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Remembering 1807: Lessons from the Archives


 This article offers new perspectives on the commemorative events organized around the UK in 2007 to mark the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act (1807). Drawing from the resources contained in Remembering 1807, a digital archive of information about nearly 350 events and exhibitions held in 2007, it offers a closer look at the variety, diversity and creativity of projects organized by heritage organizations and community groups from all parts of the UK. While agreeing that much of the national narrative focused on the celebratory aspects of Britain’s role in abolition, we argue that many other projects gave voice to a wide range of concerns relating to transatlantic slavery, challenging participants to rethink the boundaries of slavery and abolition in Britain’s public history. This included highlighting the role of transatlantic slavery in hitherto unexplored areas of British history, in local stories and in broader narratives of Britain’s commercial, military, and imperial expansion. Other projects drew attention to the lasting legacies of slavery, emphasized stories of resistance or celebrated the Black presence in Britain. Recognizing these other perspectives within the commemorative impulse in 2007 can help us to (re)orientate future memory work around Britain’s role in transatlantic slavery.

dismissed for its shortcomings, 2007 should be seen as a pivotal moment in our nation's public history, one that in many cases opened up new ways of confronting the legacies of British involvement in transatlantic slavery. What follows is based on research drawn from Remembering 1807, a digital archive launched in 2017 and produced by researchers at the University of Hull. 4 The resource contains data on nearly 350 events and exhibitions that took place around the UK in 2007, collected via consultations with heritage organizations and community groups, and through targeted searches online and in national and local repositories. 5 Some of these bicentenary events were self-funded. A large proportion of them, however, were funded from the Heritage Lottery Fund's commitment of a substantial sum (between £15 and 20 million) between 2006 and 2008, made available to museums, libraries, archives, universities, galleries, theatres, churches, schools, local history societies, youth groups, community groups, filmmakers and others. 6 (Fig. 1) Remembering 1807 captures the full range and diversity of these projects, while at the same time archiving the surviving materials and making them available in a readily accessible format. 7 In doing so, it provides researchers with the first comprehensive guide to how Britons remembered 1807, illuminating what the UK chose to remember about transatlantic slavery in 2007, and just as importantly, what the nation chose to forget. 8 As Catherine Hall has argued, 2007 started a 'national conversation' on slavery and the politics of race, and provoked new questions over collective memory: what was to be remembered and how? 9 Remembering 1807 endorses this view. While it is true that many 2007 projects up and down the country celebrated the achievements of Wilberforce and other abolitionists, others were much more hard hitting, particularly those that highlighted the role of transatlantic slavery in hitherto unexplored areas of British history, in local stories and in broader narratives of Britain's commercial, military and imperial expansion. As we shall see, many community-led projects also drew attention to the lasting legacies of slavery: prejudice, discrimination, racism. Equally striking was the emphasis on resistance and what the enslaved did to free themselves. Others celebrated the Black presence in Britain, or else sought to identify and preserve archives of Black history. Some of these projects were admittedly small in scale, nevertheless they had a significant impact, challenging observers and participants to rethink the boundaries of slavery and abolition in Britain's public history.
