Police guard as pupils honour slave trader

A SCHOOL commemoration service held in a church was given a police guard to stop protesters disrupting the event honouring Edward Colston, a 17th-century slave trader.

Five police officers and PCSOS stood across the porch entrance to the historic St Mary Redcliffe Church in Bristol, which was full of schoolchildren as the service got under way.

But despite the measures, only two protesters from the Countering Colston campaign group turned up to the service on Wednesday. And both agreed to stay outside – where they used chalk to write messages on the road that children would see on returning to school.

The annual Colston Society service commemorates the rich and powerful merchant as a generous benefactor, despite his wealth coming largely from helping run the transatlantic slave trade from both London and Bristol.

His ships transported an estimated half a million slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and North America.

The service was held this year on the day declared Anti-slavery Day by a 2010 Act of Parliament, in order to raise awareness of modern slavery. Colston became one of Bristol’s most generous philanthropists, setting up charitable housing and helping many schools.

But the two protesters accused St Mary Redcliffe Primary and Temple Secondary schools and church leaders of “brainwashing” the children by portraying Colston as a benefactor.

Their chalk messages included: “Colston should be resigned to obscurity. Remember African ancestors.”

In the church service, several speakers commemorated Colston, who died in 1721, giving thanks for his philanthropy and remembering those who were victims of the slave trade.