Mayor’s history panel revealed
THE We Are Bristol History Commission, a body assembled by Mayor Marvin Rees in response to the Black Lives Matter demonstrations and the toppling of the Colston statue, held its first meeting last month.
Chaired by Professor Tim Cole, a Bristol University historian, it also includes celebrity historian David Olusoga.
According to a Council statement, the commission will “include the building and removal of the Colston statue as a departure point and it will also consider the growth of education, the struggles of workers for pay and working conditions, and the Chartists and suffragettes campaigning for emancipation.
“The key roles of wars, protests, the harbour and the docks, manufacturing and industry, research and innovation, transport, slum clearances, housing, modern gentrification, migration and faith in the development of the city will also be within the commission’s scope.”
Professor Cole said: “History is never a single, monolithic story, but rather an ongoing debate about the past and its meaning. My hope is that this commission will help everyone in the city feel able to participate in that debate.”
Even before it met, however, the commission was mired in controversy, and this has only increased following the first meeting and the announcement of its first members. Of the nine
named thus far, seven are academics (only three of whom are historians), two are Labour councillors and one is a trade union leader.
It includes nobody from the Bristol Radical History Group, the Countering Colston movement and nobody who could be said to represent the other side of the debate, the more traditionally-minded citizens who deplored the manner in which the Colston statue was removed.
“The current make-up of the commission appears to be Academic Heavy and Local Historian Light, with an extreme lack of Bristolians featured,” Mark Steeds of the Radical History group told the Post.
Four other commission members, as-yet unnamed, are to be appointed in the coming weeks.