Bristol Doors Open Days
The Merchants’ Hall
indocilis pauperiem pati
‘One who cannot learn to bear poverty’
What did I learn about our ‘Island Story’
On a squally September rain-swept day,
At the Merchants’ Hall, and Redcliffe Caves?
Well, we formed an orderly queue at the Hall,
Bantering with the pinstriped beadle,
Before our guide escorted us to the hall,
Where our talk began.
It was informative, in a manner of speaking:
The chandeliers are cleaned every two years!
Sixty-eight people can sit at this table!
When a speaker addresses an audience here,
The chairs are moved to face the front!
Princess Anne likes the Merchant Venturers!
Here are pictures of the docks in the 18th century!
(No mention yet…)
Royal Charters galore!
Portraits galore!
One day there will be a woman on the wall!
And a female ‘Master’ of the Society,
And she shalt have the title of ‘Master’!
The voice went on about the Society’s charitable enterprises,
I glanced at a couple of their annual reports:
‘New Schools’ Trust Offers Diversity’
(Conventional trope of girl in a science lab.),
More stuff on academies, residential care for the elderly,
‘Social business’ (sic), almshouses,
The ownership of Clifton Downs,
‘Although some 460 years old, the Society
is fresh and full of vigour and purpose’;
‘ … The Society and Bristol prospered. Trading patterns changed
over the centuries, with the later years marked
by the appalling period of slave trading in the 18th century.’
It all felt a bit Kafkaesque,
An arcane, shadowy world of ruling class disinformation …
Where philanthropy and charity
Obscures the hierarchy of ruling class control…
The clock chimed the hour.
‘Well, that’s the end of the tour. Any questions?’
‘Only the inevitable question about slavery:
How did the Society benefit from slavery?’
‘Well of course, it’s no secret that individual merchants were involved in the slave trade. But not the Society itself.’
Fair enough then.
Off we went into the rain,
Out past the pinstriped bantering beadle,
And down to Redcliffe Caves:
‘Contrary to rumour slaves were never kept in the caves …
slaves were never directly traded through Bristol itself.’
Outside, ignored by most of the throng,
A fenced site, tagged edgeland tumbledown,
Demolition awaiting,
And on the side,
A searing depiction of a slave ship,
A searing work of art,
With this message about our ‘Island Story’:
‘IN MEMORY
of the ones that were
TAKEN AWAY from their
Freedom, STOLEN from
THEIR FAMILIES AND
HISTORY’
I asked an official at the caves:
‘Is this a publicly sanctioned work of art
or a guerrilla memorialization?’
‘Not sanctioned.
It appeared mysteriously overnight about nine months ago.’
It had been an old school sort of day,
So I decided to do some homework back in Stroud,
Got Madge Dresser’s Slavery Obscured down from the shelf,
Leafed through the index to discover:
One:
‘By the beginning of the seventeenth century, Bristol’s Society of Merchant Venturers, first established in 1552, had re-formed and consolidated its position as the most exclusive voice of the city’s overseas merchants. This was the very time which saw the establishment of a British presence in the Caribbean and the mainland colonies.’
Two:
‘In 1690 John Carey acted as an agent for the Merchant Venturers in London and was appointed … along with others, to draw up a petition for Parliament for “letting the merchants of this City to a share in the African trade.”’
Three:
‘In 1692, he advanced the Society of Merchant Venturers £600 towards the building of a new quay and cranes on the Bristol docks, for which he was soon reimbursed.’
Four:
‘Much Clifton property was owned by the Society of Merchant Venturers , and the eighteenth century saw the progressive development in both bespoke and speculative housing … Clifton was awash with slave-based wealth.’
Five:
‘In Bristol, the Society of Merchant Venturers, which had organized a memorial against abolition in March 1788 went on the following year to organize a group of African and West India merchants and manufacturers with related interests to rally around the anti-abolitionist cause.’
The clock chimed the hour.
‘Well, that’s the end of the tour. Any questions?’
‘Only the inevitable question about slavery:
How did the Society benefit from slavery?’
‘Well of course, it’s no secret that individual merchants were involved in the slave trade. But not the Society itself.’