Home   News   Article

Subscribe Now

Cambridge hearing offers a patchwork of outrage with Rustat memorial verdict awaited




Let there be outrage. Let the shires be horrified, watch the red tops go redder with their bellicose contortions suggesting slavery is legitimised by the Bible. Witness cool heads being sidelined while the professionally offended and their bots are given carte blanche to froth at the mouth. Welcome to Britain today, and welcome to Cambridge where the Tobias Rustat memorial hearing is triggering new and unexpected layers of self-analysis in the national psyche.

The Tobias Rustat memorial was written by the man himself to praise his own virtues
The Tobias Rustat memorial was written by the man himself to praise his own virtues

The ecclesiastical hearing at Jesus College Chapel which closed yesterday was a stunning spectacle presenting ceremonial, religious and historical issues in a legal setting, with lawyers not averse to barbs, ad hominem attacks and playing to the gallery, arousing sentiments which will no doubt be amplified as they make their way through the currently ill-tempered conduits of public discourse.

The facts, however, are simple: there is a memorial to Tobias Rustat in Jesus College Chapel and the college wishes it to be moved to another site on the college where it could be seen in a historical, rather than a religious, setting. The Diocese of Ely, in whose domain the chapel sits, has accepted the proposition. A consistory court was set up to hear both sides of the argument. Though many thought the result was a foregone conclusion, the opposition to the college’s petition was unexpectedly aggressive, and able to employ a wide range of tactics which left witnesses for the petitioners, at times, on the back foot.

The court sat for three days. The four judges, led by Mr Justice Hodge QC, and all relevant parties (not including the media) had been given a 1,500-page folder outlining the reasoning and methodology of Jesus College’s Legacy of Slavery Working Party (LSWP), which was set up in 2019. Following the LSWP’s recommendations, the college decided that the memorial was “incompatible with the chapel as an inclusive community and a place of collective wellbeing” and petitioned for its removal to another Jesus College building, East House, which would be expanded to allow it to be exhibited.

Rustat, 1608-1694, was a courtier to Charles II, and a generous benefactor to the University of Cambridge: in 1667 he gave the University Library its first endowment, of £1,000. The University’s own records state that he “derived great wealth from the Royal African Company” – the single largest-ever slave running organisation between the west coast of Africa and the Americas, which operated in the late 1600s and 1700s.

Witnesses on the first day included Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College and the first black female Master of an Oxbridge college, who told the hearing that the chapel was a “sanctified space” and asked: “How much sin do you need to have before you come off the wall?”

On the second day, the opponents of the move faced questioning in the ecclesiastical court set up in the chapel.

Andrew Sutton, an accountant and alumnus of Jesus College, was asked by Mark Hill QC, representing the petitioners, whether it caused him “concern that the master of this college feels unable to enter the chapel of this college because of the presence of this memorial”.

Mr Sutton said that it did. Mr Hill asked would Mr Sutton rather that the memorial remained and that the master of the college “excludes herself or has to summon up the courage” to enter.

Mr Sutton said: “I’m afraid I cannot help the master or the undergraduates.”

He added: “I think all could be helped by informed, quiet, rational discussion. I fear the cloud of misinformation still hangs over the college.”

Mr Hill said that the presence of the memorial to Rustat was an “enduring impediment” to the chapel’s use for secular activities for students.

“Do you have any sympathy with that?” asked Mr Hill.

“It’s very sad,” replied Mr Sutton.

Paul Vonberg of Paul Vonberg Architects, appearing as a witness for the petition to remove the memorial, told Justin Gau, appearing on behalf of those opposed to the removal of the memorial, that the memorial “requires for its artistic appreciation to be at a high level”. Mr Gau suggested that its high position on the chapel wall did not mean it was being viewed with reverence – though the Bishop of Ely, The Right Reverend Stephen Conway, had the previous day told the court that “here we have a memorial raised up higher than the Cross of Jesus and that’s already a lot of symbolism”.

On the third and closing day, the closing arguments were presented, starting with Mr Gau.

