The bones of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston look set to be kept interred at Bristol's All Saints church, despite attempts to repurpose the building.
According to The Guardian, the Dean of Bristol, the Very Rev Mandy Ford, said church guidance was clear that remains given a Christian burial should not be disturbed except in exceptional circumstances, adding that "the presumption is that they will stay where they are."
Colston is a controversial figure in Bristol and the church. The English merchant and Member of Parliament amassed his fortune through the Royal African Company and the transatlantic slave trade, in which an estimated 100,000 enslaved Africans were transported under his involvement. He used part of that wealth to fund schools, hospitals and churches in Bristol before his death in 1721. In 2020 he returned to public attention, when his statue was toppled and thrown into Bristol Harbour during Black Lives Matter protests.
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Since then, churches across the city have had to confront their own links to Colston. Bristol Cathedral issued a statement in 2020 distancing itself from Colston's legacy, while acknowledging that his charitable bequests still fund schools connected to the Cathedral today.
The Church Commissioners followed in 2023 with a £100m-plus fund to address the wider Church of England's historic links to slavery.
And even before the protest, St Mary Redcliffe removed stained-glass windows commemorating him in 2017, after the diocese's Consistory Court ruled that the church had "a journey of repentance to make" over its historic ties to the slave trade.
All Saints has proved a more difficult case. Removing commemorative imagery and disturbing an actual burial are treated as separate categories under canon law. The Grade II* listed building has been closed to the public since 1984 and was used only as a diocesan education centre until 2015.
Attempts to sell it have come to nothing and demolition has also been ruled out on structural and cost grounds, since the church shares party walls with neighbouring buildings on Corn Street. A proposed conversion into a museum was rejected by Bristol City Council.
The Diocese of Bristol has commissioned a consultation to help decide the building's future. It has engaged particularly with Bristol's African-Caribbean heritage communities, which may potentially lead to the space being repurposed as a space for reflection on the city's slave-trade history, though no final decision has been made.