Tear Down Nelson!

[Vaughan]

Susie and I were watching Sky News last night and were amazed that they gave air-time to a serious presentation, in Trafalgar square, from a young lady entitled "journalist and author" who was proposing that the statue of Nelson should be torn down because it glorified a white supremacist.

I know we don't do politics on here but as Nelson was from Norfolk and learned to sail on Barton Broad (or was it Hickling - I got that wrong the last time!) I am sure members will be as astounded as myself that such bending of history should be permitted.

Nelson was a naval officer - an "Admiral of the Blue" who spent his career in the navy and ended his life in the navy. So when did he have time to be also a slave trader?

In addition the role of the Navy was to seek out slave ships and capture them, for which Nelson no doubt won prize money. It can be argued, historically, that after Trafalgar, after which the Royal Navy ruled the oceans, their successful suppression of the slave trade across the Atlantic may have been one of the factors which brought about the American Civil War.

The lady didn't say if she was descended from slaves but she appeared to be of ethic origin although she stated she was British. On the other hand she spoke with an accent that can only have come from a public school and Oxford education. She said that everywhere she walks in London she sees statues glorifying supremacists, such as Churchill.

Maybe her education should have reminded her that her freedom to walk the streets of London comes from such as Churchill and Nelson?

[smellyloo]

I  can only assume that the lady in question was knowingly trying to cause outrage ..... these types are best ignored.

Nelson will remain atop his column!!

[TheQ]

I should also point out that Nelson had several among his crew of ethnic origin who were rescued  from ships he had captured. She just  needs to look down at the base of the Monument in London.

[Vaughan]

21 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

 

I gather that one of the four plinths in Trafalgar Square is still available. 

Perhaps we should have one of the good Doctor, in his hat?

A Broadland supremacist??

[JennyMorgan]

1 minute ago, Vaughan said:

I gather that one of the four plinths in Trafalgar Square is still available. 

Perhaps we should have one of the good Doctor, in his hat?

A Broadland supremacist??

The very apt leather cowboy hat I presume?

[Vaughan]

There is a tradition of equestrian statues in London; so maybe he should be depicted, riding on the back of a "live-aboard"?

[MauriceMynah]

We do not do "politics" here. There is a good reason for this. Peoples politics are personal, and strongly felt. Already a comment has been made on this thread to which I take the strongest exception. I shall ride with it and say nothing on that. HOWEVER...

We cannot, and must not, attempt to apply todays values to yesterdays situations. Nelson was what was needed at that time. The same can (and should) be said of all our heroes. Churchill, Douglas Bader, Lord Mountbatten, Airey Neave, and so many others. These people did what they did under the moral code of their day. It should be left at that. Do not try to re-write history, just accept that people did what they believed they should have done AT THAT TIME IRRISPECTIVE OF TODAYS THINKING.  

[Vaughan]

Just as an up-date, this educated young lady has just been interviewed on BBC Look East.

It seems she accuses Lord Nelson of systemic exploitation.

So now we know!

 

[Chelsea14Ian]

I agree many from the past would not sit easy in public life now, and it is easy to cast them as the bad guys now.I suspect this lady has a book in the wings due for publication.

[Vaughan]

I realise this discussion is probably over by now, but I have been fascinated to work out what this lady's grudge is against Nelson. Reading other articles, it seems she accuses him of of using his influence to speak against the freeing of slaves in the sugar plantations of the West Indies. He said (she says) that if the slaves were freed they would have nowhere to go and were safer on the plantations where they would not fall victim to all the pirates and buccaneers who would re-capture them into worse slavery.

I have not found record of him saying this but as an Admiral in the navy that was charged with the defense of these British islands that may well have been his opinion. 

Looking at dates, I find that Nelson first came to the West Indies as a young frigate captain in his first command, in 1783, by which time the use of slaves in the islands had been well established for 100 years. He met his wife in Nevis - a moon island of Antigua - and it seems he was virtually imprisoned on his ship for a few months, having arrested too many American traders. He sailed under "a bit of a cloud" a bit later, so it seems any influence he had on the slave trade was positive, if anything.

Worth mentioning at this point that the Wilberforce Slave Trade Act was passed in 1807, two years after the death of Nelson and full emancipation (the freeing of slaves) was not achieved in the Antilles until 1838.

The next time he visited the islands was after the fall of the blockade of Toulon, when he chased the French fleet across the Atlantic in 1804. He arrived in Antigua sometime in April 1805, used the fortress of English Harbour to defend him from the French while he refitted the fleet and sailed back across the Atlantic in time to be killed at Trafalgar in October of that same year.

Hardly much time to get involved in the "systemic exploitation" of slave labour, I would have thought?

 

[smellyloo]

To be honest in those days unless you were a member of the gentry conditions for the plebs & slaves were very little different regardless of skin colour. They existed to obey and serve their masters.

[Islander]

I watched this     lady       on the news. My only thoughts are what a waste of an expensive education.

What would here freedom of speech been like without Drake, Nelson or Churchill?

Colin

[ChrisB]

Perhaps her education missed out on the recent works of Lithuanian artist Deimantus Narkevicious who says:-

" That the destruction in his country of the Soviet statues of leaders and worker activity shows a lack of cultural sensitivity. That art objects produced under regimes  then or later do not necessarily represent that regime but should be allowed to become historical cultural art"

[Vaughan]

I was thinking, if this journalist girl had preferred to suggest that in those days, the 'pressing" of young men off the street and forcing them into a lifetime at sea in warships as prisoners of the Navy was, itself, a barbaric form of slavery and piracy, she might have had more ground for an argument!

[ChrisB]

The conditions suffered by many Miners, Cotton Mill Workers, and in Tanneries, by Navvies paid in tokens that could only be spent in their employers shops would surely come under modern day slavery.

[MauriceMynah]

I wonder how she would feel if the people she held as heroes had their shortcomings exposed and held to ridicule by todays standards. Maybe that's what needs to happen.

[Gracie]

It won't be allowed to happen, we would be arrested, slung in a cell and hung drawn and quartered for being racist!!!!

Grace

 

[Vaughan]

I don't think the world of her lefty dreams is supposed to include heros. . . . .

I have just been reading Richard Littlejohn's column. He has more courage than me : I think I called her an over - educated young lady. He calls her "some dopey bird from the Guardian"!

[JennyMorgan]

Bird as in a feather brained idealist on a road to nowhere.

[grendel]

oh no, she will now have the RSPB on her side, though I would have thought they were in favour of the statue as a roosting place for pigeons.

[Timbo]

What complete and utter cobblers!

No, No, not the article by Afua Hirsch on the need for improving the way in which the context of our history is presented to the public, but some of the comments in this thread.

Am I to take it that as I understood the general thrust of her article, that as an historian I understand the need for context in history, accept that as a once colonial power the seamier side of our history is also worth studying and I was quick enough to understand, unlike the gutter press, she was not positing removing Nelson from the Corinthian Column...you all think I'm a feather brained lefty, and therefore worthy of castigation? 

 

 

[MauriceMynah]

24 minutes ago, Timbo said:

castigation? 

The thought never crossed my mind :)

[thingamybob]

Perhaps she should get a proper job and more important, just get a life!

[thingamybob]

By the way, a proper job means WORK!  I daresay she does not know the meaning of the word.

[VetChugger]

Isn't it always the case? Folk who don't understand or appreciate the context of an opinion can only then slag the writer off! Very crude.