The latest victim in this summer’s mania could be the name of one of London’s best-known and wealthiest areas: Holland Park, in the west of the capital.
A monument in the park itself, of the 19th-century politician Henry Vassall-Fox, the third Baron Holland, was splattered with red paint on Wednesday. After, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea suggested that the park, underground station and entire district could end up being renamed.
The park and neighbourhood was named after Henry Fox, the first Baron Holland. His descendent, the third Baron, technically owned slaves and dozens of plantations in Jamaica through his wife’s estate. Hence this weeks’ desecration, with a cardboard sign left perched in the bronze statue’s arms reading ‘I owned 401 slaves.’
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The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea now says that the statue could be placed under review as part of a ‘conversation about the figures we see in our public realm’.
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