The University of Bristol is to remove the dolphin emblem of slave trader Edward Colston from its logo but will not change the names of buildings commemorating people with ties to the practice.
At the end of a 12-month consultation with students, staff and residents, Bristol also said that it would pledge £10 million over the next decade to a programme to “address racial injustice and inequalities both within the university itself and in the local communities it works with”.
Announcing its decisions, the university said that it would remove the Colston dolphin from its logo, even though he died more than 150 years before the institution was founded and it consequently received no funding from him. Due to his involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, Colston has become a focus of Black Lives Matter protests in Bristol and a statue of him was toppled into the city’s docks in 2020.
However, Bristol said that despite students’ requests it would not rename seven buildings named after families with connections to the slave trade or associated products. Many are named after the Wills and Fry families, who – while they did not own or traffic slaves – made their wealth in commodities such as tobacco, sugar and cocoa, which were closely connected with slave labour. Both families helped to found the university in the early 20th century through substantial financial gifts.
