Edward Colston

Colston was born on 2 November 1636 in Temple Street,[4] Bristol, and baptised in the Temple Church, Bristol. His parents were William Colston (1608–1681), a prosperous Royalist merchant who was High Sheriff of Bristol in 1643, and his wife Sarah Batten (d.1701), daughter of Edward Batten; he was the eldest of at least 11 and possibly as many as 15 children. The Colston family had lived in the city since the late 13th century.[2] Colston was brought up in Bristol until the time of the English Civil War, when he probably lived for a while on his father's estate in Winterbourne, just north of the city. The family then moved to London.[4]

In 1654 Colston was apprenticed to the Mercers Company for eight years, and in 1673 he was enrolled into it.[4] By 1672 he had become a merchant in London.[2] Like his father Colston exported in textiles from London while importing oils, wine and sherry from Spain and Portugal. It was also noted he traded silk to Virgina.[1] He had built up a successful business trading with Spain, Portugal, Italy and Africa.[4]

In 1680, Colston became a member of the Royal African Company, which had held the monopoly in England on trading along the west coast of Africa in gold, silver, ivory and slaves from 1662.[4] Colston was deputy governor of the company from 1689 to 1690. His association with the company ended in 1692.[2] This company had been set up by King Charles II and his brother the Duke of York (later King James II), who was the governor of the company, together with City of London merchants, and it had many notable investors, including philosopher and physician John Locke (who later changed his stance on the slave trade) and the diarist Samuel Pepys.[5][6]

During Colston's involvement with the Royal African Company from 1680 to 1692 it is estimated that the company transported over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Caribbean and the rest of the Americas, of whom 19,000 died on their journey.[7] The slaves were sold for labour on tobacco, and, increasingly, sugar plantations, whose planters considered Africans would be more suited to the conditions than British workers, as the climate resembled the climate of their homeland in West Africa. Enslaved Africans were much less expensive to maintain than indentured servants or paid wage labourers from Britain.[8]

Colston's parents had resettled in Bristol. In 1682 he made a loan to the Bristol Corporation, the following year becoming a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers[9] and a burgess of the City. In 1684 he inherited his brother's mercantile business in Small Street, and was a partner in a sugar refinery in St Peter's Churchyard, shipping raw sugar, produced by slaves, from St Kitts. However, Colston was only resident as an adult in Bristol for a while, and by 1689 he was carrying on his London business from Mortlake in Surrey.

Although a Tory High Churchman and often in conflict with the Whig corporation of Bristol, Colston transferred a large segment of his original shareholding to William III at the beginning of 1689, securing the new regime's favour for the African Co. The value of Colston's shares increased and being without heirs he began to donate large sums to charities. He withdrew from the African Co. in 1692, but continued trading in slaves privately. He retired in 1708. Colston was MP for Bristol (1710-13).[10]

Cromwell House, Mortlake, where Colston died in 1721

Colston died on 11 October 1721 at his home, (old) Cromwell House (demolished 1857), in Mortlake, aged 84. His will stated that he wished to be buried simply without pomp, but this instruction was ignored.[11] His body was carried to Bristol and was buried at All Saints' Church. His monument was designed by James Gibbs with an effigy carved by John Michael Rysbrack.[12]

Colston never married, and settled a "considerable fortune in land" on his nephew Edward Colston (MP for Wells) when he married in 1704.[13]

Colstons Almshouses

Although it is unknown how much Colston gave to charity, his name permeates Bristol on buildings and landmarks. Colston supported and endowed schools, almshouses, hospitals and churches in Bristol, London and elsewhere.[4] Many of his charitable foundations survive to this day.[14]

In Bristol, he founded almshouses in King Street and Colstons Almshouses on St Michael's Hill, endowed Queen Elizabeth's Hospital school, and helped found Colston's Hospital, a boarding school which opened in 1710 leaving an endowment to be managed by the Society of Merchant Venturers for its upkeep. He gave money to schools in Temple (one of which went on to become St Mary Redcliffe and Temple School) and other parts of Bristol, and to several churches and the cathedral.

David Hughson, writing in 1808, described Colston as "the great benefactor of the city of Bristol, who, in his lifetime, expended more than 70,000L. [£] in charitable institutions".[15]

Engraving of Colston's monument in All Saints' Church, Bristol from Bristol Past and Present (1882)

Monuments named in commemoration of Colston include the Colston Tower and Colston Hall. Colston Avenue and Colston Street are named after him. A regional bread bun, the Colston bun, is named after him.[4][16] A statue of him is on the exterior of Bristol Guildhall of 1843–46.[17] There is a 1870 stained-glass window by Clayton and Bell to his memory in the north transept of St Mary Redcliffe.[18]

He is also remembered, particularly by some schools, charities and the Society of Merchant Venturers, on Colston Day (13 November), which celebrates the granting of a royal charter to the Society of Merchant Venturers in 1639, at a church service held at St Stephen's Church until 2017.

City-centre memorial statue

Main article: Statue of Edward Colston

Statue of Edward Colston by John Cassidy, formerly in The Centre, Bristol, erected in 1895, toppled in 2020

In 1895, 174 years after Colston's death, a statue designed by John Cassidy was erected in the centre of Bristol, to commemorate Colston's philanthropy.[26] It stood for 125 years, until 7 June 2020, when the statue was toppled and pushed into Bristol Harbour by demonstrators during the George Floyd protests.[27][28] The statue was retrieved from the harbour four days later by Bristol City Council and taken to a secure location. It will later become a museum exhibit.[29]

From the 1990s onwards,[30] campaigns called for the removal of the statue, describing it as a disgrace.[31] An unofficial art installation appeared in front of the statue on 18 October 2018 to mark Anti-Slavery Day in the UK, linking historical slave-trading as undertaken by Colston with modern-day slavery. It depicted about a hundred supine figures arranged as on a slave ship surrounded by a border listing jobs typically done by modern-day slaves such as "fruit picker" and "nail bar worker"; it remained for some months.[32] Another artistic intervention saw a ball and chain attached to the statue.[31][33]

In 2018, with involvement of the community, text for a new official plaque was agreed for the statue to inform the public about more of Colston's history.[34] Conservative councillor Richard Eddy and the Society of Merchant Venturers (an organisation Colston belonged to) objected to the wording, and were successful in – among other things – removing mention of Colston's role as a Tory MP and the selective nature of his philanthropy, and disputed the exact number and ages of the thousands of children he trafficked.[34] The new wording was vetoed by the Mayor of Bristol, Marvin Rees, who saw the Society having too much say in the process, instructing more parts of the community to be involved in producing the plaque.[34]

• Anchor Society
• Bristol slave trade
• List of notable investors and officials of the Royal African Company