Colston statue may formally move to M Shed

A planning committee will decide this month on whether to formalise the move of the statue of Edward Colston to Bristol’s social history museum, M Shed.

The statue of the 17^th-century slave-trader was toppled at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests of 2020 and thrown into Bristol harbour. Four people were acquitted of causing criminal damage to the object in a 2022 trial.

The statue was subsequently retrieved from the harbour and handed over to the care of Bristol Museums, whose conservation team preserved the graffiti and damage incurred during the protest as part of the object’s history. The statue was temporarily displayed at M Shed in 2021 in an exhibition that drew 100,000 visitors.

In a statement this week, the mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, confirmed that an application to regularise the legal position of the listed asset away from its plinth had been submitted to Bristol City Council’s development control committee. The committee will meet on 21 February to consider the proposal.

The plans come in response to a survey conducted by the We Are Bristol History Commission in 2022, which found that 80% of Bristolians believe the statue should be kept in a museum.

If the application is approved, the statue will feature in an upcoming exhibition at M Shed on the theme of protest, which will open in March 2024.

Rees said: “The proposals we have developed are in direct response to the recommendations of the History Commission report which was itself informed by the views of many thousands of fellow Bristolians. We have shared our thoughts with Historic England on this matter too and have taken their views on board before submitting this application.

"I remain in support of the view that the best place for the statue is in a museum where its context, and that of what it represents to many communities can be appropriately shared with diverse audiences.

"We’ve already glimpsed how eager people are to learn about this context and associated history when nearly 100,000 people visited The Colston Statue: What Next? display in 2021.”

Tim Cole, who chaired the We Are Bristol History Commission and was one of the academics to produce the report, said: “One of our areas of work through the commission was to facilitate a city-wide conversation about what should happen next with the Edward Colston statue. That project saw us gather many diverse opinions and views that truly demonstrated the complexity of the feelings associated with the statue and the many strands of context associated with it.

"What was clear though, despite the many different views shared, was an overwhelming sense that people saw the museum as being the best place for the statue and I am pleased to see the council acting on this recommendation.”