The memorial dedicated to Tobias Rustat in Jesus College Chapel is unavoidable. Picture: Keith Heppell
The memorial dedicated to Tobias Rustat in Jesus College Chapel is unavoidable. Picture: Keith Heppell

It soon became clear that “informed, quiet, rational discussion” was never really on the cards. There were too many specious arguments. The assertion previously made that those who wish the memorial to remain on the west wall of the chapel “are very clearly not racists or white supremacists, they are loyal Jesuits” acting out of “curiosity”. But nobody was suggesting that. The only person linking the Jesus College petition to racism was Mr Gau. And in any case Jesuits can be racists too: such is the nature of our disordered world. This was surely dog-whistle legalese: the next stop on the journey could only be of the “white lives matter” ilk.

Another example of this unhelpful trait? Mr Gau went out of his way, on day one, to ask Bishop Stephen – who, as he pointed out, is also acting Bishop of Lincoln – whether he knew the story of Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln. He feigned surprised when Bishop Stephen said he didn’t know the story of the little boy who was murdered aged eight or nine in 1255. To include the story – of Jews falsely accused of the boy’s murder, leading to the first anti-Semitic behaviour recorded in England – was unnecessary, perhaps even some sort of attempt to catch Bishop Stephen out. Little Saint Hugh has no connection to the slave trade, yet Mr Gau was so pleased with the fruits of his labour that he couldn’t resist another dig in his final-day summary when he said the Bishop had “concerningly never heard of Little Saint Hugh”. The tragic story was irrelevant first time round: why rub salt in the wound? To belittle Bishop Stephen? What does that achieve? The truth is, populism is largely fuelled by spite.

Those arguing that the memorial should remain in the chapel also suggested that “the elephant in the room is China”. The argument is that the university accepts Chinese largesse and no mention is made of the systematic torture and imprisonment of the Uyghurs. But, while plenty of people have well-founded concerns about China’s domestic policy, be under no illusions: in this context, this is an argument from the dead cat playbook. The accusation appeared solely designed to enable some sections of the community to indulge in some spittle-flecked sniggering while avoiding the issue at hand: that Rustat was an investor in the slave trade for very many years, that he helped run the Royal African Company as an assistant for many years, and that some of the largesse from his ill-gotten gains made its way into the coffers of Jesus College Cambridge – and, be that as it may, to memorialise him in this holy place is inappropriate.

The scale of the the Rustat memorial makes it impossible to miss as you enter Jesus College Chapel. Picture: PA
The scale of the the Rustat memorial makes it impossible to miss as you enter Jesus College Chapel. Picture: PA

“The dead cannot fight back,” Mr Gau asserted. “Monuments must have a voice too.”

The comment goes to the heart of the debate raging in contemporary Britain. Must the voices of dead white supremacists continue to be given public space even when what they have to say causes the great wound of slavery to be torn open, time after time? Suggesting, as Mr Gau did, that Jesus College is “tilting at a dead man while turning a blind eye to contemporary evil” deflected attention from the issue the court had to resolve. The “contemporary evil” the court convened to resolve is still there – a vast, three-tonne marble memorial to a worrying figure in a prominent position in a Christian church. How would the people of Coventry feel if a monument to Hermann Göring was placed in Coventry Cathedral?

Mr Gau, in his summing-up on the final day of the hearing, concluded: “We say, perhaps tendentiously, that hypocrisy is not a Christian virtue and we are minded to object.”

His colleague, Professor Goldman of the University of Oxford, once again took up his cudgels. His argument was that Rustat was a man of his time and therefore naturally involved in the business of slaves, nothing to see here, time to move on. “Rustat was expected to invest in Royal companies.” The Prof Goldman thesis was essentially along the lines of ‘apart from the murder, the defendant led a blameless life’.

Mark Hill QC then summarised for the petitioner, saying that he wanted to “run to ground a few hares that Mr Gau set running earlier”.

“So much that has come from the opponents in their allegations has an almost scatter-gun, Catherine-wheel style that turns out to have no substance at all,” he said.

Mr Hill noted that the Rustat memorial – which, incidentally, Rustat wrote himself, in the style of a wannabe poet who pays for their work to be published – is not an intrinsic part of the chapel in the way that stained glass windows are.

“It has been made clear by Historic England that even if the memorial is removed it would still leave the chapel as a place of special significance,” he said, adding: “The memorial spent some eight years in the home of Tobias Rustat and has been re-sited in the chapel at several stages of its history, and transferring the memorial to East House would allow for restoration work which would improve its condition.

