Let’s rewrite history and let the people decide who is revered
Wales’ national pantheon, the group of 11 statues in Cardiff ’s City Hall, has become the subject of controversy, with calls growing to remove the statue of Thomas Picton because of his role in the slave trade. While its removal would be a promising first
RECENT Black Lives Matter protests have prompted fresh debates across the world about the role of statues in society today.
In several countries, debate has given way to decisive action. Last Sunday protesters in Bristol hauled a statue of 17th-century slave-trader Edward Colston to the ground before dumping it in the nearby River Avon.
In Belgium, several statues of King Leopold II – a figure reviled for his murderous rule in the Congo – have been defaced, prompting their removal by the authorities. A number of monuments in the USA have also been removed, with protesters in Richmond, Virginia, tearing down the statue of Confederate president Jefferson Davis.
With offensive monuments being removed from public spaces throughout the world, attention has rightly turned to Thomas Picton’s statue in Cardiff’s City Hall. Picton owned slaves and exercised brutal rule as the British governor of Trinidad. Figures including Cardiff ’s mayor and the leader of the city council have called for the statue to be removed. There have been few, if any, dissenting voices. But what of the other 10 statues?
Before grappling with this question, it is important to think about what pantheons are and why Wales has one.
With the unveiling of the City Hall statues in 1916, Wales followed a nationalist trend that had been influential throughout Europe during the previous century. The model for the modern pantheon emerged in Paris in the wake of the French Revolution. In 1791, the revolutionary authorities voted to transform the city’s Church of St Genevieve into a mausoleum for prominent French citizens. The church thus became the Panthéon, and it remains the resting-place of dozens of figures from French history.
In the decades that followed, nations followed France’s example.
One of the most famous pantheons is the Walhalla monument, built near Regensburg by King Ludwig I of Bavaria. Ludwig intended Walhalla as a memorial not just for Bavaria, but for the history of all the Germanspeaking lands. At its inauguration in 1842, Walhalla housed 96 busts and more than 60 plaques in honour of figures connected with German history. In the years since, Walhalla has received new additions. It stands today as a charged site of memory of Germany’s complex history.
The project to create a Welsh pantheon in the early 20th century was directly inspired by Continental precedents. Indeed, when Sir Ivor
Herbert first outlined the idea in 1910, he proposed constructing a “national Valhalla for the commemoration of Welsh heroes”.
A few years later, Welsh industrialist and politician David Alfred Thomas (later Lord Rhondda) took up the suggestion. He pinpointed City Hall as the setting. He put up his own money to finance the project, and stimulated public interest in it via the Western Mail, calling for the people of Wales to identify figures to be celebrated with a statue in the pantheon.
While members of the public submitted 250 suggestions, the final choice of 10 historical figures was actually decided by a panel of three adjudicators: Sir Thomas Marchant Williams (stipendiary magistrate of Merthyr Tydfil), Thomas Powel (Professor of Celtic at what is now Cardiff University) and W Llewelyn Williams (who held the post of recorder of Cardiff from 1915). The three were part of the Welsh political establishment, and this is reflected in their selections.
Alongside Picton, the panel chose to include St David, Hywel Dda, Gerald of Wales, Llywelyn ap Gruffudd, Dafydd ap Gwilym, Owain Glyndwr, Henry VII, William Morgan and William Williams (aka Pantycelyn). The only female member was Boudicca, reimagined as a kind of early Welsh heroine. Her statue was commissioned later than the others, after it was decided an additional statue was needed. This pantheon’s membership reflected how the establishment of Wales imagined their nation at the outset of the 20th century. Its members were chosen to emphasise the importance of religion, music and poetry to Wales, and to show that while the nation had a proud and independent history, it was now closely tied to England through the shared bonds of monarchy and empire. Picton was thus included not because he had a special status as a revered hero of Welsh history, but because his career emphasised the Welsh contribution to the British Empire. With statues now being re-evaluated throughout the world, the time is right to ask if the pantheon in City Hall adequately reflects the ideas and values of Wales in 2020. Even if Picton were to be removed swiftly, the answer to this question has to be no.
Before the Black Lives Matter protests, many did not know the City Hall statues even existed, still less had personally visited them. After all, the building is generally not open to the public, and there is no interpretation to accompany the statues for the few who do visit them. Compare this to Walhalla, which receives around 150,000 visitors each year. If these statues are properly to symbolise Wales, there must be a dialogue with the people of the nation. More should visit City Hall, and if this is not practicable, the Amgueddfa Genedlaethol Caerdydd/National Museum Cardiff, merely a stone’s throw from City Hall, arguably provides a fitting setting for the public display of the statues, along with appropriate historical context and explanation.
For that dialogue to be meaningful, however, the people of Wales must have a say on the figures who belong to the national pantheon.
The City Hall roster has remained just as it was when the statues were unveiled in 1916.
The additions to Walhalla, by way of contrast, have responded to changing ideas about German identity and history. Hence, 1990 saw the addition of a bust of Albert Einstein, the first Jewish person to be included in the memorial.
A bust of Sophie Scholl, a non-violent resister against the Nazi authorities, was installed in 2003.
Fully to reflect Welshness today, then, the national pantheon must better reflect the lives and experiences of everyone who calls Wales home.
That pantheon should encompass monuments standing in public spaces throughout the whole nation. And it needs to include women and people of colour.
It would not be difficult to compile all the nation’s statues into an online list, and set schoolchildren the challenge of visiting as many as they can. By doing so, they will learn more about the figures that the statues commemorate.
Who should decide which figures are memorialised? Simple: the people of Wales. It is they who are best placed to decide which figures deserve to be commemorated in their name with statues, and which do not.
In this regard, the public vote inspired by the Hidden Heroines campaign in 2019 charts a path forward.
With that vote, the Welsh public elected to install in Cardiff’s Central Square a statue of Betty Campbell.
She holds a special place in Welsh history as a figure who rose from humble origins in Butetown to become a teacher and an influential champion of multiculturalism.
When that statue is unveiled in Central Square, the Welsh pantheon will have gained a vital new member. Hopefully, others will soon follow.
History is always being rewritten. We should seize on this opportunity to write a national history that can carry the stories of all the people of Wales forward into the future.