Who was Edward Colston?
Edward Colston (1636-1721) became a high official of the London-based Royal African Company. They had the monopoly on the transatlantic traffic in enslaved Africans until 1698.
As such, Colston played an active role in the trading of over 84,000 enslaved African people (including 12,000 children) of whom over 19,000 died on their way across the Atlantic. As a Bristol MP late in life, he campaigned to keep the slave trade legal and on favourable terms for traders.
When Colston died, he left about £71,000 to charity (comparable to over £16 million today). He had given money to schools, almshouses, hospitals and Anglican churches whilst alive too.
In response to increasing class divisions the city’s elite reinvented him as a patriarchal role model and an emblem of charity, 170 years after he died. His statue was proposed as a symbol of civic pride and erected in 1895, it attracted little financial support and was largely funded by a small number of anonymous donors.
Protests in June 2020
There were protests around the world after the filmed murder of George Floyd, whilst being arrested in America. All Black Lives Bristol organised a protest against police brutality and racial inequality. On 7 June 2020, an estimated 10,000 people gathered in Bristol.
Protestors pulled down a statue of Edward Colston, graffitied it and threw it into the harbour. Four days later, Bristol City Council retrieved it. Museum conservators stabilised the condition and preserved the graffiti.
There has been public debate about Colston’s legacy and Bristol’s involvement in the transatlantic traffic in enslaved Africans for decades.
The 2020 protest achieved what many anti Colston campaigns had not. The statue was removed and became worldwide news.
It became part of a fierce debate about racial and class inequality, the past, and who is remembered in public space.
The information on this page was taken from the Bristol Museums Exhibitions online.
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There's more information below on how to visit the statue at M Shed and why they took the decision to display it.
What does the future hold if we allow the government to restrict our right to protest?
The answer is: nothing good.
No matter where we come from or who we vote for, we all want those in power to listen to our concerns on issues we care deeply about. The time to act is now.
https://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions/scrap-anti-protest-laws
The previous government attacked our rights to protest and freedom of expression. They tried to restrict challenges to their actions, stopping us from holding them to account.
From 2022, the last UK government passed a wave of anti-protest laws to clamp down on everyone’s ability to peacefully protest in England and Wales. At the same time, they demonised and scapegoated protesters.
The new government must turn the page on this bleak period and scrap the anti-protest restrictions in the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022,the Public Order Act 2023 and the Serious Disruption Regulations.
People across the UK continue to come together in peaceful protest to protect human rights for all.
The statue of Edward Colston was pulled down on 7 June 2020 during a Black Lives Matter protest in Bristol.
In the summer of 2021, the statue was put on display temporarily, to support the public conversation on what should happen to the statue. The We Are Bristol History Commission ran a public consultation which received 14,000 responses, half of them from Bristol residents. 80 per cent of city residents who responded said the statue should be displayed in a museum in Bristol. The History Commission also recommended that the statue should be displayed lying down, without being cleaned up, to show what happened to it during the protest.
It is now on display at M Shed, you can read more details about it here.