Reclaim square for the town

I WISH to respond to Rev Mike Shephard’s interesting letter regarding historical statues in our town. I don’t agree with him that moving or removing statues is tantamount to ‘rewriting history’.

Reverend Shephard says that ‘we cannot airbrush history.’ But statues don’t tell us history. What they tell us is that the men they celebrate are heroes.

History is complicated and messy. Historians always review and re-evaluate. Statues are set in stone. Statues can’t adapt to change in our understanding of history and our understanding of the men involved.

Nott’s statue was built in Market Street (renamed Nott’s Square) in 1851. Ideas such as public opinion and democracy didn’t exist. People couldn’t vote.

All Carmarthen people were subjects of the Queen. When Her Majesty sent two hundred guineas towards a monument in honour of Sir William Nott, that was that. No discussion about how many thousands of people Nott and his troops had killed in Afghanistan.

The monument was presented to Carmarthen by The East India Company, the company responsible for taking control of large parts of South East Asia through force and taking thousands and thousands of slaves over a period of 220 years.

The first Picton monument was built in 1828 and had to be taken down in 1846. A new obelisk was built in 1847 but by the 1980s had become unsafe. The monument was rebuilt stone by stone and extended. Picton’s monument might tell us more about politics in Wales in the 1980s than about Picton.

Thomas Picton, born in Haverfordwest, was a general in the Napoleonic Wars and in 1815 became the most senior officer to die at the battle of Waterloo. When Governor of Trinidad, he was convicted of torture. He used to suspend his slaves from a pulley set in the roof and lower them down on to a sharpened spike set in the floor. This is the man we honour with a monument.

Statues don’t tell us the complexity of history. We must do this ourselves.

Picton’s and Nott’s statues should be contextualised with the other side of their histories also printed on the base of the statue. And would it not make sense to move Nott’s statue to the edge of the square by the castle? Look at the Maes square in Caernarfon and all the events that are held there.

Let’s move Nott’s statue to one side and reclaim the square for the town. Iwan Evans

Limegrove Avenue Carmarthen