Hull City Council’s City Realm team have showcased their vision for the city at pop-up exhibitions in the main shopping centres. This has been with the purpose of getting public views on moving the monument. We have been told that their decision will be made public soon.
In the meantime we continue to appeal to schools within Hull and East Riding to broaden their students’ knowledge about Wilberforce, abolition and slavery. This is of local and national importance at the moment. Great focus is currently being placed by many nations on the scourge of slavery, which is indiscriminately impacting on the established and emerging economies of the world.
Hull had a part to play in the past and it is only right that we should have direct involvement now through the efforts of Diana Johnson MP. Awareness about the very real presence of modern slavery is being created by groups like ours and others which have evolved in recent times; we all have a duty to care.
We have had constructive consultations with WISE, Trinity Church, Hull Heritage Learning and St Nicholas Primary School with many more visits planned. We have learnt that the curriculum for primary education has changed, creating the space for schools to study key local icons and their local area.
With this in mind, it is our hope that the subject of Wilberforce and equality will become a familiar theme, especially in this region. To help with this, we continue to put links and resources on the blog. Heritage Learning can also provide museum-based learning.
Many thanks to Saphia at Amnesty International for donating the learning pack Slavers & Privateers – the Story of A Sorry Chapter in the History of Liverpool.
Thanks also to Caroline Skipper for copies of Ending the Slave Trade with William Wilberforce of Hull, written by the pupils of St Nicholas Primary and John Haden.
All hard copies of publications are available for loan to schools on request.
The image shows some of the hard copies of the resources that we have. Plenty more resources are available in the About Slavery section of the blog.
