Behind an unassuming door in Edinburgh’s old town lies the university’s Anatomical Museum, where one can find over a thousand human skulls presented in dark-wood glass cabinets. Brought back by explorers, scientists and the military from all over the British empire, these were used by the Edinburgh Phrenological Society for developing racial theories surrounding the supremacy of white Europeans. Although science has moved on from these theories, questions remain over what the university should do with these human remains taken without permission, as well as whether the university should pay reparations for past wrongdoings.
The Anatomical Museum, which opened in 1884, is a testament to the university’s past involvement in the production of racial science. Many of the Phrenological Society’s findings contributed to the production of racial medicine and thought, diffusing ideas on modern understandings of race during the Scottish Enlightenment.
The university has been conducting large scale repatriations since the 1990s. In 2019, the university returned nine skulls taken from Sri Lanka during the British Colonial period in a ceremony including a Wanniyalaeto Vedda elder from Sri Lanka representing the descendants of those whose bodies are kept at the university. The latest repatriations took place in 2023 with the repatriation of skulls to the Mudan community of Taiwan. However, challenges remain for repatriating the rest of the human remains and identifying the communities that they should be returned to.
The Student reached out to the university for a comment on repatriations. A spokesperson said “The university has an open-door policy to repatriation requests and we work with communities around the world to engage with our collections and facilitate the return of remains and artefacts.”
Other efforts by the university include the renaming of the David Hume Tower to 40 George square in 2020, in recognition of the Scottish Enlightenment philosopher’s comments on race.
Despite their complicity in the production of racial science, the university has not issued a formal apology. In contrast, other UK universities such as University College London have apologised for their role in promoting eugenics – the study of selective breeding, often with racist intent.
The university’s benefiting from the slave trade is another area where there have been calls to pay reparations. With calls by Commonwealth leaders for the UK to pay reparations dismissed by Sir Keir Starmer citing the “very long endless discussions” involved, calls for slave trade reparations continuous to provoke controversy.
The university has profited from benefactors tied to the slave trade such as Sir David Baxter and Mary Ann Baxter, whose wealth can be attributed to the production and exportation of linen used to clothe enslaved people. The university sought funds from the British colonies to build Old College with funds coming from plantation owners, slave traders as well as those resident in Britain with financial links to the slave trade.
A 36-page interim report published in March 2024 highlights the university’s commitment to fighting current racial injustice, improving access to material archives and decolonising the curriculum. Other efforts by the university to confront their slave trade involvement include hosting a guest lecture in 2023 that discussed how institutions have sought to repair the impacts of slavery and racial science.
The university issues a Modern Slavery Statement updated yearly outlining their measures for preventing human trafficking and modern slavery, as well as stressing their “zero-tolerance approach to slavery and human trafficking in all its forms”. However, the university has not issued an apology for their historical ties to the slave trade. In contrast, the City of Edinburgh issued a public apology in 2022 for the city’s links with slavery and colonialism.
Other UK universities such as the University of Glasgow have been taking more substantive reparatory action. In 2019, the University of Glasgow implemented a restorative justice scheme in collaboration with the University of the West Indies, devoting £20m for the construction of a public health and economic growth research centre in the Caribbean in recognition of the lasting impacts on slavery within the region.
In acknowledgement of the work left to be done in confronting the university’s legacies of enslavement and colonialism, the university has stated “We recognise that, in undertaking this work, we are at the beginning, rather than at the end of a long process”. The university is set to release their finalised report on their legacies of enslavement and colonialism in December 2024 . Commissioned by Principal Peter Mathieson as part of the Decolonised Transformations Project in 2021, the report will provide recommendations for confronting past involvement in producing racial science and benefiting from the slave trade, outlining the next steps for pursuing reparatory justice.
“File:Old College, University of Edinburgh (24923171570).jpg” by LWYang from USA is licensed under CC BY 2.0.