Edwards sparks Twitter storm with comments on slave owner

BBC News presenter Huw Edwards has sparked a Twitter row over the removal of a portrait of a Welsh slave owner from a Cardiff museum.

Edwards, 60, said he felt “uneasy” about the portrait of Sir Thomas Picton being removed from the Faces of Wales gallery at National Museum Wales and argued it was “censoring history”.

Picton had previously been celebrated as a Welsh war hero and was the highest-ranking British officer to die at the Battle of Waterloo, but awareness has grown recently of his role in the slave trade.

The growth of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020 saw scrutiny of memorials celebrating Picton intensify, with Cardiff Council voting to remove a marble statue of him from City Hall.

Picton’s portrait will be kept in storage before being “redisplayed and reinterpreted” in the coming months, with two artists with Trinidadian roots being commissioned to produce two new artworks that provide wider context of his legacy.

The Welsh broadcasting legend expressed his disapproval at the decision, tweeting: “As a journalist I feel uneasy about this element of ‘censoring’ history. Should not Picton remain on display as a reminder to Wales of an aspect of its past – no matter how disgraceful?”

Some Twitter users agreed with Edwards, with one responding: “Agree, we can’t rewrite history, nor hide it. PC gone mad. Why not raise awareness instead of hiding it?”

However, others disagreed. One said: “I’ve learnt more about Picton from the discussions around removing the portrait than I did in 24 years of living with the portrait still hanging. Removing portraits and statues isn’t censoring, it’s stopping celebrating someone/thing”.