A number of news outlets including the BBC have reported that the Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary School is changing its name to The Aldgate School.
The only primary school in the City of London is to be renamed because of its links with a 17th Century merchant and proponent of slavery.
Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary School will change its name to The Aldgate School for the new school year.
A bust and statue of Sir John Cass will also be removed.
It comes as the City of London Corporation launched a consultation to review landmarks with historic links to racism and slavery.
Sir John Cass’s Foundation was set up as an educational charity in 1748 and funds work across London, concentrating on projects for young people.
On the foundation’s website Sir John Cass is described as “a merchant and politician, whose wealth posthumously was used to create the Foundation to deliver educational benefits to disadvantaged children”.
But he was also a major figure in The Royal African Company, which was heavily involved in the Atlantic slave economy.
A statement from the school’s governing board said it was “incompatible” with the school’s values to be “celebrating” Sir John Cass.
“Our school is one in which every child is given full opportunity to flourish, irrespective of their background.
“Governors further proposed that the new school name should be one which is geographical rather than biographical, should retain a sense of the long history of the school and its links to the Sir John Cass’s Foundation and the Church of England, and should celebrate its unique position as the only state-maintained school in the City of London.”
The school said the new name will be adopted as soon as legal approval is granted by the City of London Corporation.
The corporation, which looks after the Square Mile in the capital, said there are a number of statues and road names with links to the slave trade and the public are being asked to consult on renaming them.
The online consultation will run until 24 November.
City of London school changes name ‘due to slavery links’ by Anonymous, BBC News, 2 September 2020: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53985187
This story was also reported by FE News, The London Post and The Daily Mail. The latter claimed “…a bust and statue of Sir John were removed from the primary school back in June when his links to the slave trade were highlighted…” but The Mail story contains a number of inaccuracies and is written with a right-wing culture war spin, so it seems more likely the BBC saying these items will be relocated soon is correct. Likewise, a bust of Cass was removed from nearby St Botolph’s Church in June, while a statue of Cass was taken down from the entrance to the Sir John Cass’s Foundation in July. It is possible that Dan Sales, the incompetent right-wing ideologue The Mail employs as its ‘senior’ online UK ‘reporter’ (previously at The Sun), confused these incidents with what is happening at the Cass primary school.
None of the stories we’ve seen about the Cass primary changing its name mentioned whether Robert Robinson’s seventeenth-century racist panel paintings that are housed in the school building will be taken away. We reproduced Madge Dessers’s critique of these pictures towards the end of a piece we posted in June. We also noted in a number of recent posts that top City of London council officials – including current lord mayor William Russell – have posed in front of these racist images for photo ops when attending the annual celebration of slave trader John Cass. We would hope that there are plans in place to remove Robinson’s racist paintings from the school but given the past form of those involved we wouldn’t assume this to be the case until we see a statement from them saying so. Likewise we’d hope the huge red feather – the symbol of John Cass – has been or will be removed from the outer wall of the school, but again none of the news reports we’ve seen mention it.
Returning to the inadequate BBC report, it uncritically states: “A statement from the school’s governing board said it was “incompatible” with the school’s values to be ‘celebrating’ Sir John Cass.” Any reporter worth their salt would have queried this claim and altered readers to the fact that for hundreds of years and right up to this one (2020), the school and St Botolph’s Church in Aldgate have hosted an annual celebration of slave trader John Cass. The statement the BBC quotes from the school’s governing board, like those of both the City of London council and the Sir John Cass’s Foundation on Black Lives Matter, is hypocritical. Over a number of posts we have covered the involvement of all three of these interlinked organisations in the annual celebrations of slave trader John Cass right up to and including this year. Nonetheless, while much anti-racist work remains to be done and on a less cosmetic level than merely changing the name of an organisation, we are pleased that the Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary School will be known as The Aldgate School when it reopens.
We will address the City of London Corporation consultation to review landmarks with historic links to racism and slavery in a post to follow soon. Needless to say this consultation appears to suffer from a number of shortcomings.
Children in the room containing Robert Robinson’s seventeenth-century racist panel paintings. It is inappropriate for the Aldgate School/Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary School to expose its pupils to this imagery seemingly without any critical commentary on it and the pictures should be removed immediately. Aspects of the school statement about the name change also give cause for concern, particularly a line about: “replacing Founder’s Day with a new, more appropriate ceremony held at St Botolph’s Aldgate.” Given that the annual celebration of John Cass, called Founder’s Day, took place between the school and St Botolph’s, some are likely to see or treat any school event taking place at St Botolph’s as a covert continuation of honouring the slave trader. Founder’s Day should be scrapped not replaced, and to do so any annual school day needs to take place months away from Cass’s birthday in February and avoid going into St Botolph’s Church.
The header is a photo of The Aldgate School AKA Sir John Cass’s Foundation Primary School by Robin Webster taken on 6 April 2019.
RECLAIM EC1 
It is my understanding that only in recent years have the more enlightened amongst the British business class finished paying off the slave owners. Hence the continuation of the celebration of proponents such as Cass. It is obviously a severe shame on all of us – as it was put to me ‘this country is on its knees – spiritually’ – we see it all about us be it via the tawdry on-line culture (harassment/bullying etc) and the continued terrible disparity in wealth and opportunity in the ‘actual’ world played out as if it were some sort of game of no human consequence in the disastrous money (and fame) obsessed political scene. No one is immune.
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