Memories and lives: a new corrective memorial in Bristol Cathedral
In the Winter 2024 of the Art and Christianity journal Alice Kinghorn marks the unveiling of a new corrective memorial in Bristol Cathedral to acknowledge and honour the descendants of those who faced the atrocities of transatlantic slavery.
On 9 October 2024, a new memorial was unveiled at Bristol Cathedral. This corrective plaque memorialises John Isaac, who was born into chattel slavery on a plantation owned by Thomas Daniel, one of Bristol’s most prolific figures in the historic slave economy. The memorial represents the culmination of over four years of dedicated work by Gloria Daniel, the great-great-granddaughter of John Isaac, and her family. Installed by Daniel’s initiative, Transatlantic Trafficked Enslaved African Corrective Historical (TTEACH) Plaques, it now stands as a visible reminder of John Isaac’s life and the lives of the enslaved people whose stories and histories have been omitted from public memory.
The plaque was unveiled by Uriel and Hallam Daniel, John Isaac’s great-grandsons, who both spoke movingly of their family’s journey to make this commemoration possible. Gloria Daniel spoke about the significance of the memorial and emphasised that its unveiling “is more than a symbolic gesture – it is a critical step in confronting the erased and forgotten histories of those who endured the horrors of slavery. By honouring John Isaac, we honour all who were forcibly trafficked and enslaved, ensuring their stories are remembered and their legacies acknowledged.”
The Very Revd Dr Mandy Ford, Dean of Bristol Cathedral, officiated at the unveiling, with the High Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner of Barbados in attendance, along with Peaches Golding, Lord Lieutenant of Bristol. The evening was accompanied by uplifting performances from the Bristol Windrush Reggae Choir. In addition to words from Gloria, Uriel, and Hallam Daniel, the Dean made an address, using the occasion to formally pledge Bristol Cathedral’s commitment to reparative justice:
“The unveiling of this corrective memorial is an important catalyst in healing relationships between human beings as we come to terms together with the impact of transatlantic chattel slavery on our histories and lives. I am deeply grateful to Gloria Daniel for her willingness to assist us in our learning and for this beautiful, truthful and challenging addition to the fabric of the building.”
Her words emphasise the cathedral’s intention to serve as a place of reconciliation and to honour the histories of those previously overshadowed. The corrective memorial is, therefore, a symbol of reshaping the narrative within religious spaces, inviting acknowledgment, accountability, and a commitment to justice in Bristol’s community.
The memorial to John Isaac is further contextualised by recent research which revealed that Bristol Cathedral contains memorials, grave markers, or burial records for at least 200 individuals who are linked to African Chattel Enslavement. Many of these individuals were among Bristol’s wealthiest citizens and were interred or commemorated within the cathedral grounds between 1670 and 1900, amassing profits directly from the slave economy. The 2022 ‘All God’s Children’ exhibition at Bristol Cathedral presented these findings to the public and analysed the extent to which the city’s history is interwoven with profits made from African Chattel Enslavement. Of the roughly 1,000 people memorialised or buried within the cathedral, an estimated 20% maintained close ties to the slave economy. For example, Samuel (1753-1820) and Mary Perry (c.1759-1835) are memorialised by a marble floor marker and marble wall memorial in the South Quire Aisle Gallery. Perry was a merchant and enslaver of Bridgetown, Barbados, and retired to Bristol. Similarly, Philip Freke (1661-1729) a Bristol slave trader and merchant with business interests in sugar refining and distilling, is memorialised alongside his daughter Susanna Freke (1787-1805), on the North wall of the North Quire Aisle. This research remains on semi-permanent display, and visitors can access its findings through Bristol Archives, which holds an index of those commemorated.[1] This publicly accessible index highlights the pervasive complicity that has long been visible, yet unacknowledged, within the cathedral’s fabric.
