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Cromwell oversaw the brutal seventeenth-century conquest of Ireland, England’s first colony. Writing to parliament after leading the slaughter at Drogheda in September 1649, the general reported that the Irish ‘officers were knocked on the head, and every tenth man of the soldiers killed, and the rest shipped for the Barbadoes’. Cromwell claimed that massacre and transportation were benevolent forms of terrorism, as they would frighten the Irish into submission and thus ‘prevent the effusion of blood for the future’.
In the same post we noted the following Cromwell memorials: bust of Oliver Cromwell in external wall recess near entrance of Guildhall Art Gallery, Guildhall Yard, London EC2V 5AE; Cromwell Tower, Cromwell Place, Barbican Estate, London EC2Y 8DD (unusually high residential housing block at the time of its construction and well known landmark); Cromwell Place, Barbican Estate, London EC2Y 8DD (courtyard at bottom of Cromwell Tower) and; Cromwell Highwalk, Barbican Estate, London EC2Y 8DD (pedestrian walkway).
As we have noted before, we are constantly updating our list of problematic memorials and we wish to add here the busts of Cromwell in St Giles, Cripplegate, and the entrance lobby of Cromwell Tower.
Above the Cromwell bust in the Cromwell Tower lobby entrance. It disappeared shortly after Black Lives Matter protests around the world – some of which were focused on contested heritage in the form of statues – received a massive amount of media attention in 2020. It is rumoured a reactionary Cromwell Tower resident removed the bust and kept it in their flat to prevent it being brought to book by anti-colonial activists. We don’t know if this is true but the Cromwell bust disappeared for some time and more recently has been back where it really shouldn’t be – on public display.
The header shows the bust of Cromwell in St Giles, Cripplegate, but placed on its side to dishonour it. This restored church stands in the centre of the Barbican Estate at London EC2Y 8DA, right next to the City of London School for Girls and on the other side of the lake from the Barbican Arts Centre. The bust of a colonial butcher being housed in a church is in itself problematic, but given that St Giles is also used for civic functions – for example a wardmote was held there the night before the last Cripplegate aldermanic election on 15 September 2022, at which the Cromwell bust left at least some of those present who were Irish or of Irish heritage feeling unhappy – it becomes even more of an issue.
According to various sources, the George Frampton (1860-1928) Cromwell bust in St Giles church is on loan from the Cripplegate Foundation, so its removal via being returned to its owners should not be problematic.* Our view is that all the Cromwell memorials in the City of London should be either renamed or removed and this would not be hard for the council to achieve if it had the will to do so, since it has direct control over all those covered here except for the St Giles bust. In the latter instance, the council is in a position to put pressure on the church to remove it by refusing to hold civic functions in the building while the Cromwell bust remains there.
That said, given the council’s unwillingness to do anything about the many problematic memorials in the square mile, without pressure being brought to bear it seems unlikely it will do anything about any of them – including but not limited to those celebrating the colonial butcher Oliver Cromwell. Council boss Chris Hayward is clearly far happier celebrating the lives of slave traders like John Cass, than subjecting their inhuman activities to critical historical scrutiny.
Notes
*Even if St Giles church wants to keep the Cromwell bust on display despite its problematic nature, it would seem that allowing this is not in keeping with the Cripplegate Foundation’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies such as:
Creating inclusive environments and spaces, including in the workplace, in which individual contributions and differences are recognised and valued, and where individuals can raise concerns or make suggestions to enhance our inclusivity or make changes.
So if this Cromwell bust is indeed on loan from the Cripplegate Foundation, they may yet insist on its removal from public view.
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