I couldn’t stand the sight of it
Mixed-race mayor removes office portrait of ‘wise son of Bristol’ who traded slaves
A MIXED-race lord mayor has removed a 300-year-old portrait of a slave trader from her office wall, saying she ‘simply couldn’t stand’ the sight of it.
Cleo Lake, the Lord Mayor of Bristol, ordered the removal of the 1702 painting of Edward Colston and replaced it with a local artist’s drawing of a lion.
Colston was deputy governor of the Royal African Company, which over 26 years up to 1698 shipped some 100,000 African slaves to plantations in the West Indies and America.
The merchant, who at one point was MP for Bristol, is commemorated across the city. At least 20 streets are named after him, as well as a concert hall, schools, pubs and student flats.
A plaque on a statue of Colston describes him as ‘one of the most virtuous and wise sons’ of the city. He founded almshouses and a school, and gave money to good causes.
Over the past year, however, a campaign group called Countering Colston has won a series of victories in its mission to rid Bristol of what it calls a ‘toxic link’ to slavery. This has led to a row with opponents, who have accused them of being ‘historically illiterate’ in trying to rewrite the city’s rich history.
The portrait of Colston has been in the lord mayor’s parlour since 1953, when Bristol City Hall opened. It has now been covered in bubble wrap and placed in storage.
Mrs Lake, who grew up in the city’s Easton suburb and is of Scottish and African-Caribbean heritage, was elected lord mayor in May by fellow councillors.
She said: ‘I’m coming to the end of my first month in office, and this is my parlour, which is a lovely space. I spend a lot of time here – I’m here nearly every day. I won’t be comfortable sharing it with the portrait of Colston.
‘As part of my role in campaigning with the Countering Colston team, I also think it’s fitting that I don’t share this office with the portrait.
‘Luckily, there’s been a lot of support and the council has agreed to take it down.’
Mrs Lake said she wanted the portrait to go back on public display, but in a museum exploring Bristol’s role in the slave trade, slavery and its abolition.
The city’s leading concert venue, the Colston Hall, closed this month for a refit and will re-open in 2020 with a different name following pressure from campaigners.
That move derided by Tory city councillors Mark Weston and Richard Eddy as a ‘surrender to the forces of historically-illiterate political correctness’ and an injustice to a ‘great Bristolian’.
In December governors and parents at Colston Primary School in Bristol voted to change its name to disassociate it from the ‘toxic brand’. And in October officials at the city’s respected Colston’s Girl’s School removed any reference to him from its annual service, saying that it would instead include a ‘clear acknowledgement of the damage done by slavery’.
In 2014 a newspaper poll found that almost 60 per cent wanted Colston’s city centre statue to stay. In February this year, Bristol City Council said a permanent memorial to the victims of slavery will be placed alongside it.
‘Historically illiterate’