'GENTLEMEN SLAVERS': BRITAIN, WEALTH AND ENRICHMENT 10 Several projects organized in 2007 encouraged a consideration of how and where the vast profits generated from the rise in demand of slave-produced goods like sugar, coffee and tobacco was spent. This honest appraisal of Britain's role in transatlantic slavery (and the huge material benefits accrued to the nation) provided a counterpoint to the focus on abolition and the celebratory mood of the 'better times we live in today', in the words of then Prime Minister Tony Blair. Many of Britain's landowning families owned or invested in slave-worked plantations in the Caribbean, as revealed in the histories of some of Britain's stately homes. 11 For example, Re:interpretation, a partnership project between the National Trust and the creative education company Firstborn Creatives, exposed linkages with the transatlantic slave trade in the histories of several National Trust properties in the South-West, by utilizing creative media and supporting community research. At Harewood House in West Yorkshire, several interrelated projects highlighted the wealth accrued by the Lascelles family in the eighteenth century from their slave-worked estates in Barbados, Jamaica, Grenada and Tobago. Examinations of this legacy included a large-scale production of Carnival Messiah in the house grounds. Similarly, the Bittersweet exhibition at Tissington Hall in Derbyshire examined life on four Jamaican sugar plantations inherited by the FitzHerbert family. 12 (Fig. 2) The complex historical legacies of this wealth are tied up in the development of British industry and commerce. Victorian cities and merchant entrepreneurs of Britain's Industrial Revolution grew rich from lucrative trading relationships with slavery at their heart, such as cotton, tobacco, guns and ships. The Cotton Threads project in Bury was not alone in exploring the links between Britain's booming textile industry in North-West England and the importation of cotton from the slave-worked plantations of the United States; Hetty, Esther and Me, for example, a play written and performed by school pupils at Quarry Bank Mill in Styal, centred on the connections between slave-produced cotton and child labour in English mills. 13 In the Midlands, exhibitions such as Sugar Coated Tears at Wolverhampton Art Gallery (Fig. 3) and Trade Links: Walsall and the Slave Trade examined how the area's industrial history was entangled in empire and slavery in the problematic legacies of the city's gun, chain, iron, and tool manufacturing industries. 14 Several bicentenary initiatives examined the subtle forms of enrichment from slavery, infiltrating all corners of the social and cultural development of British life. Bittersweet: Sugar, Spice, Tea, Slavery by Gateway Gardens Trust, for example, examined links between the slave trade, sugar, cotton and tea, in the financing of many gardens of grand houses in Wales. Initiatives by the Bath Preservation Trust looked at how connections to plantations in the Caribbean enhanced the luxury of eighteenth-century life in Bath, through objects, paintings and furniture. Traces of the history of transatlantic slavery can be found in architectural heritage and landmarks. 'It Wisnae Us!' Glasgow's built heritage, tobacco, the slave trade and abolition by Glasgow Built Preservation Trust assessed the impact of the tobacco and sugar trades on the built environment of Glasgow in an exhibition and city trail. 15 Part of the Slaves and Highlanders project by Cromarty Courthouse Museum involved the placing of a plaque in the former Royal Northern Infirmary (now the executive office of the University of the Highlands and Islands), which remains one of the few public acknowledgements of the use of profits from slavery to fund charitable public institutions. In Bristol, St Stephen's was once the city's harbour church, which effectively 'blessed' slave trade ships leaving the prosperous port, and which benefited from slave merchants' donations. This history was acknowledged in the Reconciliation Reredos project, from which a new altarpiece for the 'HIDDEN HISTORIES' AND LOCAL STORIES 17 A further avenue of interest for bicentenary projects was an engagement with the histories and experiences of local communities, as museums, archives and heritage organizations sought to demonstrate the meaning and relevance of the history of slavery to British localities. 18 Projects linked local people, places, and institutions to the larger national and international histories of slavery and anti-slavery via local abolitionists, African residents, merchants and landowners, buildings and street names, local businesses and manufacture. Importantly, there was a new awareness of slavery's contribution to British history beyond the port cities of London, Bristol, Liverpool and Hull. Remembering 1807 maps these connections to slavery and the slave trade across diverse regions of the UK, from rural Wales to Essex, Guernsey to the Yorkshire Dales, Bromley to Aberdeen. A number of books were published illuminating local themes. 19 The heritage walk or trail was a popular way of shedding light on this local history, taking place for instance in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Camden, Croydon, Deptford, East Riding of Yorkshire, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Greenwich, Hertfordshire, Hull, Ipswich, Lambeth, Lancaster, Leyton, Liverpool, Musselburgh, Newcastle, Southwark, Sunderland, the West India Docks and Westminster. Extensive research projects in the North East of England and East Anglia utilized local archive collections to uncover extensive local involvement in slavery and abolition. 20 In many ways this approach is unsurprising. The study of local history is one of connection, pride and meaning; many organizations tied their commemorative projects to 'a sense of place', to borrow from the title of Bristol Libraries' Bristol 1807 initiative, in order to understand the relevance of slavery to the history of their town or area in 1807 and today.
