Controversial plaque on Edward Colston's empty plinth finally installed (2025)

It's been seven years since the idea was first suggested

A second plaque has finally been quietly placed on the empty plinth of the statue of Edward Colston, seven years after the idea was first suggested.

The plaque was placed on the south side of the plinth late yesterday afternoon (Wednesday, April 17), and aims to explain what statue was originally on the plinth and what happened to it.

The second plaque has been placed below the original plaque that was part of the plinth when the statue was first erected 130 years ago, which described the slavetrader Edward Colston as ‘one of the most virtuous and wise sons’ of the city.

The new plaque was agreed after several re-writes and drafts and arguments at City Hall between councillors over the past couple of years.

It reads: “On 13 November, 1895, a statue of Edward Colston (1636-1721) was unveiled here. In the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, the celebration of Colston was increasingly challenged given his prominent role in the enslavement of African people.

“On 7 June 2020, the statue was pulled down during Black Lives Matter protests and rolled into the Floating Harbour. Following consultation with the city in 2021, the statue entered the collections of Bristol City Council ’s museums.”

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The wording of the second plaque was finally agreed at a meeting last November, despite the objections of Cllr Richard Eddy (Con, Bishopsworth), who objected to the removal of a phrase which described Colston as a ‘benefactor’ of the city.

In an impassioned speech during that meeting in November last year, Cllr Eddy, who made national news as a councillor more than 20 years ago with his collection of golliwog dolls, criticised the people who pulled down the statue in 2020 as a ‘mob of criminals and hooligans’, for ‘vandalising’ a listed monument, but then in the same speech said he would ‘find it very difficult to criticise anyone who took it upon themselves to remove this plaque or change it’.

The wording of the second plaque was finally agreed after work by the Bristol Legacy Foundation, but councillors tweaked it and objected to it at several meetings in 2023 and through 2024, before finally deciding on the wording five months ago.

Councillor Tony Dyer, Leader of Bristol City Council, said: “I am pleased to see this plaque finally installed on the Colston plinth following a considered conversation on its future by residents and organisations.

“It presents a moment of reflection for our city and for many communities across Bristol and offers residents and visitors the opportunity to learn more about our city’s complex past," he added.

A council spokesperson said: "Since its retrieval from Bristol’s Floating Harbour, the Colston statue is now on permanent display at the M Shed Museum as part of a wider exhibit on Bristol’s history of protest. Visitors to the exhibit can also learn more about the historic context of both Edward Colston and Bristol’s role in the Trans-Atlantic trafficking of enslaved people."

The second plaque that has now been attached to the base of the Colston statue is, in fact, the fourth plaque to be created for the plinth.

After the first and original one, which is still on there and is part of the listed monument, during the 2010s, a second plaque was fixed to the plinth unofficially as part of the protests against the celebration of Edward Colston in Bristol - it mentioned the tens of thousands of enslaved people who died on his boats while he ran the Royal Africa Company in the late 17th century.

An official second plaque was discussed and created in 2019 after almost two years of wrangling at City Hall, including warnings from Cllr Eddy at the time that vandalising it would be justified.

But that plaque never made it to the plinth - its wording was watered down so much that the then Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees pulled its installation at the last minute.

That meant that when the Black Lives Matter protesters marched past the statue on June 7, 2020, the campaign to remove the statue legally had at that point failed, and even the efforts to install another plaque that mentioned who Edward Colston was had been denied.

It was thought that this official second plaque was never physically made, but Bristol Live later revealed it had been, and it appeared in the exhibition around the Colston Statue in the M-Shed, where it can still be viewed today.

The idea for another plaque to be attached to the plinth of the statue was never dropped, even after the statue was toppled in 2020, and was brought back to the council in 2023 and into 2024 by the then Labour administration, before councillors finally voted to approve it last November.