ORIEL COLLEGE | Rhodes Statue to Stay

Cecil Rhodes statue at Oriel
College, Oxford.

May 20, 2021—Oriel College will be celebrating its seven-hundredth anniversary in 2026. That may have given the College's administration a Long View of current issues, notably its decision announced today about the "Rhodes Must Fall" campaign.

The current Provost of Oriel College, since 2018, is Baron Neil Mendoza, an entrepreneur and publisher. Last year he created an independent commission to study the Rhodes Must Fall issues, for example the actions of Rhodes during his lifetime and his posthumous legacy. Its report supports a recommendation to remove the Rhodes statue—most of its members favored relocatitue—but notes that the final decision is up to the Oriel fellows, who constitute the governing board of the college.

This morning, Oriel's governing board announced Rhodes won’t fall, but that the other recommendations by the independent commission will be adopted. The board notes that most of its submissions supported keeping the statue in place.

The Rhodes Must Fall campaign has been active for at least five years (see Oxford College Arms, 4th ed., p. 63).  It reached a climax in June 2020, when the Black Lives Matter campaigns added fuel to the anti-Rhodes protests. Cecil Rhodes was an alumnus of Oriel College and in 1902 left a substantial sum to endow the college. During his life he created the "Cape to Cairo" component of the British empire from the southern Cape of Good hope through Rhodesia and East Africa to Egypt. His methods ranged from brilliant enterprise to brutal force. (As Shashi Tharoor quoted an "Indian nationalist" as saying, in An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, “The sun never set on the British empire, because even God couldn’t trust the Englishman in the dark.”)

The previous Provost of Oriel College was Moira Wallace, OBE, former British civil servant and first Permanent Secretary of the Department of Energy and Climate Change. She was the first female Provost of Oriel. When the Rhodes Must Fall campaign hit Oriel in 2016, she favored open discussion of relocating the statue. The Oxbridge Pursuivant reported on this at the time: https://theoxbridgepursuivant.blogspot.com/2020/06/a-statue-of-cecil-rhodes-in-capetown.html.

The governing body of Oriel at the time expressed its wish to remove the statue from the college. One suggestion was to move it to a museum where it might comply with historic preservation laws and at the same time satisfy those who consider Rhodes an evil thug by adding an exhibit showing where Rhodes deserves praise and where not. 

A group of alumni donors reacted to the news of the governing body's views by writing that they would end regular giving or pledges to Oriel College if it removed the statue. The total impact on the college was estimated at approximately £100 million. Other alumni said they would make up the loss if the statue went, but so far no escrow account appears to have been created for this purpose.

Oriel reports that it is not beginning the legal process for relocating the statue because of the high cost of doing so in light of historic preservation laws (at a difficult time for  most of the colleges because of Brexit and Covid-19). However, many of the commission's recommendations will be followed. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9599125/Inquiry-set-wake-BLM-protests-says-statue-Cecil-Rhodes-Oxford-removed.html.