Now, at the west entrance of the cathedral, the six-foot plaque by Marcia Bennett-Male, crafted from Welsh blue slate radiates tones of grey, blue, and purple, easily visible from across the nave. The inscription of the memorial commemorates John Isaac and ‘at least 4,424 African people whose taken lives enriched Thomas and John Daniel, with one of the largest slavery compensation awards granted by the British government’. When the British government abolished slavery in 1833, £20 million was allocated as ‘compensation’ to slaveholders in its colonies, reimbursing them for their so-called ‘loss of property.’ This sum, one of the largest pay-outs in British history, was managed by the Compensation Commission, which processed over 45,000 individual claims for the ‘freedom’ of approximately 760,000 enslaved people.[2] Thomas and John Daniel, prominent enslavers, and mortgage-holders, were among those compensated, and received one of the highest sums paid. This wording of the memorial explicitly highlights the wealth amassed by Thomas and John Daniel, whose fortune was built on exploitation and sustained through compensation after the abolition of slavery.
The memorial is positioned beneath the ‘Christ in Majesty’ rose window at the cathedral’s west end, originally installed in memory of Thomas Daniel III (1799-1872) and his wife Augusta, commissioned by their children. Thomas Daniel was a part of the third generation of the powerful slave-owning family from Barbados, among Bristol’s wealthiest and most influential families. Known as the ‘King of Bristol,’ Thomas Daniel II (1762-1854), Thomas’s father, wielded immense influence as an enslaver, sugar merchant, and mortgage-holder of Caribbean plantations. Significantly, the rose window is not the only tribute to the Daniels within Bristol Cathedral. Thomas Daniel I (1730-1802) and his wife Eleanor (née Neille, 1737-1774) are also memorialised on a marble plaque located on the north wall of the cloister’s north walk, having been moved from its original position on the west wall of the transept. Eleanor, born in Barbados, was the daughter of John Neille and married Thomas Daniel I in around 1760. The couple settled in Bristol in 1770, and became the parents of the future ‘King of Bristol.’ Although Thomas Daniel III (1799–1872) himself is buried in the family vault at St Margaret’s churchyard in Stoodleigh, Devon, his legacy in Bristol remains memorialised through the rose window dedicated to him and Augusta. Part of a larger gothic revival renovation of a new nave by architect G.E. Street in the 1860s, the rose window was included in the cathedral’s elaborate redesign and was designed and made by Hardman & Co. in 1877. The rose window was restored and repaired in 2017, funded by a gift from an anonymous donor.
The placement of the John Isaac memorial plaque below the window is therefore both symbolic and visually expressive. Positioned symmetrically across from a contextual plaque explaining the rose window’s dedication to the Daniels, the memorial is set within the blind, pointed-arched panels on either side of the main entrance. This positioning creates an effective contrast: the fading inscription on the older plaque contrasts with the design of John Isaac’s memorial, rendered in grey-blue slate with gold accent lettering. This juxtaposition is a significant intervention which will prompt visitors to confront the complex legacy of remembrance within the cathedral.
The memorial incorporates a symbol of a seed pod from the Albizia Lebbeck tree, known in Barbados as the ‘woman’s tongue’: the Albizia tree produces delicate blossoms that mature into seed pods, which, in the dry season, rustle loudly in the wind, making a distinctive sound akin to voices echoing. This seed pod was sourced by John Isaac’s descendants from Newton’s burial ground in Barbados and gathered by Gloria Daniel, who presented it to Bennett-Male for inclusion in the design. Through the collection of the seed pod, the Daniel’s family intent ‘follows the African tradition of ensuring that the deceased are properly laid to rest, so their spirit may find peace and take their place among the protective ancestors.’ The burial ground where the seed pod was collected lies on land that was formerly Newton Plantation, where more than 570 enslaved people were buried. The Newton and Lane families owned the plantation, and the merchant Daniel family traded the sugar cane grown there. Incorporating the seed pod into the design offers a physical symbolic link to Barbados and demonstrates the intention for John Isaac’s descendants ‘to raise their voices where their ancestors’ voices were silenced for so long.’
Bennett-Male is a sculptor and textile artist, whose specialism in crafting designs based on fruit, vegetables, and fauna can be seen in her decorative paving stones at Goose Green, London, as well as more formal statues, headstones, and commemorative plaques. Her teaching experience is expansive, running stone carving workshops at The Royal Academy and The British Museum, while also teaching at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park for over a decade. In 2009 she carved a plaque for St Margaret’s Church at Westminster Abbey, honouring the baptism of abolitionist Olaudah Equiano.
