Wherever I lay my hat

When I cycle from my garret to my building site, probably four times a week and then back again, I pass Oriel College, one of Oxford University's 44 colleges. It was founded 699 years ago and has four surviving medieval halls as well as more modern buildings including this, facing the High Street, which was built with money left to his former college by Cecil ("to be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life") Rhodes, the British imperialist who also generously donated his name to Rhodesia (now Zambia and Zimbabwe). For the last eight years the Rhodes Must Fall movement has been trying to get this statue removed. The campaign intensified during the protests after George Floyd's murder and after the statue of another British imperialist, Edward Colston, was toppled in Bristol.

But Rhodes is still here and I've been meaning for months to stop and read the notice that the college has put up beneath the statue. It reads:

This building was constructed by Oriel College in 1909-11 with money left in the will of Cecil John Rhodes (1853-1902), a former student of the college. The college commissioned a series of statues to front the building which included Rhodes at the top.

Rhodes, a committed British colonialist, obtained his fortune through exploitation of minerals, land and peoples of southern Africa. Some of his activities led to great loss of life and attracted criticism in his day and ever since.

In recent years the statue has become a focus for public debate on racism and the legacy of colonialism. In June 2020, Oriel College declared its wish to remove the statue but is not doing so following legal and regulatory advice.

How he managed to amass the monumentally vast fortune he did in his 48 years of life is a sobering case study of brutal, racist, colonial exploitation - there's lots on Wikipedia and elsewhere. From me, just two mini-facts that you might otherwise miss.

1. The large letters in the elegant lettering at his feet are a rather contrived chronogram: adding the Roman numerals L+M+V+I+I+C+I+C+C+I+L+I+I+D (50+1000+5+1+1+100+1+100+100+1+50+1+1+500) gives 1911, when the building was completed.

2. His paternal grandfather was a brick manufacturer in Hackney.



Edit: I left this without saying what I think we should do about our historic and current racism and I welcome all the views in comments.

My own views about what should happen to such statues are here. Rule 1 - we do not leave them anywhere that people have to look up to them.