The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised the delay in removing a memorial to slave trade investor Tobias Rustat from Jesus College’s chapel.

At a meeting of Church of England leadership on Tuesday (8/2), Justin Welby asked why it was “so much agony to remove a memorial to slavery?” and said that “We need to change our practices.” 

The College wants to move the memorial to an “educational exhibition space” where it can be “contextualised” but requires permission from the Diocese of Ely to do so.

A group of alumni and descendants have however appealed to the Diocese against the decision, which was the subject of a three-day court hearing last week (02/02-04/02). A final decision is pending.

The hearing has focused on the extent of Rustat’s involvement in the slave trade and how he should be remembered.

Welby’s comments came in response to similar criticisms made by Labour peer and chair of the Archbishops' Racial Justice Commission, Lord Boateng, which asked the assembly to “imagine what it is to go into a place of worship to look up and to see a monument to someone who was a party to the enslavement of your ancestors.” A reference to last week’s comments about Jesus College master Sonita Alleyne’s “pain and discomfort” regarding the memorial. .

He went on: “We are members in churches which have themselves benefitted from the horrors of the slave trade. That is the reality.”

Welby was a student at Trinity College, and said that his conversion to Christianity came after an experience while praying with a fellow Trinity student in 1975.