Edward Colston lies buried at All Saints Church in Corn Street. The precise location of his grave is unknown, and though some claim a body exhumed and then re-interred during building work in 1843 was that of Colston, there are good reasons for thinking the remains were of someone else altogether.
The church does, however, contain a huge monument in his memory, sculpted by John Michael Rysbrack, who also made the William III statue in Queen Square. The memorial comprises a large panel listing some of the churches and charities which benefited from Colston’s money.
But on the matter of Edward Colston’s memorial at All Saints church it’s worth exhuming a curious and utterly grotesque story from Victorian times.
The context: Colston died at his home in Mortlake, Surrey, in October 1721, and his funeral was a grand one. As per his instructions, his body was taken to Bristol to be interred in the family vault at All Saints.
The funeral procession, which took over a week to reach Bristol, comprised a hearse with six horses, eight horsemen in black cloaks carrying bearing banners, and three mourning coaches with six horses to each. Wherever it stopped each night, the coffin was left in a room hung with black drapes and surrounded by 50 candles in silver candlesticks.
The parade arrived at Lawford’s Gate on the night of October 27 to be met by the boys of the schools he supported, along with the residents of his almshouses. The old folk had all been given new clothes for the occasion.
A torchlit procession, with the boys singing psalms, then made its way through driving rain to All Saints, where the interment took place about midnight. The church was packed out.
In the following decades the exact location of his burial was forgotten and so, in 1843, during building work on the church, it was decided to try to establish where he was.
One of the churchwardens later recorded members of the Colston family were in a vault by the vestry door. This vault was opened and found and: “The rotten remains of several wooden coffins” were removed
Of two at the bottom of the vault, one was thought to be that of Sarah Colston, Edward Colston’s niece, who was buried in 1721, the same year as Edward. The other coffin, lined with lead, was that of a man “of good stature” and it was decided this must be Colston himself.
Corpse 'almost of the colour of living flesh, and was firm to the touch'
The body was in a remarkably good state of preservation and was said to look very like the statue of him on his monument in the church.
The coffin was sealed and replaced, but it was opened again a fortnight later at the request of a gentleman claiming to be one of Colston’s descendants.
Now things got really gruesome. Other important men demanded to see the body, too. A contemporary account said: “The body was clothed in a shirt, drawers, and stockings (some portions of which were purloined and appropriated by persons who were present), all of which were yet strong and perfect; the enamel of the teeth was scarcely discoloured.
“On a portion of the upper part of the shirt being removed, the breast appeared almost of the colour of living flesh, and was firm to the touch. The face and arms were very dark; the only portions of the grave clothes that bore any marks of decay were the gloves that covered the hands.”
Artist James Curnock came along to make a sketch of the corpse. The drawing is nowadays in the collection of Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.
Whatever you might think of Colston, the treatment of his mortal remains, the gawping and the theft of pieces of his clothing as souvenirs was, by the standards of any time, ghoulish and horribly disrespectful.
And it probably wasn’t even the corpse of Edward Colston at all.
At the time, a local antiquarian pointed to evidence he had been buried in another part of the church, and that Colston had been buried with his sister Ann, but she was not there.
For many, the most convincing evidence this was not Colston was the fact the body they had disturbed had a full set of teeth in good condition, a very unlikely find in the remains of a man who had died in 1721 at the age of 84.
The actual whereabouts of Colston’s earthly remains have never been definitively established.
In recent weeks the Anglican Diocese of Bristol has carried out work to remove prominent references to Edward Colston in the windows of Bristol Cathedral and St Mary Redcliffe Church.
In a statement, it said: “The fall of the Colston statue on June 7 was a symbolic moment for the city and a signal for change. For us, it is the right moment to take the action we have been considering for some time.
“A cathedral or a church should be a place of sanctuary, justice and peace: a place where God’s glory is worshipped and God’s love is felt.
“The dedications to Colston, in two significant places of worship, has prevented many people from finding peace in these beautiful buildings. Most of these dedications have now gone and the rest will follow.”
The Diocese is still pondering what to do about All Saints, however.
The church is one of Bristol’s oldest. At the very heart of the old city, it dates back to the 12th century, though it has been closed as a place of worship since 1984. Until 2015 it was used as an office, and is still used for some meetings but is rarely open to the public.
In a statement, the Diocese said: “The presence of his grave and tomb has been of concern to us and a limiting factor in terms of the future use of this church for some time.
“Unlike other, Victorian, memorials to Colston in the city, these were erected directly following his death in the 1720s.”
Experts consider the Colston monument in All Saints a significant work of art, regardless of the reputation of its subject matter.
“We need to think very carefully about what can be done with them and the building itself. We would like to engage in conversations and consultation with people in the city including historians, black community leaders and others. Whatever we decide to do must be a positive step forward in the current debate.
“We have not ruled anything out at this stage but we want to proceed both with care and purpose.”
A spokeswoman added turning the church into some sort of museum or memorial to Bristol’s part in the slave trade was a possibility, though just one of many options.