Cast in Stone

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• 1857, Meeting to plan a memorial to Lord Clive
  Several British politicians and public figures met in Princess's Hall, London, on the hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Plassey, to plan the creation of a memorial to Lord Clive. It was decided to form a committee to raise subscriptions to support the erection of a statue in a prominent location in Shrewsbury. During the meeting, Earl Stanhope said, 'That, inasmuch as the services of the great Lord Clive, the founder of the British Empire in the East, have not been commemmorated by any public monument, it is in the opinion of this meeting (assembled on the 100th anniversary of the victory of Plassy) desirable to record the national gratitude for those services by erecting a statue on some conspicuous site in Shrewsbury, the chief town of Lord Clive's native county.' Lord Dungannon noted that the aims of this activity was to honour of the virtues of the dead, as well as to 'excite the moral principles of the rising generation.' Expressing a vision of benevolent and paternalist empire, Mr Campbell Paterson noted that the 'defection' in the Indian army had been caused by a departure from Clive's own principles; that Indian soldiers should be treated with kindness rather than severity. A committee was formed consisting of the Lord Lieutenant and the High Sheriff of Shropshire, the President of the India Board, the Chairman of the East India Company, the members for Shrewsbury, the Duke of Cleveland, the Earl of Stanhope, Viscount Dungannon, Sir Robert Vivian, Sir Lawrence Peel, Sir James Hogg, Mr. W.B. Bagley, the Mayor of Shrewsbury, and the Rev. B.H. Kennedy D.D.
• 1882, Installation of the statue of John Lawrence in London
• 1901, Redvers Buller is dismissed from the British Army
• 1902, Debate held on Redvers Buller in Parliament
• 1903, Redvers Buller testifies before the Royal Commission on the South African War, 1899-1900
• 1903, Redvers Buller unveils a Boer War memorial in Bermondsey
• 1904, London Devonian Dinner pays tribute to Redvers Buller
• 1905, Executive Committee of Devonians meeting in London
• 1959, Re-installation of the statue of Charles Gordon in the UK
• 1969, James Baldwin visits the Albert Memorial in London
• 1991, Olympia and York Group produce a marketing brochure with an illustration of the Milligan statue
  In 1991, Olympia and York Group, the developers of Canary Wharf, produced a marketing brochure with an architectural illustration of the proposed redevelopment works. The illustration, titled 'Canary Wharf Aerial Looking East', included an depiction of the Robert Milligan statue and the Hibbert Gate returned to the Docks. Both the statue and gate can be seen on the left hand side of the image close to the present site of the Museum of London Docklands. According to online sources, the original illustration is now in the collections of the UCSB Art Design & Architecture Museum.
• 1997, Nurul Haque organises a conference on Plassey
• 1998, Nurul Haque organises a larger conference on Plassey
  Bangladeshi-British councillor Nurul Haque organises the third of his annual conferences on Plassey, at the Kobi Nazrul Centre in London. An audience member 'started shouting' and gave a 'rousing speech' about how the statue of Clive should be brought down. Community acitivist Muhammad Ahmedullah notes that this is when he first became aware of the statue in London.
• 2000, Installation of a replica Hibbert Gate
  The original Hibbert Gate (named after the slave-owner and merchant George Hibbert) was built in 1803 but was demolished in 1930. A replica Hibbert Gate was created in 2000 and is still in place as of 2024.
• 2000, Winston Churchill statue defaced during May Day protests
• 2007, Opening of the London, Sugar and Slavery Gallery
• 2007, Shrouding of the Robert Milligan statue
  In November 2007, the statue of Robert Milligan was shrouded on the opening day of the London, Sugar & Slavery Gallery at the Museum of London Docklands. The statue was concealed beneath a black shroud, bound with thick, black rope and floodlit, as an act of protesting its presence. Harry Cumberbatch, a member of a consultative committee working with the Museum at the time, took the accompanying photograph of the shrouded statue in order to preserve its message of resistance.
• 2010, Creation of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery
• 2020, Equestrian statue of Prince George is graffitied
  The plinth and front relief of the statue were graffitied with BLM (Black Lives Matter) tags.
• 2020, Far-right protest "in defence" of the Winston Churchill statue
• 2020, Graffiti on the Winston Churchill statue
  The Churchill statue's plinth was graffitied with the words 'was a racist' during the Black Lives Matter protests.
• 2020, Graffiti on the Winston Churchill statue
  The Churchill statue's plinth was graffitied with the words 'is a racist' during a climate change demonstration.
• 2020, Museum of the Home announces it will retain and explain the Robert Geffrye statue
• 2020, Protest graffiti and placard on the statue of Abraham Lincoln
  The letters "A C" were graffitied in front of the ABRAHAM LINCOLN inscription (i.e. ACAB, or All Cops Are Bastards). A placard with the words HATE KILLS LOVE HEALS was placed in Lincoln's arms.
• 2020, Statue of Jan Smuts is graffitied
  The statue of Smuts was graffitied with the BLM (Black Lives Matter) tag.