Close analysis of individuals and family connections excavated wider themes, in particular previously untold stories relating to the local Black British presence, a growing field of historical enquiry. 21 Several projects looked at people of African descent who lived and worked in Britain as servants. 22 Edward Juba, for example, was a former slave who rose from being the servant of Lord Wentworth to become the first Black Freeman in the City of Leicester. 23 Samuel Mudian worked as a butler at Carshalton Park House in the London Borough of Sutton for George Taylor, owner of plantations in St Kitts and Nevis. Evidence of the favour in which he was held is found in Taylor's will, by which Mudian is left £50 on the condition that he was living with Taylor at the time of his death. 24  For example, the Fisk Jubilee Singers toured Britain in the late nineteenth century, raising money to build a University for African-Americans; one of the singers, Thomas Rutling, settled in Yorkshire. 26 Highlighting connections to an individual was a popular way to uncover local links to slavery, and many local histories chose to focus on the work of abolitionists with associations in a particular area: William Wilberforce Without doubt, Olaudah Equiano was the most prominent individual of African descent to feature in bicentenary initiatives. The former slave who became an author and abolitionist had whole projects and exhibitions dedicated to studying his life and work, and was mentioned in many others. 28 Equiano married a local woman from Soham in Cambridgeshire, hence the focus on his story in Soham at the Time of the Abolition (a partnership project between Soham Village College, Soham Museum and Soham Action 4 Youth). Local connections were employed to tell the stories of other Black abolitionists and writers. The author Ignatius Sancho, for example, born in 1729 on board a slave ship, featured in Trading in Lives: The Richmond Connection (he had once lived in the town) and Young Runaway Slaves at the V&A Museum of Childhood. At Epping Forest District Museum, the film The Longest Journey detailed the life of autobiographer James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw: captured into slavery as a child in present-day Nigeria, once freed he travelled to England where he lived and worked in Colchester. Enslaved in West Africa as a boy, Samuel Ajayi Crowther (1807-91) was released from a slave ship when it was intercepted by a Royal Navy anti-slave-trade patrol. He and his family were resettled in Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he attended the Church Missionary Society's school and then college; he later became the first African bishop of the Anglican church. His story featured in two projects (Crowther's Journey by Southwark Pensioners Black History Group and the exhibition Samuel Ajayi Crowther: From slave boy to African national hero at Islington Local History Centre, celebrating links to where he trained as a minister). The radical preacher and anti-slavery advocate Robert Wedderburn, born in Jamaica to an enslaved mother and a plantation-owning father, was the subject of a commemoration walk in Musselburgh, organized by the National Trust. The walk ended at the Gardens of Inveresk Lodge, once owned by his father, James Wedderburn. 29 'FREEDOM FROM THE PAST': RESISTANCE, COMMUNITY AND LEGACIES 30 As Lola Young powerfully wrote in 2007, a 'damaging side effect of the focus on white people's role in abolition is that Africans are represented as being passive in the face of oppression'. 31 This is a common criticism of slavery and abolition remembrance in the UK: that historically the popular narrative has too often ignored Black agency on Caribbean or US plantations. 32  Many of these initiatives were examples of community activism, which arguably lay at the heart of 2007's bicentenary commemorations, as many projects sought to examine the contemporary relevance of 1807 and transatlantic slavery to the UK's diverse communities. 35 Such responses around the UK were varied, from photography (the Freedom Roads exhibition by London Metropolitan Archives at Guildhall Art Gallery featured contemporary photographic portraits of people of African descent whose work has contributed to the struggle for human rights); to community radio broadcasts (Three Continents, One History led by the African-Caribbean Millennium Centre explored the historical links between Birmingham, the slave trade, colonialism and the Caribbean); to film (The Living Memory Lab involved people from local communities in Plymouth making short films on slavery and abolition). 36 The quest for different perspectives was clear. To take one example, Leicester's Black History Season in 2007 marked the bicentenary with an aim to redress the 'Eurocentric point of view' of abolition with a focus on the 'Afrikan perspective'; the theme of the season was 'Souls of Black Folk'. Another prominent point of interest was the preservation of community archives, memories and family histories. Bristol Black Archives Partnership collected documents, objects and photographs from Bristol's African-Caribbean population and organizations and made them accessible via Bristol City Council's main archive collections. Family history, experiences and cultural responses of twenty-five African and Caribbean families in the North-East was the focus of the Changing Perspectives by North East England African Community Association. Leicester Libraries collected oral histories about health and healing from African Caribbean people passed down through the generations in the Calabash project.
