Academy trust with links to Edward Colston offers little sense of its history on its website

Should a charitable foundation which was deeply involved with the slave trade in the 17th to 19th centuries, and which now oversees nine schools including eight state-funded academies, be more upfront about its history?

The question arises amid the ongoing political fall-out to the toppling in Bristol last Sunday, during a Black Lives Matter protest, of a statue of Edward Colston, the late-17th and early-18th century merchant who was himself closely associated with slavery.

Colston was a member of the Society of Merchant Venturers, which reportedly put up the statue in 1895. On the society’s own website, it admits that it petitioned in 1690 to be allowed to join the slave trade; that it opposed slavery’s abolition in 1789 and that at one point a quarter of its members were directly involved in “this abhorrent trade”.

On Monday, the society reportedly responded to the statue’s toppling by saying that it would “continue to educate itself about systemic racism”.

However, a look at the website of the Venturers Trust, which runs eight academies in Bristol which are “sponsored” by the Society of Merchant Venturers, provides little insight into the latter’s past.