• 2020, the hands of the Robert Geffrye statue are painted red
  The following message, painted in red, was also left behind at the gatepost of the Museum of the Home: 'The blood on Geffrye’s hands is the blood of our ancestors'
• 2020, UK Culture Secretary writes to the Museum of the Home in support of retaining the Robert Geffrye statue
• 2020, UK Prime Minister delivers speech on Black Lives Matter
  The Prime Minister's speech read as follows: The death of George Floyd took place thousands of miles away – in another country, under another jurisdiction – and yet we simply cannot ignore the depth of emotion that has been triggered by that spectacle, of a black man losing his life at the hands of the police. In this country and around the world his dying words – I can’t breathe – have awakened an anger and a widespread and incontrovertible, undeniable feeling of injustice, a feeling that people from black and minority ethnic groups do face discrimination: in education, in employment, in the application of the criminal law. And we who lead and who govern simply can’t ignore those feelings because in too many cases, I am afraid, they will be founded on a cold reality. Yes, I am proud to lead the most ethnically diverse government in the history of this country, with two of the four great offices of state held by a man and a woman of Indian origin; and yes, I am proud of the work I began to lead more than ten years ago to recruit and promote more young black people, in the police and other walks of life. This country has made huge strides. I remember the 1970s, and the horror of the National Front. I truly believe that we are a much, much less racist society than we were, in many ways far happier and better. But we must also frankly acknowledge that there is so much more to do – in eradicating prejudice, and creating opportunity, and the government I lead is committed to that effort. And so I say yes, you are right, we are all right, to say Black Lives Matter; and to all those who have chosen to protest peacefully and who have insisted on social distancing – I say, yes of course I hear you, and I understand. But I must also say that we are in a time of national trial, when for months this whole country has come together to fight a deadly plague. After such sacrifice, we cannot now let it get out of control. It is BAME communities who have been at the forefront of the struggle against coronavirus – whether in health care or transport or social care or any of the other essential services that have kept our country going. And it is BAME communities, tragically, that have paid a disproportionate price. So no, I will not support those who flout the rules on social distancing, for the obvious reason that we risk a new infection at a critical time and just as we have made huge progress. And no, I will not support or indulge those who break the law, or attack the police, or desecrate public monuments. We have a democracy in this country. If you want to change the urban landscape, you can stand for election, or vote for someone who will. And so I must say clearly that those who attack public property or the police –who injure the police officers who are trying to keep us all safe – those people will face the full force of the law; not just because of the hurt and damage they are causing, but because of the damage they are doing to the cause they claim to represent. They are hijacking a peaceful protest and undermining it in the eyes of many who might otherwise be sympathetic. And as a society, we can and must do better. This month, on the 22nd of June, we celebrate the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948, and we remember the contribution of the Afro-Caribbean workers – in the NHS and across all public services – who helped to rebuild this country after the war. And today, once again, we face a great task: to relaunch this country after Coronavirus. So let’s work peacefully, lawfully, to defeat racism and discrimination wherever we find it, and let us continue to work together across all the communities of this country, as we put Britain back on its feet.
• 2023, Black Boy Lane in London renamed to La Rose Lane
• 2024, Paint thrown on statue of Mary Seacole
  Following soon after white supremacist rallies and violence, the red and orange paint was thrown on the statue on Mary Seacole. The Met Police investigated the crime but did not take any immediate decision to treat it as racially motivated.
• 2024, Yinka Shonibare exhibits his series 'Decolonised Structures' at the Serpentine Galleries
  Yinka Shonibare's Decolonised Structures (first shown in 2022-2023) consists of a series of miniaturised fibreglass sculptures of colonial figures, hand-painted with Dutch wax pattern and placed on top of wooden plinths. Individuals depicted include Winston Churchill, Frederick Roberts, Horatio Kitchener, Robert Clive, Queen Victoria, Henry Bartle Frere, Charles Napier, Colin Campbell, and William Pitt the Younger. The series was included in an exhibition titled 'Suspended States', which also included one of his wind sculptures, an installation titled 'War library', and 'Sanctuary City.' The series of statues called 'Decolonised structures' presents scaled-down version of public statues in London. Shonibare noted that the reduction in size and the height of the plinth was specifically intended 'to metaphorically reduce [their' grandeur ... [and] power over citizens.' Shonibare claims that by decking the statues in his signature 'African textiles' (which are in fact Indonesian patterns mass produced by the Dutch and marketed in Africa) and gold-leaf, he is '...making them more beautiful.' He says that he is '...changing their character, or the history of their character, into something much more interesting.' While the statues were expressly created in response to debates around public statues of colonial individuals, Shonibare comments, 'I don't think statues should be destroyed, the public should be able to see them, but there should be museums built for them so people can understand the history of these people and what they did.' The accompanying booklet, also available on the free app Bloomberg Connects, offers short histories of the careers of the individuals depicted by the resized statues.
• Launch of Battle of Plassey Young People’s Project by Brick Lane Circle
  The Brick Lane Circle launched a project in the East End of London, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, to comemmorate the 250-year anniversary of the Battle of Plassey. The project aimed 'to engage a group of young people (18-25) to explore East London’s historical links with Bengal through researching and writing about the area’s East India Company sites. '