Statue of British Museum founder Sir Hans Sloane removed from pedestal – but not hidden away
Video report by ITV News Correspondent Juliet Bremner
A statue of one of the founders of the British Museum has been removed from its pedestal but is still on show - this time as part of an exhibit explaining his links to the slave trade.
It comes following the removal of the statue of Edward Colston in Bristol, and other statues of individuals involved in the slave trade.
But the museum said the statue of Sir Han is not being hidden away but will be on display to put his story - the good and the bad - in the limelight.
Writer Bonnie Greer said that the move was partly a response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
She said: "The murder of George Floyd made it happen today as opposed to two or three months later but it was always on the cards."
Sloane was a pioneering doctor and explorer who married the heiress of a Jamaican sugar plantation. The slave trade helped him amass his vast collection of specimens and plants.
Historian Mary Beard said: "We can't unwrite it, we can face it and we cam debate it. It's not the removal of Sloane, its the move of him.
"It gets away from the heroes and villains style of history. Either in the past you were a great goodie or a terrible villain, actually, most people in the past were a bit of both."