Explorations of identity were a key theme of the bicentenary, particularly in youth projects. In The Adisa Project: Bristol Faces, Afrikan Footsteps (a collaborative partnership project between Bristol Museums and local youth and community groups) twenty young people of African and African Caribbean heritage researched the history and legacy of Bristol's involvement in the trade in enslaved Africans, and went on a two-week trip to Ghana to learn about the country's history and culture. For Road to Freedom, Eastside Community Heritage worked with young people from West Ham and Stratford to explore the significance of the bicentenary in the context of their own history in London and in British history more widely. Research at various museums led to the production of a documentary-drama and a touring exhibition. Youth initiatives focused on resisting the legacies of slavery made creative use of film and music. Video ART (Anti-Racist Trails) Postcards explored connections between slavery, colonialism and contemporary issues of racism in the West India Docks area of London using video 'postcards' for self-expression. 37 Hidden Histories by Ground Up Development worked with young people from South London to examine the impact of the African diaspora using film, creative workshops, and visits to heritage sites. Some projects tied racism to other forms of prejudice. For example, the educational resource pack A' Adam's Bairns? from the National Library of Scotland and the Scottish Development Education Centre explored equality and diversity in Scotland, and looked at attitudes and behaviours linking racism, sectarianism, prejudice and ignorance. 38 Collaborations between Black community groups and heritage organizations occurred frequently in 2007, as community consultation was regarded as an essential part of informing and improving mainstream heritage interpretations. One of the largest collaborative community initiatives was the Leeds Bicentenary Transformation Project by Leeds West Indian Centre, with a focus on commemorating the Abolition Act by 'highlighting African achievement, liberation and aspirations'. It brought together community groups, churches, local activists and the University of Leeds. As Project Director Carl Hylton commented: 'One advantage of the commemorations was that groups who never talked to each other now had a reason to'. 39 Community consultation was also a major component of many projects, amongst others, Parallel Views: Black History in Richmond (Orleans House Gallery), an exhibition and community engagement programme; Beyond the Bicentennial, 1788-1838: Exploring 50 Years of the Slave Trade (Peterborough Museum and the Peterborough branch of the African Caribbean Forum), which interpreted museum objects and made local connections to the era of abolition; and Norfolk's Hidden Heritage, which researched the links between Norfolk, transatlantic slavery and Black heritage. 40 Freedom From the Past: Long Time Coming was a collaboration between the Northamptonshire Black History Association (NBHA), English Heritage and local schools and churches. The NBHA committee issued a statement in 2007 explaining that 'our commitment was not to a one-off commemoration of slavery, but to the long-term history of Black achievements in Britain and across the world'. 41 Indeed, this question of longevity was one of many issues raised as to the preparedness of heritage institutions for working directly with communities as key 'interpreters' of the historical record. Black community-based and pan-Africanist organizations were able to exert influence over the way in which the bicentenary played out; in particular through consultation networks and events such as the 2007 Cross-Community Forums, which began in 2005. 42 Yet, as Colin Prescod has argued, many Black community groups registered frustration and disappointment about lost opportunities and feelings of alienation in 2007 and after. 43 As a result, there was a marked reluctance on the part of some Black groups to publicly associate with 'official' bicentenary commemorations. 44 'CHANGING PERSPECTIVES': LOOKING TOWARDS 2033 AND 2038 45 Where does this survey of how 1807 was remembered leave us? Heritage responses to Britain's history of transatlantic slavery did not start in 2007, but that year was undoubtedly a milestone, if only because of the unprecedented sums put aside by the British government to mark the bicentenary. The vast extent of commemorative activity relating to transatlantic slavery in 2007 demonstrates how anniversaries are dominant in setting the public history agenda in the UK. In the last few years a plethora of commemorations have ranged from Magna Carta 800, the founding of Parliament, the centenary of (some) women being given the vote, and the very many anniversaries connected to the First World War. In the right circumstances, anniversaries can provide an opportunity for institutions to engage with new and existing audiences. However, there is a danger that well-meaning attempts to mark commemorations concerned with Britain's complex histories of slavery and empire can frustrate and alienate some community groups working in this area. Studies of transatlantic slavery can never be 'history': implicit in such efforts is the central ambiguity of commemorating an 'end' of something that is not itself over, with legacies still very influential. 46 What is the value of having a year of programmes and events when issues of national identity, racism and diversity remain unresolved?
