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Downloaded from the Humanities Digital Library http://www.humanities-digital-library.org Open Access books made available by the School of Advanced Study, University of London ***** Publication details: Dethroning historical reputations: universities, museums and the commemoration of benefactors Edited by Jill Pellew and Lawrence Goldman http://humanities-digital-library.org/index.php/hdl/catalog/book/pellewgoldman DOI: 10.14296/718.9781909646834 ***** This edition published 2018 by UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, United Kingdom ISBN 978-1-909646-83-4 (PDF edition) This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses Dethroning historical reputations Universities, museums and the commemoration of benefactors Edited by Jill Pellew and Lawrence Goldman IHR SHORTS Dethroning historical reputations Universities, museums and the commemoration of benefactors Edited by Jill Pellew and Lawrence Goldman LONDON INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Published by UNIVERSITY OF LONDON SCHOOL OF ADVANCED STUDY INSTITUTE OF HISTORICAL RESEARCH Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU 2018 This book is published under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) license. More information regarding CC licenses is available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Available to download free at http://www.humanities-digital-library.org or to purchase at https://www.sas.ac.uk/publication/dethroning-historical- reputations-universities-museums-and-commemoration-benefactors/ ISBN 978 1 909646 82 7 (paperback edition) 978 1 909646 83 4 (PDF edition) DOI: 10.14296/718.9781909646834 Contents List of illustrations v Preface vii Notes on contributors xi 1. Introduction 1 David Cannadine 2. Commentary on universities, museums and the commemoration of benefactors 15 Jill Pellew 3. The English civic universities: endowments and the commemoration of benefactors 25 H. S. Jones 4. Donors to an imperial project: Randlords as benefactors to the Royal School of Mines, Imperial College of Science and Technology 35 Jill Pellew 5. The expectations of benefactors and a responsibility to endow 47 John Shakeshaft 6. The funder’s perspective 57 Victoria Harrison 7. Calibrating relevance at the Pitt Rivers Museum 65 Laura N. K. Van Broekhoven 8. From objects of enlightenment to objects of apology: why you can’t make amends for the past by plundering the present 81 Tiffany Jenkins 9. British universities and Caribbean slavery 93 Nicholas Draper 10. Risk and reputation: the London blue plaques scheme 107 Anna Eavis and Howard Spencer Dethroning historical reputations 11. ‘A dreary record of wickedness’: moral judgement in history 117 Brian Young 12. We have been here before: ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ in historical context 125 Lawrence Goldman Bibliography 141 Index 145 iv List of illustrations Students campaign against the decision of Oriel College, Oxford not to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes from its High Street facade, 9 March 2016. ix Figure 4.1 Statues of Julius Wernher (L) and Alfred Beit (R), by Paul R Montford, erected 1910, at the entrance to the former Royal School of Mines, part of Imperial College of Science and Technology. 44 11.1 George Eliot’s L.C.C. plaque of 1905 in Wimbledon Park Road, Wandsworth, with the wreathed border design. It was the first put up by the L.C.C. to a woman – and the first official plaque to go south of the River Thames. 110 11.2 Wilkie Collins was rejected for a blue plaque in 1910 after the clerk of the L.C.C. advised that his writings were ‘not of a high order’. His reputation having revived, his rectangular plaque went up in Gloucester Place, Marylebone, in 1951. 111 11.3 The unveiling of Ezra Pound’s plaque in Kensington Church Walk took place in 2004. 113 12.1 Statue of Edward Colston by the sculptor Edward Cassidy, erected in The Centre, Bristol, in 1895, and the ‘unauthorised heritage’ plaque affixed to its base which remembers the millions of victims of the Atlantic slave trade. 133 12.2 Statue of Oliver Cromwell outside the house of commons, Westminster, designed by Hamo Thornycroft and erected in 1899. 