26 C O N T E X T 1 7 3 : S E P T E M B E R 2 0 2 2 and an entrenched colonial mindset… to state racism, hypocrisy and hubris.’ John’s view was that the monument was intended to create a narrative that would erase much of the negative experience of those immigrants and the memory of the Windrush scandal. That scandal was a consequence of the Hostile Environments policy implemented primarily by the Immigration Acts 2014 and 2016, under which members of the ‘Windrush generation’ were wrongly detained, denied legal rights, threatened with deportation, and in at least 83 cases wrongly deported from the UK by the Home Office. Earlier this year Jesus College Cambridge was refused its application to remove a memorial plaque to its benefactor Tobias Rustat (1608–1694), prominently sited on the west wall of the Grade I-listed college chapel. The college argued that, because Rustat was involved in the slave trade, the memorial was having a negative impact on the mission and ministry of the church. It proposed moving the plaque to another site in the college. A consistory court – an ecclesiastical body dealing with matters of law relating to the church – refused the application by Jesus College to the diocese of Ely to move it. The court found that widespread opposition to the memorial was based on ‘a false narrative’ about the scale of the financial rewards Tobias Rustat gained from slavery. The removal of the memorial would cause ‘considerable or notable harm to the significance of the chapel as a building of special architectural or historic interest’. The archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, had come out in support of the college’s attempt to move the memorial, asking: ‘Why is it so much agony to remove a memorial to slavery?’ The answer is because the issues around the removal of statues and other memorials are often complex. That complexity is reflected in the Church of England’s own guidance on contested heritage. The guidance is presented as a questionnaire which, when completed, is meant to serve as a record of a process towards reaching a proposal for action. ‘For the process to be valid,’ the guidance states, ‘it should be a collective activity in which the church community and other interested parties can participate and exchange views. Consultation, crucially with the communities most affected, is key.’ The church’s guidance suggests that the decision-making process should include questions such as: What makes the object problematic or contested today? How does the presence and/ or presentation of the object affect the ability of the church to be a place open to all as a centre of local worship and mission and/or complementary uses such as charitable works, community activities, commercial activity, or pilgrimage? How does the object refer or respond to its problematic nature or contested origin? The controversial statue of Sir Arthur Harris was given a 24-hour guard in its early months to deter vandalism.
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