School to shed name of slave trader

LONDON — First his statue met a watery end during last year’s Black Lives Matter protests. Now another school in England that bears the name of slave trader Edward Colston is changing its name.

The governors of Colston’s School, which was established in 1710 in Bristol, said Monday that the private school will be renamed next summer, and that current and former students, parents and staff will all have a say in the choice.

They said the events that took place during the protests in Bristol in June 2020, which saw the toppling of Colston’s statue, prompted renewed questions about keeping his name at locations across the city.

“What became clear is that the name Colston has become a symbol of the city’s extensive links to slavery and will forever be associated with the enslavement and deaths of African men, women and children,” the governors said.

Colston, who was born to a wealthy merchant family in 1636, became prominently involved in England’s sole official slaving company at the time, the Royal African Company, and Bristol was at the heart of it.

The company transported tens of thousands of African people across the Atlantic Ocean, mainly to work the sugar plantations in the Caribbean and to cultivate the tobacco fields burgeoning in the new colony of Virginia.