138 v Preface Early in 2016 it seemed timely for the Institute of Historical Research to engage with the public discussion of fundamental issues connected with the history of universities and the commemoration of their benefactors. Part of the Institute’s remit is to examine the historical context of activities that are key to the functioning of modern society; and specific historical issues relating to the wealth of past university benefactors have been increasingly in the forefront of public debate. The immediate imperative was the recent ‘Rhodes Must Fall’ movement at Oxford. In addition, historians were becoming increasingly aware of deep concerns on certain American campuses about the source of much of their early wealth. In the case of Cecil Rhodes, a substantial benefactor to Oriel College, Oxford, objections to his racist views and his driving imperialism, led to demands for the toppling of his statue (as had been successfully achieved at Cape Town University). In the United States, universities (including Brown, Rhode Island and Georgetown, Washington, D.C.) were investigating their institutions’ past benefits from slavery with a view to making restitution to descendants of those who suffered. These debates raised broad historical issues about the relationship of the present to the past. The resulting conference, taking place at the I.H.R. over two days in March 2017, was aimed at historians of universities and institutions that have depended on benefaction; those involved in fundraising for universities; curators of museums which face their own legacy issues and many of which are departments of universities; and others involved in visible aspects of commemoration. The event was entitled ‘History, Heritage and Ideology: universities and the commemoration of benefactors’. The conference opened on the evening of 23 March with a lecture in the Chancellor’s Hall, University of London, Senate House by Professor Sir David Cannadine, distinguished historian not least of philanthropy and benefaction. His title was ‘Disinterested philanthropy or tainted gifts: how should historians respond to past legacies from benefactors with different social and moral values?’. The following day discussion was focused in four sessions. First, the changing nature of benefactions to English universities and their commemoration over several centuries; second, the possible conflicts of interest between an institution’s duty to uphold its reputation and its duty towards its benefactors; third, problems arising for museums through the Dethroning historical reputations origins of collections and their display; and fourth, broader historical issues for historians viewing the past from the perspective of the present. Each session, chaired by a facilitator, had three or four panelists as speakers to introduce discussion that was then thrown open to audience participants. Our thanks go to our speakers: Professor Richard Rex, University of Cambridge; Professor Stuart Jones, University of Manchester; John Shakeshaft, Cambridge University Council; Victoria Harrison, former chief executive of the Wolfson Foundation; Bill Abraham, director of development, University of London; Professor William Whyte, University of Oxford; Dr. Laura Van Broekhoven, Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford; Dr. Tiffany Jenkins, sociologist and cultural commentator; Dr. Nicholas Draper, Centre for the Study of Legacies of British Slave-ownership, University College London; and Professor Brian Young, University of Oxford. Thanks also go to the facilitators of these sessions: Daniel Snowman, I.H.R. senior research fellow and Kathrin Pieren, Jewish Museum, London. Finally, we would like to thank our I.H.R. support team, in particular, Gemma Dormer. This publication includes contributions from the great majority of our participants to whom we are particularly grateful for their time spent transforming their speaking notes into articles. Professor Lawrence Goldman, former director, I.H.R. Dr. Jill Pellew, senior research fellow, I.H.R. July 2018 viii Students campaign against the decision of Oriel College, Oxford not to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes from its High Street facade, 9 March 2016. Photograph: Chris Ratcliffe © Getty Images Notes on contributors David Cannadine is Dodge Professor of History at Princeton University, visiting professor at the University of Oxford, editor of the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography and president of the British Academy. He is author of many books, including The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy, Class in Britain, Ornamentalism, Mellon and The Undivided Past. His most recent book is Victorious Century: the United Kingdom 1800–1906. Nicholas Draper is director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership at University College London, the author of The Price of Emancipation (Cambridge, 2010) and co-author, with Catherine Hall and others of Legacies of British Slave-Ownership (Cambridge, 2014). Anna Eavis is curatorial director at English Heritage, with responsibility for the presentation and conservation of over 400 historic sites and their collections. She is also responsible for London’s blue plaques scheme. Having