Your editorial (14 April) supports the Archbishop of Canterbury in calling for the removal of monuments such as that to Tobias Rustat, whose wealth derived from slavery. But the Church of England was part of the establishment in the 18th and early 19th century, and for the most part strongly defensive of slavery – as were William Gladstone (later prime minister) and John Newman (later cardinal).
The first paragraph of six pages on Anglicanism and slavery in Michael Taylor’s The Interest: How the British Establishment Resisted the Abolition of Slavery, led me to Bishop Richard Watson of Llandaff, who defended the slave trade. Watson is buried in St Martin’s Church in Bowness-on-Windermere, where the vestry has a memorial to him by John Flaxman. In the south aisle of the church is a marble slab commemorating John Bolton, a slave trader and plantation owner who died in 1837 – after abolition. Admittedly, the churchyard has a headstone dated 1822 inscribed to the memory of a freed slave named Rasselas Belfield, thought to have been in service locally.
If I can find all this in five minutes, it suggests that the archbishop is opening the way to wholesale vandalism of the country’s churches. Much better, surely, to commission marble plaques to be prominently positioned in every “guilty” church admitting its culpa, maxima culpa in past days and expressing its deep repentance now.
David Pollock
Stoke Newington, London
• There is an elephant in this religious room. Your editorial says that the average Anglican these days is a 30-year-old black woman. What goes unremarked in current debate about slavery and empire is that the predominant cultural imposition that European powers made was Christianity. The destruction of cultures and religions across Africa (and elsewhere) by Christian missionaries, aided and abetted by the invading authorities, is reflected today in that religion’s widespread persistence among those with African heritage.
Set against that vast cultural imposition, a few plaques and statues in the UK are almost trivial. It is the consequences of slavery that should be examined, not just the historical trinkets.
Dr David Miller
Lymington, Hampshire
• Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication.
