School founder being painted out of history
sir – As old girls of Colston’s Girls’ School (a grammar school until the late Sixties) we are incensed to learn that the current school (now an academy) has decided to delete all mention of Edward Colston from its Commemoration Day service at Bristol Cathedral and ban the wearing of a bronze chrysanthemum in his memory (report, October 20). The reasons given are Colston’s association with slavery.
Edward Colston did indeed own slave ships that ran from Bristol to the Caribbean and much of Bristol’s economy was built upon this trade in the 17th century. However, he used much of his wealth for philanthropic purposes, creating almshouses for the poor, schools for both boys and girls, and charities.
Of course, we would not accept the Triangular Trade today, but we cannot change history. The name of Colston permeates streets and buildings throughout the city of Bristol and can serve as a potent reminder that slavery will not be tolerated today.
It does seem rather incongruous, however, that those pupils participating in the Commemoration Day on November 3 see fit to drop the name of the person they are commemorating. By all means focus on the values of CGS, but do not attempt to ignore the historic past, however unsavoury.
Needless to say, despite the excellent education we both had at Colston’s Girls’ School, we shall not be attending the Commemoration service this year.
Dr Paula Gardiner (neé Green) Gillian Gardiner (neé Davies)
Bristol
sir – It seems Colston’s Girls’ School has decided to join the tediously long line of professionally offended virtue-signallers and is publicly dropping the Colston name due to its centuries-old benefactor’s fortune having strong links to the slave trade.
Of course nobody in their right mind would consider this an appropriate source of funds in a modern-day patron, but his business was neither illegal nor out of place at the time, which these people choose to overlook. One might take his election as a Member of Parliament as proof of this.
Slavery is abhorrent; if no association with it is morally permissible, that’s fine. Now simply give back all his money, his school buildings, his bridge, his almshouses – plus interest.
You can’t choose to have no association to some historic deeds (however well, or as in this case, poorly, argued your reasoning) but happily enjoy the fruits of those historic deeds.
Jonnie Bradshaw
Warborough, Oxfordshire