16 roarnews.co.uk
S ho u l d KC L Rename G u y ’s C am p u s ? D a n i e l l e Jo n e s Staf f Wr ite r
R oar cent
writer Danielle Jones on the re- Guy’s Chapel and the hospital grounds to be repetition started by a KCL stu- moved; they also want the campus to be renamed. dent to rename Guy’s Campus in the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement. One KCL student, Ayesha Khan, started a petition to change the name of Guy’s Campus. The petition rapidly gained the support of students and LonKing’s College London has released a number of has citizens horrified at finding out Thomas Guy’s statements supporting the Black Lives Matter don Renaming the campus may be tricky, as it movement. On the surface, it appears that the uni- history. verges on the ground of Guy’s Hospital, named afversity is listening to black and brown voices; but ter Thomas Guy following his donation to start the expecting students to attend classes on a campus hospital’s construction. However, is it fair to expect named after Thomas Guy, a man who made his for- black and ethnic minority to attend classtune from the slave trade, feels like a slap in the face. es on a campus named afterstudents an individual involved the slave trade? Is it fair to expect patients to Thomas Guy is hailed as a philanthropist, hav- in medical care, to entrust their health to ing used his fortune to fund the building of Guy’s receive Hospital. However, Guy made his money by sell- NHS staff, in a hospital named after Thomas Guy? ing his shares in the South Sea Company, which Ayesha Khan told Roar that she started the petition was responsible for the transportation of roughly as “it didn’t sit right with me that so many friends 64,000 African slaves between 1715 and 1731. and professors of mine are of all different backyet the very site they studied at was named The KCL website describes Guy as an “eccen- grounds, a man who systematically contributed to the tric philanthropist”, and goes on to acknowl- after of black people”. She also accused KCL edge that he made his fortune through con- enslavement promoting a “rose-tinted” narrative surroundtroversial practices. The practice they choose of Guy and suggested that there is no shortage to mention? Illegally printing Bibles. There is ing no acknowledgement of his involvement in of better people the campus could be named after. the South Sea Company and the slave trade. We all know that history can’t be changed. We undo the wrongs of the past. However, we Spurred on by the removal of the Edward Colston can’t acknowledge the past and learn from it. The statue in Bristol, which was rolled down to the har- can of Bristol has announced that the Edward bour and pushed into the River Avon by protest- Mayor ers, campaigners want the Thomas Guy statues in Colston statue will be fished out of the River
Avon and displayed in a museum, where visitors can learn about the city’s “true history” and Britain’s involvement in the slave trade as a whole. One BAME student studying in the Florence Nightingale Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care, who wished to remain anonymous, said “It’s important that King’s owns up to its history. It would have greatly affected my decision to study at KCL, as it feels like having kept the name and statue of Thomas Guy for so long means that they’re proud to be affiliated with him and his values.” She went on to say that “it’s not enough to not be racist, institutions like King’s need to be actively anti-racist.” As I was writing this article, I received an email from my faculty emphasising their support for the Black Lives Matter and asking BAME students to participate in discussions with senior staff and student representatives. From where I stand, BAME students are screaming loud and clear for justice, and I have to wonder if KCL is blissfully ignorant or purposefully ignoring its own students and faculty. I believe KCL needs to match its actions with its words, and make all campuses safe and comfortable places for students and faculty. To sign the petition and make your voice heard, you can click here. At the time of writing, over 7,600 people have signed to try and ensure KCL follows through on its commitment to create an “inclusive environment that promotes equality”.
We K now B et t e r T han t o Rename G u y ’s C am p u s L o u i s Ja c q u e s Staf f Wr ite r
writer Louis Jacques on the recent petiR oar tion to change the name of Guy’s Campus, and why he feels the campus should remain as it is.
