the times | Thursday February 3 2022 2GM 7
News
Cambridge students campaigning to
remove the memorial of a former bene-
factor over his links to the slave trade
sent multiple emails repeating the same
“false narrative”, a court was told.
Jesus College undergraduates target-
ed the 17th-century philanthropist
Tobias Rustat, a courtier to Charles II,
after it emerged that he had held a lead-
ership position in the slave-trading
Royal African Company.
The court hearing, one of the first of
its kind, is examining whether Rustat’s
marble memorial should be removed
from the historic chapel and placed in a
separate exhibition area.
The college is petitioning the consis-
tory court, which deals with matters of
law relating to the church. Such a hear-
ing, with witnesses, can be convened
when there are serious objections to
changes involving church buildings.
Objections are being put by the
barrister Justin Gau on behalf of a
group of alumni called the Rustat
Memorial Group.
The court, presided over by Judge
David Hodge QC, was told yesterday
that students sent emails repeatedly
accusing Rustat, who donated large
sums to the college, of being “heavily
involved” in slavery.
The emails said: “It’s wrong for the
statue of someone who was so heavily
involved in the horrific crimes of slav-
ery to be glorified in our community.”
Gau asked the Rev James Crockford,
Jesus College’s dean of chapel, where
the phrase had come from: “Again and
again undergraduates are [in at least 21
emails] writing the same sentence ac-
cusing Rustat of being heavily involved
in slavery and being glorified.. .”
Gau said students had been given a“false narrative” about Rustat and ac-
cused the college’s legacy of slavery
working party of withholding informa-
tion about him.
He said that there was “no demon-
stration in any document that Tobias
Rustat was any sort of slave trader”. Healso asked the dean where in the gospel
slavery was condemned.
Sonita Alleyne, the master of Jesus
College, suggested that the college per-
formed a U-turn on taking grants from
companies linked to the Chinese state
over the treatment of Uighur Muslims.ATLANTIC CAMPAIGNS PENNYBIRD/SWNST
wo British women
with no experience
have broken the
world record for the
fastest female pair
to row 3,000 miles across the
Atlantic (Will Humphries
writes).
Jessica Oliver, 29, and
Charlotte Harris, 30, fought
30ft waves, sleep deprivation,
hallucinations, heat, blisters,
capsizing and a mid-ocean
collision to beat 35 other
teams from across the world
in the Talisker Whisky
Atlantic Challenge.
The two friends, who met
at Cardiff University ten
years ago, finished five days
before their nearest rivals
when they powered their
boat Cosimo into Antigua on
January 26. They also wiped
five days off the female pairs
record, with 45 days, 7 hours
and 25 minutes.
“It was the most emotional,
overwhelming experience
ever. I’m still in shock, I can’t
believe it,” Oliver said. “We
threw the oars down, jumped
up and down and gave each
other the biggest hug and fell
over. It was amazing.”
Oliver, from Dowdeswell,
Gloucestershire, and Harris,
from Fleet, Hampshire,
signed up to row the Atlantic
in February 2020 as their
“next challenge”, havingundertaken marathons,
triathlons and a Kilimanjaro
climb. Neither had rowed
before and they did not
expect to break any records.
They had to find sponsorship
and a boat and begin a
two-year training regime.It was within a few days of
the race starting from La
Gomera in the Canary
Islands on December 12 that
the two novices realised they
were in with a shout of
achieving a world record.
“Initially we set out to justcross safely,” said Oliver, a
customer relations
consultant. “Then we started
doing the maths and thought,
‘Oh my gosh, do you know
what? We can really push for
this world record.’ So we just
focused. It was such amotivation. Every time we
got on the oars we put
everything into it. It was long
and absolutely brutal, but
well worth it.”
Harris, who works in
procurement for a drinks
company, said: “We’reamazed we even completed
the challenge. It shows that
you really can do anything
you put your mind to.”
The pair have raised
£43,000, out of a target of
£100,000, for Shelter and
Women’s Aid.Novices
set record
for rowing
Atlantic
Charlotte Harris, left, and Jessica Oliver, who is from an Irish family, rowed from the Canary Islands to Antigua in 45 days, five days faster than the record for a female pairAtlantic
Ocean
500 milesCanary
IslandsCaribbeanLa Gomera
AntiguaStudents in slave trade row ‘were fed lies’
James Beal Social Affairs Editor Gau said the subject was a matter of
“ethics” because the college had accept-
ed Chinese grants in the past.
Alleyne said: “The research grants
you are alluding to were secured before
my arrival at the college and before the
UN and the UK looked at what was
happening in Xinjiang.”
The Times previously revealed that
the college had accepted £200,
from a Chinese government agency
and £155,000 from Huawei.
Alleyne, the first female and black
master of any Oxbridge college, asked
the hearing: “Which murder, which
lynching... how much sin do you need
to have before you come off the wall?”
In 1671 Rustat donated £2,000, the
equivalent of £450,000, to Jesus Col-
lege, his father’s alma mater, for
scholarships for orphan sons of Angli-
can clergymen. Jesus College, following
consultations with its legacy of slavery
working party, submitted an applica-
tion to the Diocese of Ely last year pro-
posing that the memorial be moved.
Undergraduates claimed that those
opposing the memorial’s removal were
“white supremacists” and a “racist
minority”, instead of a band of 70 alum-
ni, the court was told.
However, the dean said that students
had been “disturbed and upset” by it.
Mark Hill QC, representing the peti-
tioners trying to move the memorial,
insisted that the case was not about
“erasing, cancelling or nullifying” it.
The judge will hear three days of
evidence before ruling at a later date.
Behind the story
T
he name of
Tobias Rustat
has been
celebrated at
Jesus College,
Cambridge, since 1671,
when he gave £2,000 to
fund scholarships for
orphaned children of
Anglican clergy (James
Beal writes).
His donation, the
equivalent of £450,000 in
today’s money, earned
him a memorial in the
college’s chapel, designed
by the studio of the famed
sculptor Grinling
Gibbons. But the intricate
white marble design is
now under threat of
removal by the very same
college to which Rustat
gave generously.
Jesus College has
sought to remove
numerous references toRustat, including a
portrait, because of his
involvement in the
Royal African
Company.
Born in 1608, the son
of a Leicestershire vicar
rose to become a
courtier to Charles II.
An ardent royalist, he
accrued wealth from his
career at court, becoming
a philanthropist and
giving money to several
Cambridge colleges. They
included Jesus College,
where his father had
been a student. In 1667 he
donated £1,000 to create
the first fund for the
purchase of books at the
Cambridge University
Library. His scholarship
at Jesus College led to
Rustat scholars including
the poet Samuel Taylor
Coleridge being educatedsingle institution” during
the transatlantic slave
trade.
Jesus College wants to
remove the memorial in
the wake of the Black
Lives Matter movement,
which gathered pace after
the 2020 murder of
George Floyd in the US.
But a band of 70
alumni, the Rustat
Memorial Group, lodged
a formal objection to stop
the removal and raised
funds to instruct an
ecclesiastical barrister.
Descendants of Rustat
argue that the Royal
African Company was not
the source of the money
he gave to the college.
Stephen Hemsted, 73,
Rustat’s tenth great
nephew,said last year:
“He made his money in
the court of Charles II.”The marble memorial is
dedicated to Tobias Rustatat the university. But
Rustat also became a big
investor, alongside
Charles II and his brother
the Duke of York, in the
Royal African Company,
which transported almost
150,000 slaves to the
Americas.
William Pettigrew, a
historian, claimed that
the firm “shipped more
enslaved African women,
men and children to the
Americas than any other