When visiting Bristol Cathedral on a quiet, late afternoon, the light filtering through the windows in the south tower bounces across the stonework of the west entrance. Yet now, visitors’ eyes are no longer drawn to the rose (Daniel) window, but rather to the lettering and gold accents of John Isaac’s memorial, which seems to hold its own dialogue with the cathedral’s fabric. The memorial is a testament to the power of corrective memorials in reshaping how we engage with religious spaces, forging questions that interrogate long-held silences and brings hidden and forgotten lives to the forefront of collective memories.
This is one of many plaques that the TTEACH Plaques initiative hopes to install. The campaign’s mission ‘is to address historical injustices and ensure that the stories of those impacted by this atrocity are honoured and remembered, emphasising the right of descendants to lead the reparative process.’[3] TTEACH Plaques are intended to empower the descendants of African and Caribbean people to research their ‘family name’ and the history of those who profited from the ownership of their ancestors; the initiative also invites descendants of those who profited from the transatlantic slave economy to join them in exhuming this shared painful history and in their campaign for reparative justice.
The unveiling of John Isaac’s memorial followed an exhibition by TTEACH Plaques at Ashton Court Mansion, held from 26 September to 5 October 2024. This travelling exhibition, ’50 Plaques and Places,’ spotlighted the 50 original plaques produced by TTEACH in sites throughout Britain that are incontrovertibly tied to the transatlantic slave economy. Alongside this, 96 illustrations of plaques were exhibited which identify every Bristol resident who was paid compensation for their loss of ‘property’ following the abolition of slavery. The names were taken from UCL’s Legacies of British Slave-Ownership database with support from Dr Nicholas Draper, who provided confirmation on all plaque figures. The exhibition was supported in Bristol by Artspace Lifespace, part of the Bristol DIY Arts Network, as part of their Artist Residences programme. The residency opportunities offered by Artspace Lifespace are for artists in Bristol and beyond to develop specific or open-ended projects and to test works in progress.
Memorials, like this one, are active interventions in spaces of worship, reflection, and visitation. Increasingly, such spaces are being reshaped to include commemorations that confront complex historical legacies. Recent examples include a commemorative plaque and artwork to Quobna Ottobah Cugoano in St James’s Piccadilly, London (see A&C no116), and, also in Bristol, the removal and replacement of stained-glass windows dedicated to Edward Colston in the north transept of St Mary Redcliffe.[4] These changes reflect a wider movement within religious and historical spaces to critically consider whom these spaces elevate and why. In settings like this, where, amid the fabric, there are walls and windows that celebrate wealth amassed through injustice, the memorial to John Isaac redirects our attention. It challenges the historic process of commemoration by re-centring the memory on those who suffered under the Daniel family’s wealth. Bristol Cathedral is an example of a space where memories held are candid and complex, and this plaque sets a positive precedent for future memorials in religious spaces.
Further Reading and Resources
[1] Index of the monuments in Bristol Cathedral that are connected with the trade of enslaved African people: <https://archives.bristol.gov.uk/indexes/cathedral>
[2] See Nicholas Draper, ‘“Possessing Slaves”: Ownership, Compensation and Metropolitan Society in Britain at the time of Emancipation 1834-40,’ History Workshop Journal, 64, 1 (2007), 74-102 (p. 78), and Catherine Hall et al., Legacies of British Slave-ownership. See also Nicholas Draper, The Price of Emancipation: Slave-ownership, Compensation, and British Society at the End of Slavery (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
[3] See TTEACH Plaques at <https://tteachplaques.org>
[4] See Quobna Ottobah Cugoano plaque at <https://www.sjp.org.uk/cugoano-commemorative-plaque/> and the stained glass window replacement at St Mary Redcliffe at ‘SMR Given Permission to Install New Stained Glass’, <http://www.stmaryredcliffe.co.uk/permission-to-install-new-glass>