Fighting racism in our private and public spaces means examining our environment, behaviour, and places of work and study to understand where we can combat systemic or direct racism. However, it also means doing it well. Removing the statue of Thomas Guy and campaigning to rename Guy’s Campus is not only a historical misunderstanding, but distracts from bigger things we can change at King’s and in London. In a petition created on Wednesday, June 10, which has gathered around 7,600 signatures at the time of writing, King’s student Ayesha Khan and another unnamed first-year student ask Ed Byrne and The Lord Geidt FKC to remove the Thomas Guy statue on the eponymous Guy’s Campus and to take steps to change the campus name and openly publicise Guy’s ties to the slave trade. No more than one day later, in a joint statement with Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital and Guy’s and St Thomas’ Charity, the organisations decided to remove the statue of Thomas Guy from public view. According to the petition, as well as the comment piece written by Danielle Jones earlier this week, this is because Thomas Guy supposedly “made his fortune (£42,000 in 1720, roughly a massive £400 million today) through his large shares in the South Sea Company [...] which would barter slaves to the Spanish colonies in harrowing conditions.” Thus, as both Khan and Jones detail eloquently, it would be hypocritical of King’s to adopt the “multicultural” and “diverse” identity the university has taken to heart when its secondlargest and second-oldest campus was founded by, named after, and has a statue of a slaver. The problem is that he isn’t. While Khan and Jones are right to seek justice for the normalisation or even glorification of people linked to the slave trade in modern Britain, it is incorrect to link Thomas Guy to the slave trade. The truth is that Guy, a prominent philanthropist in the late 1600s, used his money to buy pay-tickets for English seamen in the 1670s. This was a form of government bond, insofar as he was directly paying English sailors’ wages with the promise of interest payouts. However, thirty years after his investment, the government decided to restructure
debt by converting it into equity: namely, stocks jumping the gun on pointing fingers, or being too in the government-run South Sea Company. quick to critically examine our public and private spaces for institutionalised racism. Ayesha Khan Now at this point, it would make sense to say: was right to question Thomas Guy’s past and our “Wait, that still means that Guy knowingly held university’s strong ties to him, and was especialstock in the slave trade and profited off it.” How- ly right to highlight that King’s did not provide ever, that isn’t the case either. First of all, the a more nuanced biography of the man in quesWhile I disagree entirely with renaming the South Sea Company had only just been estab- tion. or tearing down his statue, it is our Collished in 1711 (the year of the debt-for-equity campus duty to educate properly, and that means swap) and didn’t enter the slave trade until two lege’s on our websites and brochures that years later; its primary purpose for many years underlining Thomas Guy supported a government complicit was as a government debt holding company. in the slave trade, and did buy a small amount of shares in the East India Company late in his life. Secondly, it is potentially unlikely that Guy knew of all his holdings in, and the role of the Com- That is why I am doubly critical of the Univerpany, especially seven years after his debt had sity’s decision yesterday to remove Thomas Guy’s been swapped. He was the son of a lighterman statue from campus. There are strains of racism and an apprentice bookseller who, like many at the core of many departments and faculties government-friendly financiers, had his money King’s which impact thousands of students on all managed by a government-friendly accountant. campuses. I fear that Ed Byrne and others have only decided to remove Guy’s statue as an easy Finally, the period when Guy’s stock-owning did to avoid asking any difficult questions of themcoincide with the South Sea Company selling selves. Our university’s leaders have hidden beslaves leaves uncertainties about the profitability hind a lie so they can wait for this to blow over. of his shareholding and his commitments. It has King’s can do better in so many ways, and has an been reported that Guy sold his stocks at inter- important role to play in society. Our researchers, vals in 1720, after an increase in the SSC’s valu- teachers, and students will shape the world to come, ation, despite the company making no profit in and if we are actually committed to dismantling inthe time he held his shares. However the nature stitutional racism, then we must change the way we of the contract he entered with the SSC is un- learn and teach. King’s have ultimately drawn a false clear, as many stocks of this type had multi-year conclusion about a philanthropist to avoid having commitments much like bonds (some recorded to make any real change, and that is embarrassat five years) and could mean his investment was ing. Put the statue back up, and let’s begin learning legally bound, thus that his choice to own stock from our mistakes instead of hiding from change. coincided with the SSA’s involvement in the slave trade for a much shorter period than portrayed. Footnote: For posterity and historiographical clarity, I wish to quickly lay out the short historiogIn short, because a philanthropist happened to raphy here. I used Elizabeth Donnan’s 1930 “The have his government bonds converted into multi- Early Days of the South Sea Company” as reference which explains the debt-for-credit swap year committed stock in a company which sold material details the Company’s role as an unprofitable slaves, a picture has been painted of Thomas Guy and holding company in Chapter 1. As well as as an active investor in the slave trade. Was it en- debt noting the five-year obligation on many stocks, the tirely morally right to be purchasing these kinds book makes a point to say that Thomas Guy selling of bonds while the government encouraged and his shares at high market before the South Sea bubfacilitated the slave trade? No. However, Guy ble burst in 1920 was the earliest he could sell his did not consciously decide to support the slave shares (p.140). The 2010 article by King’s College trade either, let alone profit off it. Thomas Guy London’s Roger Jones (a doctor, not a historian), many have used to “prove” that Guy profitultimately remains a symbol of charity and phi- which off his shares, not only skips the debt-for-credit lanthropy in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Cen- ed but cites I.C McManus’s paper “The Wealth tury London who set up multiple hospitals and swap, of Distinguished Doctors: Retrospective Survey” almshouses, including our own Guy’s Campus. as proof of Guy’s profiteering, even though McManus’s timeframe was 1860-2001 (136 years after All this is not for me to say that we as a whole are Guy’s death) and does not mention Thomas Guy.