Cecil Rhodes

Rhodes, Columbus and the next heritage battle

17 October 2021 5:31 pm

On 12 October this year, Columbus Day, a statue of the Italian in Belgrave Square was vandalised by activists from…

Rhodes to redemption: why Oxford needs a monument to Benjamin Jowett

17 July 2021 9:00 am

Not since September 1642, when a mob of Parliamentary soldiers opened fire on the sculpture of the Virgin Mary carved…

Roman cancel culture didn’t stop at statues

19 June 2021 9:00 am

The mob is at work again in Oxford, protesting against the existence of Oriel’s statue of Cecil Rhodes. But this…

What happens now that Rhodes didn't fall?

2 June 2021 4:00 pm

Oriel College, Oxford’s decision to retain the statue of Cecil Rhodes has generated the usual voluminous fury. It has also shown it…

The first step towards restoring the National Trust

29 May 2021 9:00 am

It is poetically fitting that the resignation of the chairman of the National Trust, Tim Parker, was announced on the…

The African bush took me back to my boyhood

16 September 2017 9:00 am

Entering the Bulawayo Club, you step out of the blinding African sunshine on that safe and friendly city’s wide streets,…

Moral sainthood is a bore; sinners are much more fun

13 February 2016 9:00 am

Gstaad I had the rather subversive idea of offering a six-figure sum to Oriel College, Oxford. On one condition: that…

Here’s my solution to the problem of what to do with the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College

23 January 2016 9:00 am

Lobengula was the second king of the Matabele people in what is now Zimbabwe. He was also the last. Cecil…

Monumental change: the overthrow of the statue of Napoleon I, which was on top of the Vendôme Column. The painter Gustave Courbet is ninth from the right

A short history of statue-toppling

9 January 2016 9:00 am

Sculptural topplings provide an index of changing times, says Martin Gayford