Any reckoning with the legacies of 2007 must begin with the negatives. Reflecting the ephemeral, funding-dependent nature of most of the projects, relatively few of the initiatives listed in Remembering 1807 are still in existence. 47 Equally troubling is the fact that a significant number of them have left little or no trace. These projects seemingly have been lost to view. Others have left incomplete records, sometimes only a flyer or a poster. This is particularly the case with musical or theatrical performances, poetry readings and workshops. Remarkably, heritage funders, particularly the Heritage Lottery Fund, did not insist on -or, crucially, provide extra funds forarchival storage or conservation of the events they supported in 2007-08, leaving the burden to fall on local groups that, by definition, were in some cases ill-equipped to respond. 48 As a result, many displays were destroyed, dispersed or left to decay in garages and outbuildings. If 2007 teaches us anything, it is the need for greater collaboration between heritage funders and major repositories such as the National Archives, with their expertise in devising collections policies, including the more extensive use of digital archiving; or, failing that, more support for municipal and county record offices that are sometimes in a position to help but lack the resources to do so.
Many events organized in 2007 were obviously intended as one-offs, in the sense that there was little intention to extend them beyond the bicentenary, or to use them as platforms for further initiatives. These decisions, in turn, were linked to funding opportunities, the prospect of a National Lottery Grant (or equivalent) providing an impetus that could sometimes prove difficult to sustain. Priorities also changed, particularly for larger institutions with one eye on the next 'big' anniversary. (Significantly, 2007 was sandwiched between two other important commemorative events, the two hundredth anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar in 2005 and the seventieth anniversary of the Battle of Britain in 2010.) The media circus moved on, in many cases leaving in its wake not a deeper understanding of the subject at hand -transatlantic slavery -but a reassuring sense that something had been done to mark the anniversary, however fleeting and ephemeral. 49 Yet this is not the whole story. In other instances, 2007 started a debate that is still alive and kicking. This is perhaps most evident in Britain's museums. As the outcomes of the 2018 workshop '10 Years of the London, Sugar & Slavery gallery: Reflections and Responses' show, the Museum of London Docklands recognizes the need to continually improve on past attempts to represent this history. 50 The International Slavery Museum in Liverpool is another significant legacy of 2007. As its Director Richard Benjamin writes, the museum used the 'bicentenary as a springboard rather than being an outcome. This has allowed the museum to develop and broaden its remit and become the campaigning museum it is today'. 51 Several societies and groups who managed projects in 2007 have since led other initiatives. For example, the Equiano Society, which led The Equiano Project in collaboration with Birmingham Museums and Art Gallery in 2007, was awarded funds from the Heritage Lottery Fund to celebrate the 225th anniversary of Equiano's publication The Interesting Narrative in 2019 with a series of talks and exhibitions. 52 Equally important are those projects that build indirectly on the legacy of 2007, among them Untold Stories, organized by Medway African and Caribbean Association and Chatham Historic Dockyard Trust in 2018, which offered an 'insight into Black history that does not start with the Transatlantic Slave Trade, nor end at its abolition, nor begin with the post Second World War Windrush generation'. This project, and others like it, are reflective of the expansive and inclusive new research into local Black British histories which will have major impact on future anniversaries. 53 In this sense, the landscape has changed. Even so, there is also a nagging sense that something already has been lost. This is why Remembering 1807 is so important. Not only does it provide us with a reference point going forward; it also helps us to imagine a future that is significantly different. More than likely, the next major anniversary for remembrance of slavery and abolition among heritage organizations and groups will be 2033, the bicentenary of the Emancipation Act of 1833. Complexities associated with this anniversary start with the date itself, some preferring 1838, which marks the end of apprenticeship in the Caribbean. 54 The subject area will be different too -there was so much emphasis on the slave trade in 2007, to the extent that abolition of the slave trade and of slavery itself were often confused in the public consciousness. The fact that many Britons remained slave holders after 1807, and continued to invest in the slave trade, will make commemorations more problematic in terms of the celebratory British narrative, as will the £20 million compensation for loss of 'property' paid out by the state to British slaveowners after 1833. Ironically, 2033 will also mark the bicentenary of the death of William Wilberforce, inviting further scrutiny of Wilberforce's legacy. Given these complexities, and the different layers of meaning associated with 1833, it is important to remember where we have come from. The implicit danger here is that we end up reinventing the wheel, whereas what is needed is a more nuanced approach that not only takes into account what happened in 2007 but also what has happened since.