“How strong is the case? We say extremely strong. I say the opposition has introduced a number of diversionary elements including questioning the notion of tainted money, of ‘cancelling’ Rustat, and even the Uyghurs. This is time taken up almost as a smokescreen and there has been no meaningful challenge in relation to the petition to carry out these proposals. They’ve been focusing on other matters and getting extremely wound up.

“Everything produced by the petitioners has been clear and cogent and, we say, highly persuasive. It is supported by the dean of chapel and by the visitor [Bishop Stephen], stating that the presence of the memorial has undoubtedly been compromising the work of the chapel.

“I thank the Master of the College who has given her lived experience, talking of her pain, discomfort and speaking of a turning away of the Christian heritage.

“There are different points of view. We have spent three days here ventilating, but the governing body of this college has carefully and reflectively come to a view.”

Jesus College Chapel. Picture: Keith Heppell
Jesus College Chapel. Picture: Keith Heppell

He continued: “The last thing that any Christian would want to portray is that it is in any way casual towards racism. We, as humans and historians, know that everything is constantly being revised and reassessed, and that can be done in a constructive and educational way.

“This is not about the erasing, removal or destruction of the memorial. It is removing the memorial from a place where it is not properly suited to a place where it can properly remain.

“This sacred space must be released to become a welcoming home to the heart of this vibrant community.”

“Thank you, Mr Hill,” said the deputy chancellor, Mr Hodge.

However Mr Gau wasn’t happy, saying that Mr Hill’s comments about Mr Sutton (a suggestion that Mr Sutton had finally seen the merit of the proceedings while on the witness stand) were “unnecessary, inaccurate and highly offensive”. This was, he said “another ad hominem attack”.

“I invite him to withdraw those comments and apologise.”

Mr Hill responded that his opponent was no stranger to ad hominem attacks, having called parts of the testimony of LWSP chair Dr Veronique Mottier “ludicrous twaddle”.

Mr Hill said: “My point is that Mr Sutton appeared to see the point of these proceedings and if any offence was caused I apologise without reservation – and this is not a proper way to bring these proceedings to a conclusion.”

“It will come as no surprise to hear that I will not make a decision now,” concluded Mr Hodge. A verdict is due within one month.

Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College
Sonita Alleyne, Master of Jesus College

It was the first hearing of its kind, and afterwards a member of a church study group told me the process is being watched very carefully. If the logic of removing allegedly offensive statues and monuments is followed through, churches across England could face some very expensive repair bills. And, on the other hand, if the view is that the memorial can remain in the chapel, the reputation of Jesus College – according to the college itself – could be impacted.

So what have we learned?

Firstly, that the University of Cambridge takes the long view when it comes to benefactors. A benefactor to the University of Cambridge can be assured that the thanks for their contribution will continue for many centuries where at all possible.

Secondly: Cambridge is not a citadel of cancel culture. This is a city which takes account of the sensitivities of a wide range of people from a wide range of cultures and backgrounds, and allows them to be heard.

Thirdly, populism has probably caught the imagination of the legal profession. We are all far too ready to be outraged, and generating a sense of outrage for profit is proving hard to resist.

Fourthly, that the consistory court is not an easy forum in which to share suffering and distress.

Finally, that today’s apologists for slavery want us to believe that the trade should be “contextualised”. This is a variation on the ‘I was only obeying orders’ defence rejected by the judges at Nuremberg.

The questions will go on, but one of the most resonant images of many from the hearing was Mr Gau’s reference to “the horrors of the Middle Passage across the Atlantic Ocean”. The Middle Passage was the route of the forced voyage of enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the New World. Between 1500 and 1866 some 12.5 million Africans were loaded on to ships bound for America, with about 1.8 million of them dying along the way. Such was the scale of death that the migratory passage of sharks was permanently altered to take account of the monstrous body count in this 366-year window.

And now, the wait begins. The idea that the petition put forward to the ecclesiastical court might be refused is almost unthinkable – it is on property Jesus College owns, and the Diocese of Ely supports its petition. But whatever happens, the ferocity of the opposition to the prospect of the Rustat memorial being moved out of Jesus College Chapel will linger long in the memory.



This site uses cookies. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies - Learn More