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Learning from the past is best way to improve the future in wake of petitions to rename Rhodes Arts Complex




When I was first elected to the town council, in 1982, it was the way of things for new councillors to take on membership of outside bodies, and one of my first appointments was to the Rhodes Centre management committee.

At that time there was no Rhodes Birthplace Trust, but there was a dusty old Cecil Rhodes Museum, with half of one floor preserved as it might have been when he was born – including the very bed in the very room in which he arrived, as I recall.

The rest of that floor, and the second floor, were given over to various artefacts and illustrations of African origin. It was a museum of Rhodes' life and times. It had a small library, where the management committee met once a month or so and where various historical documents were kept, including excerpts from the man's diary, which I dipped in to from time to time.

The Rhodes Commonwealth Centre, as the hall was named, was paid for by public subscription and added as a very large rear extension to Netteswell House (Rhodes' birthplace and home to the Cecil Rhodes Museum) in order to generate income that would maintain the museum, but it ended up being a financial burden all of its own.

The hall opened in 1963, but by the time I joined the committee, 19 years later, it had long suffered from neglect and was in a constant state of disrepair. The management committee sought to ensure that the place was keeping its head above water financially and not about to fall down. Political correctness was relatively low on the agenda. It should be noted that, apart from a short period when responsibility for the museum was with the town council, at no time has the property been owned by any local authority, so funding has always been difficult.

I served on the management committee until 1998 and, following a break, rejoined in 2018 as a trustee. I don't recall much debate ever being undertaken about the name of the place, although there was always an awareness of the sensitivity associated with Rhodes. Since the hall opened it has been universally referred to by the public as Rhodes Hall or Rhodes Centre, serving a needed community purpose as an auditorium and large indoor gathering place.

Netteswell House is the birthplace of Cecil Rhodes. Picture: Vikki Lince
Netteswell House is the birthplace of Cecil Rhodes. Picture: Vikki Lince

I found some fascinating stuff in Rhodes' diaries. His most abiding message is the justification of his actions in the name of his monarch and the Empire. His diary suggests that he genuinely considered himself to be on a God-given quest to "civilise" the African "savage" (his word, not mine), to educate him, give him the religion of the Empire and make him a worthy citizen. This was acceptable colonial behaviour and attitude for the times, and achieving it involved gaining power locally, which needed money – lots of it – and the ways in which Rhodes acquired the necessary wealth were not nice: just take what you want and push the locals aside if they got in your way. Education and Christianity came later.

Am I proud of that heritage? Of course not, but none of us can deny that it happened. The revision of history to remove people and events from our past, to erase the record, can be very dangerous. Sensible people learn from the mistakes of their forbears, but if those mistakes are eradicated then they are likely to be repeated again and again, and as a species we will make little progress. That is why we study history and why we have museums.

Of all the hundreds of quotations I have come across by famous people that refer to learning lessons from history, I think the one that sticks with me right now is from R G Collingwood, a philosopher and practising archaeologist and historian, who said: "The value of history is that it teaches us what man has done and thus what man is."

History is how we come to know ourselves and of what we are capable, both good and evil. I argue that the museum, which since 2005 has been known as the Bishop's Stortford Museum, presenting local historic events on a timeline from pre-history to the present day, should continue. On that timeline the Rhodes story is little more than a largish, but important, dot.

Cecil John Rhodes. (36308834)
Cecil John Rhodes. (36308834)

As to renaming the arts centre, of course the trustees are aware of the issues regarding associations with Rhodes. The continuance of the name so far has been little more than a matter of commercial continuity in the identification of the venue, because that's what our customers call it. None of these references to Rhodes are intended to perpetuate the Rhodes 'legend' or to glorify it in any way.

Along with my fellow trustees, I see no reason why the name, like that of the museum, shouldn't be reviewed, and with the upcoming changes that the new arts centre in Old River Lane will bring, together with our transition from a charitable trust to a charity incorporated organisation, this surely is an ideal opportunity to do so.

I see nothing wrong with "The Other Place" as a name, or maybe we could ask the schools to help? I anticipate, however, that whatever we decide, the people of Stortford will continue to call it Rhodes, as they always have, for some time to come.



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