Friday, November 22, 2024

Albert Memorial is ‘considered offensive’, says Royal Parks

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The website states: “Though the Empire has traditionally been celebrated as a symbol of British supremacy, many today consider this view as problematic because colonialism often relied on the oppression and exploitation of people, resources and cultures.”

The Royal Parks said that it added the information about the statue late last year as part of an attempt to “regularly review and update information about our landscape and heritage features, across all our parks to enhance visitor experience”.

It follows a nationwide clamour at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests during the lockdown in 2020 to address public monuments considered by some to be controversial.

Councils across the country created dossiers of monuments linked to slavery and colonialism.

Camden council has created a series of QR codes for statues in its area, which provide information explaining the “unacceptable” views of figures such as Virginia Woolf.

Some statues, like the monument to slave owner Robert Milligan near the Museum of London Docklands, have been removed entirely.

Welsh government guidance also suggested that statues of “old white men” such as the Duke of Wellington and Lord Nelson could be hidden or destroyed to create the “right historical narrative”.

The Albert Memorial was requested by Queen Victoria following her husband’s death in 1861.

He was a patron of emerging science, and the catalyst of the Great Exhibition of 1851, which showed off the discoveries and technological advances made by Britain in a vast “Crystal Palace” in Hyde Park.

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