Bristol Uni building names with ties to slave trade to be kept

The names of seven University of Bristol-owned buildings linked in different ways to the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans will be retained following a year-long consultation.

Wills Memorial Building, Fry Building, Merchant Venturers Building, HH Wills Physics Laboratories, Goldney Hall, Wills Hall and Dame Monica Wills Chapel will not be renamed despite calls from some campaigners who argue the structures “glorify” their namesakes.

The buildings are connected to families and figures, including Edward Colston and the Frys and Wills families, who profited from slavery or associated products such as tobacco, sugar and cocoa.

Bristol Uni vice chancellor Evelyn Welch told Bristol24/7: “The past matters”, and, by keeping the names, the institution is acknowledging, rather than erasing, its historical and under-acknowledged ties to slavery.

Welch also apologised to those who have experienced racism at the university and its “slow progress and commitment to racial equity”, pledging a £10m programme to to tackle racial injustice and inequality over the next ten years.

Welch became Bristol Uni’s vice chancellor in September 2022 – photo: University of Bristol

Launched in November 2022, the citywide consultation found that a majority of 56 per cent of respondents did not want to change the building names. But, Welch said, looking closer at the statistics, “it was less important about the numbers but who was saying what”.

“What emerged was that something like two-thirds of our Black staff, students and alumni and Black community representatives were very much in favour of moving to action rather than saying the focus should be on the names.”

“Many said changing building names felt performative and that we were focusing on something that actually wasn’t going to make their lives better.”

She went on: “I know that some of these decisions will not please everybody – but we have listened carefully.

“We must tell our history in an honest, open and transparent way, while at the same time putting our full weight behind substantive action to address the broader issues of systemic racism and inequality here in Bristol and beyond.”

Wills Memorial Building was dedicated to Henry Overton Wills III by his two sons after his death – photo: Betty Woolerton

Calls to rename Wills Memorial Building, the institution’s principal and most visible structure, were first ignited in 2017 by students in Bristol who said the tower on Park Street symbolises the “toleration” of former slave masters due to its namesake, Henry Overton Wills III.

Wills was the first official chancellor of the university and used profits from tobacco importing firm W. D. & H. O. Wills to fund Bristol’s royal charter.

Welch’s message to those who had fought to change the uni’s building names was: “Read the report, listen to what those who feel differently from you are saying and join in with the program of Reparative Futures.

“Of course, the past matters. But we are taking action to make a better future for those members who are directly affected by racism today.”

The recently refurbished Fry Building houses the university’s maths department – photo: Betty Woolerton

Welch apologised after the consultation platformed “profound hurt, concern and very uncomfortable stories” about racism and racist behaviour that staff and students have experienced at the higher education provider.

She also admitted the institution is “not progressing as fast as other institutions” in terms of Black professors and senior professional services staff.

“It is no longer as overt as the Bristol Colour Bar that we saw in the Bristol Bus Boycott, but can can be as simple as a Black staff member being assumed to be a student or a Black student being assumed to be a security guard,” Welch said.

“Hearing about these experiences made me feel embarrassed, ashamed, appalled – a whole suite of feelings.

“We think of ourselves in one way as a liberal, progressive organisation but we are not experienced in that way, and it is my responsibility to correct that mismatch.”

She added: “I’m apologising for that because I’m truly, genuinely, not just on an institutional level, at a personal level, sorry for those experiences.”

HH Wills Physics Laboratories is located on Tyndall Avenue – photo: Betty Woolerton

Bristol University has announced it is pledging £10m over the next decade to develop a programme that will address racial injustice and inequalities both in the university and the local communities it works with.

Reparative Futures will build on ongoing initiatives, such as their Black Scholarships Scheme, as well as provide a community fund for proposals from local groups to work with Bristol Uni colleagues on collaborative education and research initiatives that tackle educational, health, and economic inequalities.

Welch said: “Students, staff and the wider Bristol community should know that racist behaviour has no place at the University of Bristol and that we are investing time, energy and our leadership at every level in acknowledging it and doing something to make a real difference.”

The dolphin emblem of Colston, who was a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers, is also set to be removed from the university’s logo.

Main photo: Betty Woolerton

Read next:

• ‘The Society of Merchant Venturers need to get out of our democracy’
• Evelyn Welch has got the love for Bristol
• Bristol Uni could rename buildings with links to slave trade

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