Edward Colston: life of the week
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In the height of the Covid pandemic in 2020, and with the backdrop of the Black Lives Matter movement, a crowd of protesters gathered in central Bristol, coincidentally just outside the offices of the History Extra team, and proceeded to pull down the statue of the 17th-18th century philanthropist and slave trader Edward Colston. The protest captured headlines and briefly catapulted Colston to global notoriety. But what did Colston do to ensure such notoriety? And what do we know about his story more widely? In this Life of the Week episode of the History Extra podcast, historian Richard Stone considers the life and legacy of Edward Colston with David Musgrove.
We're going to be talking about a man called Edward Colston, who is significant for quite a few reasons. He's a 17th, 18th century slave trader and philanthropist who briefly achieved global fame in 2020 when his statue was pulled down just a few feet away from where we're chatting in central Bristol. So Richard, welcome to the podcast. How are you? Yeah, I'm good, thanks.
Thanks for having me. Yeah, absolute pleasure. What did you think as you passed by the Plynth before we started this recording? Yeah, I I'm always it was actually not the plinth so much as I was following my sat nav down to help me get here and thinking how many times I was hearing the name Colston, Colston Street, Colston Avenue, and walking past the arms houses and the pub that used to be named after him, just thinking, wow, this guy's name is still everywhere in the city. He's still he's still here, he's still omnipresent despite the controversies that surround him and we will
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