In this sense, the Remembering 1807 archive can help to (re)orientate future memory work around Britain's role in transatlantic slavery. This necessarily implies learning lessons from what was absent during the bicentenary. To take an example, while abolitionism in its many forms was relatively well covered in 2007, slave agency was given much less attention; all the more significant, given the approaching bicentenaries of the Demerara Rebellion of 1823 and the Jamaican slave revolt of 1831. 55 Similarly, the Abolition Act's impact on Africa was rarely discussed, even though the consequences were of enormous significance, marking the beginnings of colonization by European powers. 56 2007 also raised -but did not resolvequestions about what forms of slavery should be discussed and remembered. Anti-Slavery International, for example, used the bicentenary not only as a vehicle to promote better understanding of the transatlantic slave trade and its legacies, but also as a platform for its campaigns to end contemporary slavery. 57 This emphasis was not without controversy, however, some accusing NGOs and charitable organizations of 'hijacking' the bicentenary for their own purposes. Furthermore, while many projects explored 1807 and contemporary forms of unfree labour as bookends in discussing slavery and its legacies, relatively few dealt with the multitude of forms of slavery that bridged the two. 58 Understandably, some commentators bemoaned how the notion of slavery in shaping the UK's history had to be contained as 'a singular, shameful episode'. As Roshi Nadoo has argued: 'For that meaning to dominate, the story of post-slavery forms of exploitative labour must be obscured'. 59 2007 also saw relatively little discussion of the question of reparations. At the official level, Britain's overwhelming response was to evade issues of 'blame': Tony Blair notably expressed 'deep sorrow and regret' about Britain's role rather than offering a full apology. 60 Stories which emphasize the power relations that remained in place after slavery and the impact of enslavement on British and former colonial societies have proved harder to present as 'public history'. 61 More recently, a recognition of endowments from the profits of transatlantic slavery has emerged from some UK institutions. The University of Glasgow's announcement that it benefited from donations amounting to the equivalent of tens of millions of pounds from individuals whose wealth was generated by slavery serves as another reminder of the long and complex money trail behind Britain's role in the transatlantic human traffic. Speaking to this same point, Geoff Thompson, chair of governors of the University of East London, has said that universities in the UK which benefited in previous centuries from the slave trade should contribute to a £100 million fund to support ethnic minority students. 62 The way that universities, museums, religious bodies and other institutions around the world deal with the legacy of benefactors with links to transatlantic slavery has become a major area of debate. Hence Catherine Hall's call for 'reparative history': a need 'to develop a different understanding' of Britain's involvement in slavery, and recognition of 'our responsibilities, as beneficiaries of the gross inequalities associated with slavery and colonialism'. 63

CONCLUSION
The act of commemoration involves constructions of new meanings about the past, to reflect the public consciousness but also to challenge it. The heritage sector has a responsibility to stress the interconnectedness of past and present, to provide visitors with the tools and knowledge to view history from multiple perspectives. So far from being a 'Wilberfest', the Remembering 1807 archive makes it clear that the 2007 bicentenary enabled expression of a wide range of concerns relating to transatlantic slavery, among them questions of national identity and historical legacies. Historical research and public history have taken various new directions in the years since 2007, helping to shape further our understanding of Britain's slaving past. As a result, the idea that abolitionism somehow triumphed in the nineteenth century has been thrown open to wider discussion and debate, in recognition of other post-emancipation histories. This trend will continue but, as we have argued, there is an urgent need for past commemorative efforts to inform future ones, not least through engagement with young people, local communities and new audiences. One of the most important lessons of 2007 was that the history of transatlantic slavery is intertwined in all aspects of British history. Looking forward, commemorations can provide tools and knowledge to affect public debates about slavery, and to contribute, in Lola Young's words, to this 'shared understanding of overlapping histories'. 64 But to do this effectively those responsible for organizing such events need to engage critically with past memory work, just as they need to understand which versions of the past they wish to commemorate.