Statue of Edward Colston
The statue of Edward Colston is a bronze statue of Bristol-born merchant and transatlantic slave trader Edward Colston. It was created in 1895 by the Irish sculptor John Cassidy and was formerly situated on a plinth of Portland stone in a public space known as The Centre in Bristol, until it was toppled by anti-racism protestors in 2020.
Designated a Grade II listed structure in 1977, the statue was the subject of controversy due to Colston's role in organising the Atlantic slave trade as a senior executive of the Royal African Company. From the 1990s onward the debate on the morality of glorifying Colston intensified. In 2018 Bristol City Council proposed to add a second plaque to better contextualise the statue and summarise Colston's role in the slave trade, but this was delayed by disputes over the wording of the plaque.
On 7 June 2020, the statue was toppled, defaced, and pushed into Bristol Harbour during the George Floyd protests related to the Black Lives Matter movement. The plinth was also covered in graffiti but remains in place. The statue was recovered from the harbour and put into storage by Bristol City Council on 11 June 2020, and exhibited in its graffitied state in the M Shed museum during the summer of 2021, and permanently from March 2024. Four people who helped topple the statue were found not guilty of criminal damage by a jury in January 2022. On 17 April 2025, a new plaque was installed on the empty plinth, removing the reference to Colston as a "city benefactor" and outlining the statue's removal in light of his involvement in the transatlantic slave trade.
Description
The monument originally consisted of an bronze statue of Edward Colston set on top of a plinth. The statue depicts Colston in a flowing wig, velvet coat, satin waistcoat, and knee-breeches as was typical in his day. The plinth is made of Portland stone and adorned with bronze plaques and, in each corner, a figure of a dolphin. Of the four plaquesone on each face of the plinththree are relief sculptures in an Art Nouveau style: two of these depict scenes from Colston's life and the third exhibits a maritime fantasy. The plaque on the south face bears the words "Erected by citizens of Bristol as a memorial of one of the most virtuous and wise sons of their city AD 1895" and "John Cassidy fecit".Background
Edward Colston
Colston was a Bristol-born merchant who made some of his fortune from the slave trade, particularly between 1680 and 1692. He was an active member of the Royal African Company, and was briefly deputy governor in 1689–90. During his tenure, the Company transported an estimated 84,000 slaves from West Africa to the Americas. Colston used his wealth to provide financial support to almshouses, hospitals, schools, workhouses and churches throughout England, particularly in his home city of Bristol; he represented the Bristol constituency as its Member of Parliament from 1710 to 1713. He left £71,000 to charities after his death, as well as £100,000 to members of his family. In the 19th century he was seen as a philanthropist. The fact that some of his fortune was made in the slave trade was largely ignored until the 1990s.Statue
The statue, designed by Irish sculptor John Cassidy, was erected in the area now known as The Centre in 1895 to commemorate Colston's philanthropy. It was proposed in October 1893 by James Arrowsmith, the president of the Anchor Society; this, in March 1894, led to a committee being appointed to raise a fund. According to Tim Cole of the University of Bristol, the Colston statue was proposed as a response to the nearby erection of another statue in Bristol, depicting Edmund Burke, who had been critical of the city's involvement in the slave trade, argued for fairer taxation, and disapproved of the British government's high-handed attitude toward its colonies.Two appeals to Colston-related charitable bodies raised £407 towards the cost of the statue. Further funds, to a total of £650, were raised through public appeals after the unveiling, including a contribution from the Society of Merchant Venturers. Twenty-three models from sculptors were proposed to the committee, from which Cassidy's was selected. The statue was unveiled by the mayor, Howell Davies, and the bishop of Bristol, Charles Ellicott, on 13 November 1895, a date which had been referred to as Colston Day in the city.
It was designated as a Grade II listed structure on 4 March 1977. Historic England described the statue as being "handsome" and commented that "the resulting contrast of styles is handled with confidence". They also noted that the statue offers good group value with other memorials, including the statue of Edmund Burke, the Cenotaph, and a drinking fountain commemorating the Industrial and Fine Art Exhibition of 1893.
