Tom Devine renews attack on Edinburgh council over Dundas plaque's 'bad history'

Professor Sir Tom Devine hit out after a renowned New Zealand academic called the plaque, which describes the role of Henry ­Dundas in abolition, “patently absurd, erroneous, and bad history” and said the council had a “moral duty” to ­remove it.

“Otherwise, the city faces the grave charge and international opprobrium of falsifying history on a public monument,” said Angela McCarthy, professor of Scottish and Irish history and director of the Centre for Global ­Migrations at the University of Otago in Dunedin.

Despite her intervention, the ­council is adamant the plaque should remain, claiming it is “factually ­accurate” – a claim that has incensed Devine, emeritus professor of history at the University of Edinburgh, who edited the first ever academic study of Scotland’s deep connections to the slave system.

McCarthy is the latest academic to enter the increasingly acrimonious row over the recently installed plaque at the foot of the towering Henry Dundas monument in the city centre. The controversy has escalated in ­recent weeks, with Devine threatening legal action over being branded a racist by Professor Geoff Palmer, Scotland’s first black professor.

Palmer has also accused professor of political and historical sociology at Edinburgh University, Jonathan Hearn, as being part of an “academic racist gang” after he called Edinburgh’s slavery project “strangely superficial”.

The plaque was put up ­following Palmer’s appointment as leader of the city council’s review of statues, street names and buildings with potential links to slavery.

However, Devine ­objected to the claim that Dundas was exclusively instrumental in ­deferring the abolition of the ­Atlantic slave trade when he was home secretary in 1792.

The plaque states that it is ­“dedicated to the memory of the more than half a million Africans whose enslavement was a consequence of Henry Dundas’s actions”.

Since the sign went up in 2020, Devine has argued for its removal on the grounds that is fundamentally ­erroneous and the delay in abolishing the slave trade was not solely due to Dundas’s actions – which some regard as a way of eventually getting the abolition bill through parliament in the face of widespread opposition.

Devine’s arguments have now been backed by McCarthy in a paper for the Scottish Affairs journal. She claims her research into original sources and the work of various historians shows there were many factors leading to the delay of abolition before 1807.

McCarthy concludes that “allegations that Henry Dundas was solely responsible for the enslavement of more than half a million Africans, as asserted on the Dundas plaque in Edinburgh, or that abolition would have been achieved sooner than 1807 without his opposition, are fundamentally mistaken”.

She says that despite claims Dundas worked with West Indian interests to stave off abolition as long as possible, “historical realities were much more nuanced and complex in the slave trade abolition debates of the 1790s and early 1800s than a focus on the role and significance of one politician suggests”.

McCarthy adds: “Sir Tom Devine’s articles in the press last year arguing that broader ‘forces’ were much more important than the role of one individual politician were criticised in public and on social media by some activists. However, the research and conclusions presented here fully support his interpretations.”

However, Edinburgh City Council leader Adam McVey said: “The new wording for the plaque at Melville Monument is factually accurate and was agreed by councillors in June 2020 following input from a panel of representatives and academic checks.

“The ongoing work of the Independent Slavery and Colonialism Legacy Review Group is extremely important not only to be honest about the city’s history – the good, the bad and the ugly – but also to better understand the impact on Edinburgh today.”

He added that the findings of a public consultation would be presented to the council in the “upcoming months”.

In response, Devine said that McVey’s “bold assertion” that the wording of the notorious plaque is “factually accurate” was “worthless”.

“It comes without a shred of evidence and has been demolished by the superb forensic historical analysis of an internationally renowned New Zealand scholar,” he said.

Devine added that the peer-reviewed article was soon to be ­published online – and when it was, “the public humiliation of McVey and his acolytes will be complete”.

“In the interim let us see if he has the courage and honesty to reveal the names of this illustrious ‘panel of representatives’ who agreed on the text of the revised plaque and what ‘academic checks’ were carried out on it,” said Devine. “Then we will all know whether his assertions have any value at all. If he does not do so then his credibility on this issue is shredded.”