End of the Rhodes
Now Oxford dons surrender in battle over iconic statue
AN OXFORD college last night voted to tear down a controversial monument to imperialist Cecil Rhodes.
Oriel College said its governing body had ‘expressed their wish to remove the statue’ – hours after the universities minister warned against ‘censoring our past’.
It comes after a series of prominent statues across Britain were brought down or covered up amid huge pressure from Black Lives Matter protesters.
The decision is a victory for the longrunning Rhodes Must Fall campaign, which has been reinvigorated by the antiracism protests that followed the death of George Floyd in the US. Last week a big protest was held outside the college’s Rhodes Building where the statue stands, 50ft above the High Street.
In 2016 Oriel refused to remove the statue of its former student and benefactor in the face of sustained pressure, saying there was ‘a clear historical context to explain why it is there’. But the renewed protests saw it perform a dramatic Uturn after a crisis meeting yesterday.
A plaque in honour of Rhodes’ ‘great services’ to the UK on an outside wall of the college facing the street is also due to be removed. In a statement, Oriel College’s 40-strong governing body said it had ‘ voted to launch an independent commission of inquiry into the key issues surrounding the Rhodes statue’.
It went on: ‘They also expressed their wish to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes and the King Edward Street plaque. This is what they intend to convey to the commission of inquiry.
‘Both of these decisions were reached after a thoughtful period of debate and reflection and with the full awareness of the impact these decisions are likely to have in Britain and around the world.’
The college said its inquiry, which will take evidence from Rhodes Must Fall supporters as well as historians and former students, will report back by the end of the year. It comes days after a statue of slave trader and philanthropist Edward Colston was torn down and thrown into the River Avon in Bristol.
Meanwhile, several high-profile monuments in Whitehall have been boarded up to protect them from damage by activists.
Rhodes, who was prime minister of the Cape Colony – modern day South Africa – in the late 19th century, believed in white supremacy and has become a symbol of racism and oppression. But the mining magnate was also a philanthropist, donating generously to his old college and setting up the Rhodes Scholarships, which have brought students from across the world to study at Oxford University.
Last night’s announcement by Oriel College came hours after universities minister Michelle Donelan said the long-running campaign against the Rhodes statue was ‘short- sighted’ in its attitude to British history. Speaking to the
Higher Education Policy Institute, she said ‘racism is abhorrent’ but added that ‘we should not seek to censor or edit our past’.
■ Winston Churchill’s statue in Parliament Square is set to have the protective board around it taken down ahead of a visit from French President Emmanuel Macron today. It was boxed up following a race rally when it was daubed with graffiti branding the wartime prime minister a racist.