‘Hall shouldn’t be named after slave trader’

Representatives from the Colston Hall are at the House of Commons on Tuesday, calling on the Government to match the £10 million secured by Bristol City Council for the venue’s ambitious transformation campaign. But, writes Rowen Mackenzie, author of history blog Bristory, now should also be the time for the hall to stop being named after a notorious slave trader.

The Colston Hall is Bristol’s flagship music venue. For nearly 150 years the legends of pop, jazz, folk and classical music and comic geniuses have all commandeered it while it continues to navigate across changing tides of cultural taste. Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, Pink Floyd, to name but a few.

As this famous venue makes its approach to its 150th birthday in 2017, the multi million pound Thank You for the Music campaign is well underway to transform the hall into a world class music venue.

However, in this stasis of regeneration the contentious issue that persistently come back to the forefront is whether the venue should retain the name of one of Bristol’s most prominent historical citizens. Edward Colston: merchant, altruist and slave trader.

Should the Colston Hall be renamed? As someone who spends a large portion of their free time researching and writing about Bristol’s history I have often found myself jumping to the defence of the buildings, streets, schools named after Colston. 

We need to understand that the world he lived in was understood through very different moral and social paradigms. Without question the African slave trade that Colston was involved in was horrific and something of abject cruelty. But by ripping Colston out of his context (and away from the number of charitable and positive contributions he also made to the city) it becomes very easy to force our own moral judgements on him.

As such, the shadowy figure of Edward Colston has become something of a pantomime villain, a scapegoat used to distance our consciences from the immorality of past slavery.

Our history shouldn’t be proverbially white washed to disguise elements of our history that we are not proud of. Bristol, much like any city or person, is what it is due to the amalgamation of its both its brilliance and its atrocities. The city’s involvement in the slave trade is something that cannot be changed and should not be hidden. Instead these are (painful) truths that should be acknowledged to serve as a reminder of past wrongs and provide lessons for the future.

For these reasons I would object to changing every street, building, day and bun named after Colston. However, when it comes to the Colston Hall I feel somewhat differently. While that may seem rather contrary let me explain why.

In part, my lack of objection to retaining the name Colston is due to the history of the site itself; Colston Hall being simply the last chapter in a rather colourful history. Over the past 800 years the site has been a Carmelite friary; the Great House of Sir John Young (the first Bristol merchant to trade with Africa in the mid-sixteenth century and where Queen Elizabeth I stayed during her progress of 1574); converted into the city’s first sugar refinery in the 17th century; the site of the foundation of Colston’s Boys’ school in 1707; and finally the Colston Hall Company bought the land in 1861 in order to construct their vision of a concert hall for the city, dedicating it to a man they felt epitomised the greatness of Bristol.

As such I would argue that firstly the Colston Hall isn’t as strongly linked with Colston as Colston’s schools or almshouses are and secondly that the name of Colston masks how significant this site has been throughout the ages of Bristol.

But far more importantly to the renaming debate is how the name Colston impacts the functionality of the Colston Hall as Bristol’s flagship music and arts venue – right here, right now. 

Yes, we should treat our past with respect, understand it and interpret it with integrity. But ultimately, life is for the living and we need to innovatively utilise our past otherwise we are going to live in a very static, grey and fragmented world. In the case of Bristol, a marvellously contrasting yet cohesive city, the Colston Hall needs to be a forward looking place of pride and unity – just like its founders envisaged it to be 150 years ago.

If the name Colston Hall is really going to prevent some of Bristol’s, Britain’s and the world’s best artists from attending and if the name Colston is a recurring source of animosity, detracting from all the iridescence that we want this venue to emit then yes, we should seriously consider changing its name.

In the lead up to the venue’s 150th birthday, the historic venue is hoping to undergo a grand transformation inside and out. A metamorphosis to make it into a venue that Bristol needs. As such this is the perfect time for this discussion. And who knows, maybe we will have it again in another 150 years.