Plaque will condemn peer’s links to slavery and British Empire
A PLAQUE is to be added to a statue of politician Henry Dundas, detailing the Scot’s role in delaying the abolition of slavery more than 200 years ago.
The controversial peer is commemorated by the Melville Monument in St Andrew Square, Edinburgh.
It was vandalised during a Black Lives Matter demonstration in June, with calls for a plaque to be added explaining his role in putting off the end of the slave trade.
Dundas prolonged slavery to protect the elite in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Scotland’s first black professor, Sir Geoff Palmer, called for the installation of a plaque detailing Dundas’s role more than two years ago.
But talks with the City of Edinburgh Council ground to a halt because of a dispute over the wording.
Now council chiefs have approved the addition of a plaque to the listed monument which will pay tribute to the African slaves. The planning application for the plaque attracted more than 2,200 comments from members of the public. The approved text on it will read: ‘At the top of this neoclassical column stands a statue of Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville (1742-1811). ‘He was the Scottish Lord Advocate, an MP for Edinburgh and Midlothian, and the First Lord of the Admiralty.
‘Dundas was a contentious figure, provoking controversies that resonate to this day.
‘While Home Secretary in 1792, and first Secretary of State for War in 1796, he was instrumental in deferring the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade.
‘Slave trading by British ships was not abolished until 1807. As a result of this delay, more than half a million enslaved Africans crossed the Atlantic.
‘Dundas also curbed democratic dissent in Scotland, and both defended and expanded the British Empire, imposing colonial rule on indigenous peoples.
‘He was impeached in the United Kingdom for misappropriation of public money, and, although acquitted, he never held public office again. Despite this, the monument before you was funded by voluntary contributions from British naval officers, petty officers, seamen and marines and was erected in 1821, with the statue placed on top in 1827.’
It then goes on to state: ‘In 2020 this plaque was dedicated to the memory of the more than half-amillion Africans whose enslavement was a consequence of Henry Dundas’s actions.’
Councillor Adam McVey, the leader of City of Edinburgh Council, said: ‘It is important that a more appropriate and factual description is in place so that people who visit the area can read about the monument and get an appreciation of Edinburgh’s history – and particularly the city’s role in the slave trade and the delay to its abolition.’