Ministers have published new guidance to “retain and explain” historic statues that have been subject to removal campaigns.
Guidance released on Thursday will apply to any statue or monument accessible to the public in the local community in England which faces calls for its removal or relocation on “the grounds of changing views about the people or events it commemorates.”
This is to “protect historical monuments from unwarranted removal by giving statutes legal protection so future generations can learn from their cultural and historical contexts.”
The Victorian-era statue of 17th-century merchant and slave trader Edward Colston was toppled into Bristol Harbour in 2020 amid protests related to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Statue or Monument
“History is nuanced and complex,” said Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer.
“It is full of grey areas, which is what makes it so interesting and, of course, there are times when statues and monuments depict people or events that we very much disapprove of today,” she added.
The minister said that at the same time, the UK “has a proud history as an engine for progress, democracy, and liberal values.”
“That is why I want all our cultural institutions to resist being driven by any politics or agenda and to use their assets to educate and inform rather than to seek to erase the parts of our history that we are uncomfortable with,” she added.
The new guidance follows consideration by the academics and heritage experts of the government-appointed Heritage Advisory Board on how custodians should approach and manage such requests.
Historic England also released a set of case studies highlighting ways that “reinterpretation” has already been put into practice.
For example, St. Stephen’s Church in Bristol features an artwork in a Bristol church that “acknowledges the city’s connections with transatlantic slavery.”
Cancel Culture
Talking to the Conservative Conference on Tuesday, Mrs Frazer hit out at cancel culture and claimed that the UK’s culture and values had “come under threat” in recent years.She told the party conference: “There are some that want to cancel, those who seek to erase our history, shut down the view they disagree with rather than argue against it, those who would apply a two-dimensional filter of moralist outrage on actions or statements rather than understanding the nuance of language or the context of history.
“These people cast Churchill as a villain, not as the man who kept Britain free.”
Wales
The guidance only applies to England.In July 2020, following the death of George Floyd, Wales First Minister Mark Drakeford ordered an “urgent” audit of statues, street, and building names to address Wales’s connections with slavery and the slave trade.
The audit identified 209 monuments, buildings, or street names, located in all parts of Wales, which commemorate people who were directly involved with slavery and the slave trade or opposed its abolition.
