 |
| William Gladstone presiding over Upper Parliament Street |
'One
entered … through a narrow stone Gothic door, stained with soot … and the heads
of Liberal statesmen stuck out above like gargoyles; on rainy days the nose of
Gladstone dripped on my head when I came in.'
Graham Greene
I belong to Nottingham,
Dear old Nottingham town;
But what's the matter wi' Nottingham,
For it's goin' roun' and roun'!
I'm only a common old working chap,
As anyone here can see,
But when I get a couple o' drinks on a Saturday,
Nottingham belongs to me!
(With apologies to Will Fyfe)
Places
can be shifty blighters.
They
can foster a sense of pride and belonging, and a feeling of being part of a
historical continuum.
A
place becomes a part of you and you become a part of that place.
This
can be particularly true of cities.
But
places can also be problematic in terms of their identity, leading people to
feel marginalised and even oppressed by certain elements of their physical
surroundings.
As
a white male living in Nottingham, I feel a profound connection to my city and
a fascination with - and pride in - its past and present endeavours. Amongst
other things, this has manifested itself as an interest in the many and varied
features of our local built environment.
Among
these features are a number of statues and plaques that commemorate the lives
and achievements of various individuals
associated (for the most part) with the city.
The
majority of those statues and plaques commemorate men, which reflects the
situation nationally.
A
New Statesman article in 2016 determined that a mere 2.7% of the UK's statues
at that time were of 'historical, non-royal women'.
It's
not as if Nottingham's history hasn't featured plenty of women worthy of
recognition, and indeed the Nottingham Women's History Group, formed in 2010,
has helped - in its own words - 'to celebrate, promote and research' the
contributions of a number of them.
There
are, of course, other ways in which the statues and plaques in our midst are
unrepresentative of past and present demographics and attitudes. In particular,
they almost exclusively commemorate white men and women.
If
the historical tables were turned and I lived in a place in which statues and
plaques largely ignored not only men's historical contribution to society, but
also the contributions of white people, how would that make me feel?
Uncomfortable,
perhaps? Angry? Disenfranchised? Or not really all that bothered? The
conditioning of my lived experience makes it difficult for me to truly appreciate
the potential implications.
Events
and debates in recent years have shone a fresh spotlight on a particularly
problematic element of our country's history - its involvement in the
enslavement of Africans.
Regardless
of the part it eventually played in the suppression of the practice, by the
1730s Britain was the world's largest slave-trading nation.
An
article on the UK Parliament's Heritage Collections website points out that 'The
rewards of the transatlantic slave system were everywhere. From the
urban fabric of slave ports, to the grand homes of those made
wealthy, to the jobs created in industrial cities, to the coffee and
tobacco shops dotting British cities.'
2020
saw the publication of a review of Nottingham's statues and plaques, commissioned by Nottingham City Council to ascertain the extent of any links to the transatlantic slave economy.
The review was commissioned after the
international anti-racism protests that followed the killing of George Floyd in
May of that year - protests that, in this country, included the pulling down of
the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol.
The review found that there were '13 statues which commemorate 13 separate
individuals with demonstrable links to the transatlantic slave economy' (four
directly connected, nine indirectly linked) and '18 plaques which memorialise
12 people with demonstrable links to the transatlantic slave economy' (five
directly connected, seven indirectly linked). Various other statues and plaques
were noted as requiring further research to 'substantiate the possibility of
connections'.
One of the commemorated individuals with demonstrable direct
links to the transatlantic slave economy mentioned in the document is William
Gladstone.
There
are two Gladstone-related memorials in the City of Nottingham - a plaque in the
Park Estate commemorating his felling of a tree there, and a head situated
above the entrance to the Express Offices building on Upper Parliament Street.
Gladstone
was British Prime Minister for a total of twelve years spread over four terms
in the 19th century. He was a Liberal politician, hence the existence of the
feature on the Upper Parliament Street premises, which were home to the Nottingham Daily Express, a
newspaper with similar political affiliations.
Though
usually regarded as one of Britain's greatest Prime Ministers, Gladstone was
the son of one of the largest slave owners in the British West Indies. His
career was financed by his father and he defended his father's slave ownership
early on in his political career, helping him to secure compensation for the
liberation of his slaves.
This
is just one small example of why it is healthy to consider the backgrounds of
those individuals who past generations have chosen to venerate.
In
2020, The William Gladstone C of E Academy in Newark changed its name to The
King's Church of England Primary Academy due to discomfort with Gladstone's
links to slavery. Needless to say, this generated a certain amount of heated
debate as to how we deal with the reverberations of our history.
Nottingham's
two Gladstone memorials are relatively inconspicuous. By contrast, given the
somewhat low esteem with which the memory of the British Empire is currently held, what
debates would the city's statue of Queen Victoria be prompting today had it not
been moved from its prominent location in the Market Square in 1953?
Nottingham's
next statue will tell a somewhat different story.
Early
2025 will see the unveiling, in the Green Heart space in the Broad Marsh area
of the city centre, of a bronze statue of a white mill worker and a black
enslaved woman clasping hands.
The
statue is the final phase of a project called Standing In This Place, a
collaboration between sculptor Rachel Carter and a community history group
called The Legacy Makers. The project website states that the statue will 'give
representation to the under-represented and give voice and recognition to the
contributions of thousands of unnamed women who were the driving forces behind
the East Midlands cotton textile industry during Industrialisation.'
It
goes on to say that 'The statue’s inclusion in a public park places Nottingham
at the forefront of historic female recognition; and makes Nottingham a
regional, national and global leader in acknowledging the significant
contribution women have made to the British economy and society in their roles
as enslaved workers in the Americas and Caribbean and as factory workers in
industrial Britain.'
A
worthy addition to Nottingham's statuary indeed, and one that will undeniably
contribute to a broader perspective of the storied history of our remarkable
city.
Nottingham
belongs to all of us.
 |
| Nottingham awaits... |
Printed Sources:
Women
of Nottingham: A walk around the city centre by Nottingham Women's History
Group (2011)
Nottingham
City Review of Statues and Plaques - James Dawkins, University of Nottingham
(2020)
Nottingham's
Plaques and Statues - Terry Fry (Nottingham Civic Society, 1999)
