The City of London Corporation has announced plans to affix a plaque to the statue of William Beckford, an 18th-century plantation owner and two-term lord mayor with ties

to slavery. This decision follows the organization's earlier commitment to "retain and explain" the statue. The explanatory plaque aims to address the City's historical involvement in the slave trade.

William Beckford's statue currently resides in the Grade I listed great hall at Guildhall, and listed building consent is necessary for the installation of the plaque. Beckford, who served as Lord Mayor of London in the late 1700s, amassed wealth from Jamaican plantations that relied on the labor of African slaves.

Another plaque will be added to a statue of Sir John Cass, a former MP and philanthropist from the 17th and 18th centuries, located in a less prominent position within Guildhall. Sir John Cass played a significant role in the Royal African Company, deeply connected to the Atlantic slave economy.

Both plaques are scheduled to be installed in the coming year. The City corporation has partnered with the arts and heritage charity Culture& to collaborate with designers, poets, and writers to develop responses that will appear on the plaques.

Dr. Errol Francis, the artistic director of Culture&, expressed pride in contributing to this essential project. The London Metropolitan University's School of Art, Architecture, and Design previously displayed a replica of the Sir John Cass statue, which was removed in 2020 amid global Black Lives Matter protests following George Floyd's death. Photo by Stephencdickson, Wikimedia commons.