The Student Room Group
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>
Uni students - Complete our survey >>

Royal Holloway to tear down statue of Victoria?

Scroll to see replies

Original post by Jammy Duel
It's a shame that the Harvard crest isn't protected by law.

Posted from TSR Mobile


It should have been protected by its holders.

Posted from TSR Mobile
Original post by DiddyDec
It should have been protected by its holders.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Clearly Harvard has no balls to stand up to a few students that will cry over anything

Posted from TSR Mobile
Why aren't I surprised? I think @The Epicurean makes a good point.

Original post by draculaura
Jesus, soon every building and momentum before 1920 will be ripped down.
Stonehenge is probably next


I coughed what I was eating when I read this :lol:.
Surely Nelson must fall from the top of his column?

He supported slavery, and his fleet was stuffed with press ganged sailors, subject to the lash if they stepped out of line. The cat of nine tails.

He doesn't pass muster judged by modern standards of conduct far from it. Bring him down!

We could replace him with a statue of Mandela and there wouldn't even need to be a name change.

Sorted. Left wing agitpop politics is too easy, the lack of ideological ambition of some of these students is embarrassing.
Reply 24
Avatar for Olie
Olie
20
Original post by JezWeCan!
The Mail Online is carrying it this morning...

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3480122/Now-Cecil-Rhodes-protesters-call-statue-Queen-Victoria-removed-Students-campaigning-colonisation-British-universities-claim-relic-long-reigning-monarch-racist.html

They have over two hundred million browsers a month with a lot of reach in the US, Canada, Australia and so on. This story isn't going away it is growing internationally.

Congratulations RHC Student Union, you are really doing a good job trashing your own institution's reputation!

(As an aside, if you look at the picture of the statue in the Mail story, the RHC building in the background is rather splendid. The Victorians may have been wicked racist colonialist imperialists but they erected some magnificent architecture at their best, didn't they? Very impressive).


Only the Mail by the looks of things though and they quote Grace Almond's blog which I think is the main basis for the story. Yes she makes an extremely dubious comment that other students are defensive over the statue is evidence that 'shows you just how far white supremacy and racism is ingrained in our university' and she mentions that some students are unhappy at the Victoria Empress of India statue, but nowhere in it does she actually call for its removal and she is very adamant on twitter that she was not spoken to, the story is fabricated and there are no plans for a campaign, as are a RH press officer and others at the uni that say there is no campaign for the removal of this particular statue.

There is a march on Wednesday as part of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign which the Mail claims will be also used to call for the removal of the Empress of India statue too, but I think this is your typical twisting of facts by the Mail really, misrepresenting people's words to fit into their story, the NUS statement the article then goes on to mention says nothing of Victoria either. I guess we'll see on Wednesday though.
Reply 25
Avatar for JezWeCan!
JezWeCan!
OP
11
Original post by Olie
Only the Mail by the looks of things though and they quote Grace Almond's blog which I think is the main basis for the story. Yes she makes an extremely dubious comment that other students are defensive over the statue is evidence that 'shows you just how far white supremacy and racism is ingrained in our university' and she mentions that some students are unhappy at the Victoria Empress of India statue, but nowhere in it does she actually call for its removal and she is very adamant on twitter that she was not spoken to, the story is fabricated and there are no plans for a campaign, as are a RH press officer and others at the uni that say there is no campaign for the removal of this particular statue.

There is a march on Wednesday as part of the Rhodes Must Fall campaign which the Mail claims will be also used to call for the removal of the Empress of India statue too, but I think this is your typical twisting of facts by the Mail really, misrepresenting people's words to fit into their story, the NUS statement the article then goes on to mention says nothing of Victoria either. I guess we'll see on Wednesday though.


We'll see.

If you skip down to her comments below the article she says:

"we were inspired by similar campaigns at Harvard and Oxford"

which isn't very encouraging but then she says:

"Also, please do not allow a statue to take over our campaign – our campaign is about expressing our own experience. Our issues with the statue are just one very small part of it."

Which could be read a couple of ways. That the statue doesn't matter or that it very much does.

I can't see how they can row back from calling for the statue to be taken down, myself. The symbolism of that is what captures the imagination and press coverage. Without it, what does it all amount to? BME students "expressing their experience" that Egham is too white? Hardly front page news.

They have a need for publicity, they want the self aggrandisement that comes from extensive press coverage and the fact that we are discussing this on this website at all.

It works, so they will continue the campaign and it will have the statue as its focus it seems to me.

What they DON'T care about is making RHS into a laughing stock. They don't think it does do that, and even if so, they wouldn't care because the "cause" is more important than their own college.

I think anyway. :smile:
Original post by Kvothe the arcane

I coughed what I was eating when I read this :lol:.


