The leader of Edinburgh City Council has said he would feel “no sense of loss” if a statue of a politician who delayed the abolition of slavery was removed.
Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, worked to frustrate efforts to end the trade by using his influence as home secretary, setting the move back 15 years.
A 150ft column with a statue of the politician – known as the Melville Monument – stands in St Andrews Square and was vandalised during the Black Lives Matter protest in the Scottish capital on Sunday.
READ MORE: Graffiti sprayed on Henry Dundas statue in Edinburgh Black Lives Matter protest
Council leader Adam McVey told BBC Radio Scotland’s Good Morning Scotland programme: “I would have absolutely no sense of loss if the Dundas statue was removed and replaced with something else or left as a plinth.
“I think it’s important to tell our story as a city, I think it’s important that that’s reflective, that’s representative of what actually happened – not what we might have wanted to happen – and I think we take that conversation from there.”
Dundas put forward an amendment to a Bill which would abolish slavery in 1792, opting for a more gradualist approach.
This allowed the practice to continue for 15 years longer than it otherwise would have done.
READ MORE: How slavery shaped Edinburgh's New Town
During this time an estimated 630,000 people were transported to Britain as slaves.
Dundas was nicknamed “the Great Tyrant” and was later impeached for the misappropriation of public money in 1806.
The now A-listed monument was erected in 1823.
READ MORE: Edinburgh ready to face up to dark past of Henry Dundas, philanthropist who also championed slavery
Mr McVey’s comments came after campaigners pulled down the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol and graffiti was scrawled on the monument to Sir Winston Churchill in London’s Parliament Square.
On Tuesday, London Mayor Sadiq Khan announced that the city’s landmarks would be reviewed to ensure they reflect the capital’s diversity.
He said the Commission for Diversity in the Public Realm would examine murals, street art, street names, statues and other memorials, and consider which legacies should be celebrated before making recommendations.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel