved in the moment just after it was toppled, this was no longer an adoring memorialisation of Colston but a fallen relic, not a beloved landmark but a controversial one. It should also be noted that upon entering the exhibition the first thing you saw was not the statue but preserved placards from the protest, reminding viewers that this was about more than a statue - this was part of a much wider and more important movement centred on injustice and racial inequality.

From the results of the public survey, in which 80% of Bristol residents said the statue should be displayed in a local museum, work began on finding a place for it in the M-Shed’s permanent exhibitions. Wanting to get it right, the team at the M-Shed took their time. To continue the theme of public consultation, they assembled a working group made up of local academics, artists, activists and community leaders; this group consulted throughout the process and set guidelines and key messages, which the curatorial team used to create the display.

Four years after Colston fell, the statue’s permanent home was unveiled. Following feedback from the Afro-Caribbean community saying that the underlying message of the protest was more important than the statue itself, the new display was placed as part of the museum’s existing exhibit on the history of protest in Bristol. The statue itself is displayed very similarly to the temporary exhibition - again, it is laid horizontally on simple wooden blocks on the floor and covered in graffiti, with none of the reverence or honour it once held looking over the City Centre. Its surroundings focus on the Black Lives Matter protest that culminated in Colston’s demise, with donated placards from the protest displayed alongside signs from other recent Bristol protests like the 2020 School Strike for Climate or the 2021 Kill the Bill protests, and a timeline of racial injustice and struggles against it in Bristol and across the world with spaces and cards for visitors to fill in any gaps, all of which places the events in the context of a politically aware city which stands against injustice.

While pro-Colston and anti-toppling quotes are displayed to showcase the range of reactions to the monumental day, the M-Shed far from endorses them. Rather, their presence shows the struggle for equality, showing the views still present in society that activists fight against.

Figure 1: Colston in his new permanent home

Overall, the exhibition has been popular and successful, but it is not without criticism - when I visited this summer, I overheard someone questioning whether displaying the statue at all is still glorifying and celebrating Colston. This is a valid point of view - after all, Colston is still on display when it could be argued that a man such as he has no right to be remembered by the public. I would argue, however, that the team at the M-Shed have done a fantastic job transforming the statue from a memorial to a relic emblematic of the much wider - and more important - struggle for justice and equality. Their displaying of the Colston statue acts as a shining example of how outdated items can take on a new role - something incredibly important in a city - and a nation - that is increasingly coming to terms with its uncomfortable history.

Ethan Cowie is currently a student on the MA Museum Studies program at the University of Leicester.