Controversy
20th century
The statue had become controversial by the end of the 20th century, as Colston's activities as a major slave trader became more widely known. H.J. Wilkins, who uncovered his slave-trading activities in 1920, commented that "we cannot picture him justly except against his historical background". Colston's involvement in the slave trade predated the abolition movement in Britain, and was during the time when "slavery was generally condoned in England—indeed, throughout Europe—by churchmen, intellectuals and the educated classes". From the 1990s onwards, campaigns and petitions called for the removal of the statue.In 1992, the statue was depicted in the installation piece Commemoration Day by Carole Drake, as part of the Trophies of Empire exhibition at the Arnolfini, a gallery in a former tea warehouse in Bristol Harbour. Drake's installation combined a replica of the statue swinging above rotting chrysanthemums, a favourite flower of Colston, in front of a projected photograph of schoolgirls at Colston School covering his statue with flowers in 1973 and the audio of the school hymn "Rejoice ye pure in heart". In the 1994 catalogue of Trophies of Empire, Drake stated the work refers to
In January 1998, "SLAVE TRADER" was written in paint on the base of the statue. Bristol City councillor Ray Sefia said: "If we in this city want to glorify the slave trade, then the statue should stay. If not, the statue should be marked with a plaque that he was a slave trader or taken down."
21st century
In a 2014 poll in the local newspaper, the Bristol Post, 56 percent of the 1,100 respondents said it should stay while 44 percent wanted it to go. Others called for a memorial plaque honouring the victims of slavery to be fitted to his statue. Bristol's first elected mayor, George Ferguson, said on Twitter in 2013 that the city's annual celebration of Colston "does seem perverse", and was "not a celebration that I shall join". In August 2017 an unauthorised commemorative plaque by sculptor Will Coles was affixed to the statue's plinth, declaring that Bristol was the "Capital of the Atlantic Slave Trade 1730–1745" and memorialising "the 12,000,000 enslaved of whom 6,000,000 died as captives". Coles stated that his aim was "to try to get people to think". The plaque was removed by Bristol City Council in October of the same year. In 2018, Thangam Debbonaire, Labour MP for Bristol West, wrote to Bristol City Council calling for the removal of the statue.An unofficial art installation appeared in front of the statue on 18 October 2018 to mark Anti-Slavery Day in the UK. It depicted about a hundred supine figures arranged as on a slave ship, lying as if they were cargo, surrounded by a border listing jobs typically done by modern-day slaves such as 'fruit picker' and 'nail bar worker'; it remained for some months. The labels around the bow of the ship said 'here and now'. Another artistic intervention saw a ball and chain attached to the statue.
Project to add a second plaque
In July 2018 Bristol City Council, which was responsible for the statue, made a planning application to add a second plaque which would "add to the public knowledge about Colston" including his philanthropy and his involvement in slave trading. The initial proposed wording for the plaque was developed as part of a project involving University of Bristol associate professor of history Madge Dresser, other local historians, and children from Cotham Gardens Primary School. It mentioned Colston's role in the slave trade, his brief tenure as a Tory MP for Bristol, and criticised his philanthropy as religiously selective:This wording attracted criticism, including from Conservative councillor Richard Eddy who called the initial suggested wording "revisionist" and "historically illiterate" and suggested that, if it were put up, stealing or damaging it might be justified. He also said it was unfair to mention that Colston had been a Tory MP.
A second version, co-written by Madge Dresser and a council officer, was proposed by the council in August 2018, giving a brief description of Colston's philanthropy, role in the slave trade, and time as an MP, while noting that he was now considered controversial. However, this wording was further revised by Francis Greenacrea former fine art curator at the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery, and a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers which Colston had also been part ofto create a third proposal:
Greenacre's revisions were criticised by Dresser, who said the version was a "sanitised" version of history which minimised Colston's role in the slave trade, omitted the number of child slaves, and focused on West Africans as enslavers. Nevertheless, the wording was understood to have been agreed upon and a bronze plaque was cast using Greenacre's wording.
After the plaque was manufactured in March 2019, the wording was objected to by Bristol's mayor, Marvin Rees, who said he had not been consulted on the wording and criticised the Society of Merchant Venturers for its involvement in the revision. A statement from Rees' office said the Merchant Venturers had been "extremely naive" to think they would have the final say on the wording, and that it was "an oversight to put it mildly" to not consult with the mayor. The statement committed to creating a revised wording for the plaque as part of wider work around the legacy of the slave trade; a plaque with no mention of Colston as a "city benefactor" was finally installed on the empty plinth in April 2025.
After the toppling of the statue in June 2020, the Society of Merchant Venturers said it had been "inappropriate" for the society to have become involved in the rewording of the plaque in 2018.