Guildhall — Revealing the City’s Past
At the City of London Corporation’s medieval Guildhall, plaques unveiled under the ‘Revealing the City’s Past’ project (2024) now stand alongside the statues of slave-trade-enriched former Lord Mayor William Beckford and slave-owner MP Sir John Cass. Guildhall has been the seat of the City of London Corporation, the City’s municipal authority, since the 12th century. Inside its Great Hall stand the public statues of past benefactors — including William Beckford (1709–1770), the wealthiest plantation owner of his age and twice Lord Mayor of London, and Sir John Cass (1661–1718), MP and director of the Royal African Company.
Following the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, the City Corporation’s Court of Common Council voted in January 2021 to remove both statues. In 2022 the policy was reversed under the UK government’s ‘retain and explain’ guidance; in 2024 the Corporation instead launched ‘Revealing the City’s Past’, fixing interpretive plaques to both statues that name and condemn the men’s role in the Transatlantic Trade in Enslaved African People. The plaque texts were written by the artist and heritage professional Rachael Minott, accompanied by poems from John Agard and Courtney Conrad.
The project is the most visible acknowledgement to date by the City’s municipal authority of its institutional entanglement with the slave economy.
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Sources
- City of London Corporation — ‘City Corporation launches project to reinterpret slave trader statues’ — https://news.cityoflondon.gov.uk/city-corporation-launches-project-to-reinterpret-slave-trader-statues/
- Google Arts & Culture / City of London Corporation — ‘Places in the City of London Connected to the Slave Trade’ — https://artsandculture.google.com/story/places-in-the-city-of-london-connected-to-the-slave-trade-city-of-london-corporation/bwWhuBgZKICdFQ?hl=en
- Historic England — ‘London: Centre of the Slave Trade’ — https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/the-slave-trade-and-abolition/sites-of-memory/slave-traders-and-plantation-wealth/london-centre-of-the-slave-trade/
- Al Jazeera — ‘Slavery and the City: London’s financial hub comes under scrutiny’ (24 June 2020) — https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/economy/2020/6/24/slavery-and-the-city-londons-financial-hub-comes-under-scrutiny