:K:

sorry
Reply 27
Avatar for Lacesso
Lacesso
9
They should be expelled.
Reply 28
Avatar for Josb
Josb
6
Original post by Jammy Duel
It's a shame that the Harvard crest isn't protected by law.

Posted from TSR Mobile


Methinks donors are going to make them pay for that.
Original post by draculaura
Stonehenge is probably next


It could well have been built by slaves for all we know. Better tear it down, just incase.
(edited 8 years ago)
Original post by Greenlaner
I could well have been built by slaves for all we know. Better tear it down, just incase.


Return the Preseli Bluestones to Wales!
Original post by Greenlaner
I could well have been built by slaves for all we know. Better tear it down, just incase.


Better safe than sorry, after all.
Original post by Jammy Duel
It's a shame that the Harvard crest isn't protected by law.

Posted from TSR Mobile


It isn't protected by law because these are usurped (stolen) arms.

The design is taken from the usurped arms of John Royall Jnr, a slave-owner.

http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2015/11/isaac-royall-jr-slave-master-harvard-law-school-benefactor.html

However there is no way he would have legitimately held arms: Azure, three garbs or, because these are the ancient arms of the Earldom of Chester.

https://britishcountyflags.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/cheshire-flag/

The current Earl, might have something to say about Mr Royall stealing arms that rightfully belonged to his ancestor.
Original post by nulli tertius
It isn't protected by law because these are usurped (stolen) arms.

The design is taken from the usurped arms of John Royall Jnr, a slave-owner.

http://harvardpress.typepad.com/hup_publicity/2015/11/isaac-royall-jr-slave-master-harvard-law-school-benefactor.html

However there is no way he would have legitimately held arms: Azure, three garbs or, because these are the ancient arms of the Earldom of Chester.

https://britishcountyflags.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/cheshire-flag/

The current Earl, might have something to say about Mr Royall stealing arms that rightfully belonged to his ancestor.


I do hope you are jesting.

And whether you are or not it is hard not to feel that the English aristocracy, based as it is on a bastard Duke's conquest and feudalism isn't something of a joke past its sell by date...
Original post by generallee
I do hope you are jesting.



If you say this coat of arms is symbolic rather than just a pretty pattern; then the symbol should never have been held, irrespective of what the guy who nicked the arms got up to.

If it is not symbolic of anything then universities change their corporate image all the time.

What both sides here want is for the arms to symbolise what they want it to symbolise but to be able to ignore such of the symbolism as doesn't agree with their view of things.
Original post by MildredMalone
Have any of those stupod campaigns actually achieved their goal?


The Rhodes thing originated in Africa where it worked.
Reply 36
Avatar for Wellzi
Wellzi
16
Parliament should consider an act of. Attainder and have these idiots removed from the gene pool...
Original post by generallee
Surely Nelson must fall from the top of his column?

He supported slavery, and his fleet was stuffed with press ganged sailors, subject to the lash if they stepped out of line. The cat of nine tails.

/QUOTE]

Yeah, we celebrate dick heads.
Original post by nulli tertius
If you say this coat of arms is symbolic rather than just a pretty pattern; then the symbol should never have been held, irrespective of what the guy who nicked the arms got up to.

If it is not symbolic of anything then universities change their corporate image all the time.

What both sides here want is for the arms to symbolise what they want it to symbolise but to be able to ignore such of the symbolism as doesn't agree with their view of things.


The Harvard Law School crest honoured the founding bequest of Isaac Royall through the coat of arms he chose. That is what is symbolised.
.
Being a yank in revolutionary times he didn't give a stuff about the sort of heraldic bs that (some) English people get worked up about and stole the coat of arms of a defunct Earldom that has passed to the Prince of Wales for hundreds of years.

Good on him, I like his style.

You are bringing out my inner Wat Tyler!
[QUOTE="ChaoticButterfly;63264033"]
Original post by generallee
Surely Nelson must fall from the top of his column?

He supported slavery, and his fleet was stuffed with press ganged sailors, subject to the lash if they stepped out of line. The cat of nine tails.

/QUOTE]

Yeah, we celebrate dick heads.


Nelson wasn't a dickhead, Chaotic. He was many things, brave, a military genius, the greatest sailor who ever lived, perhaps, an energetic lover, the saviour of his country and the whole of Europe from military dictatorship. All those things. But a dickhead? Not so much.

You do realise that your views are so off the wall that you might as well be talking to yourself, right?

There is acceptable, reasonable opinion than there there is what you think. Go off and start a campaign to rename Trafalgar Square, "Victims of Slavery Square."

Go on, you know you want to. :biggrin:

Quick Reply

Related discussions

Latest

Trending

Trending

Articles for you