David Howie Scott, director of the popular Howie’s restaurants, wants to put a bronze plaque commemorating the 19th-century anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass outside premises at 29A Waterloo Place (26/00212/LBC).
Proposed wording for the 330mm x 500ml memorial is:
Frederick Douglass (1818–1895)
In this building on 1 May 1846, America’s leading abolitionist spoke
to a crowded public meeting about the injustice of slavery.
Born on a Maryland plantation in 1817, before escaping he taught
many of his fellow enslaved people to read. Douglass chose his
freeman surname from a character in Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Lady of the
Lake’ and was a great admirer of Robert Burns.
After the publication of his autobiography, Frederick became a
literary sensation, but with fame came an increased risk of being re-
enslaved. To avoid this, he set sail for a speaking tour of Britain and
Ireland. He was appointed “Scotland’s Anti-Slavery Agent”, and his
powerful speeches helped to bring about the legal abolition of slavery.
'Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave, denouncing slaveholders and their religious abettors' from The Uncle Tom’s Cabin Almanack; or, Abolitionist Memento for 1853 (London: 1852) (detail).
A wax prototype of the proposal appears in the planning application as shown below.
There are acknowledged differences between the wording of the prototype and the wording included in the planning application. The most significant concerns the final sentence (‘Sadly the evil practice still continues in many places – even here’), which has been cut.
Perhaps the memorial’s backers struggled to find a form of words which succinctly and clearly distinguished between the problem of crypto-slavery in the world generally and the perfectly lawful and respectable employment practices of this building’s occupant today.
Contemporary accounts of the 28-year-old Douglass’s Edinburgh speaking engagements on 1 May 1846, including his appearance at the then Waterloo Rooms, are here.
Douglass later helped formulate the memorable slogan: ‘Right is of no sex, truth is of no color – God is the Father of Us All, and All We are Brethren.’ It is a phrase which has proved inspirational and open to multiple interpretations ever since.
Readers may remember the last time Spurtle covered the life and local remembrance of Frederick Douglass. His words briefly appeared on the dripping walls of Rodney Street Tunnel in October 2021.
The world is a disturbing place. This is a good time to remember a local American hero.
