London to pay tribute to victims of slave trade with memorial, says mayor

London is to have a memorial commemorating the victims of the transatlantic slave trade, the first such monument of its scale in Britain, the mayor has announced.

The memorial will be built in West India Quay in the capital’s Docklands, close to warehouses that were built to house goods produced through slavery.

Debbie Weekes-Bernard, the deputy mayor for communities and social justice, said the intention was to give Londoners “a dedicated space … where they can reflect, where they can memorialise and remember the impact the transatlantic slave trade had on the enslaved and their descendants”.

It would also serve as a reminder of the role London had played in the slave trade, and the huge wealth it acquired through it, she said.

“What’s incredibly important and unique about what we’re seeking to do is to recognise that while London as a city was a place in which a lot of … discussions took place around the abolition of that slave trade, it was also a place … where benefits were accrued. It was a place where legislation was made, that enabled that slave trade to continue and to develop.

“It is a city whose wealth was built on the backs, the lives, the experiences of those who were enslaved. We see it in our institutions, we see it in our buildings, we see it in our public realm.”

Notably, the statue or monument will sit very close to the former site of a statue of Robert Milligan, a prominent 18th-century trader and slave owner, which was taken down in 2020 by Tower Hamlets council and other stakeholders after protests. It is now in the collection of the nearby Museum of London Docklands, which is consulting on what should happen next.

City Hall has promised £500,000 to the project and will seek further contributions to fund the memorial, which is scheduled to be unveiled in 2026. The final cost of the project will depend on the successful bid, it says.

An artist will be chosen by competition after a community consultation to design the artistic brief, and submissions will also be sought for a number of other commemorations at “satellite sites” around the city.

The project has been devised by the mayor’s commission on diversity in the public realm, set up by Sadiq Khan in 2020 after anti-racism protests, “to commemorate those from every community who have made London what it is”. The commission has already funded 70 projects across 24 boroughs including statues, artworks and walking tours, City Hall says.

Related: Like it or not, we all bear some responsibility for slavery | Letters

Weekes-Bernard said the plan to establish multiple “satellite” projects across the city was “a really exciting part of this process”. They would not necessarily be statues or even fixed memorials, she said. “We know that there are lots of different parts of the city that have got links to the story of the transatlantic slave trade in London. We want to recruit artists to help us to identify where those places are, and then to work with organisations, individuals, people in those parts of the city, [to tell us] what that could look like there.”

“It is vital our public spaces reflect the heritage of our great city – in all its diversity and complexity,” Khan said. “This memorial will help commemorate the victims of a dark, yet formative chapter of our history.

“I want everyone to be able to take pride in our public spaces and by being candid about our history, and its enduring legacy, we are creating a better and fairer London for all.”

The historian David Olusoga said the memorial would be for all Londoners. “The profits from the trade in enslaved people and from their exploitation on the plantations of the Americas helped build London’s wealth. Today London is home to over a third of a million people who are descended from those enslaved people. This is a shared history.”