Slave-owner’s name removed from Barclays Bank development in Glasgow

Scrutiny over city's ties to slave trade increases as Black Lives Matter protests continue

Barclays Bank has dropped the name of a slave-owning tobacco lord from a major riverside development in Glasgow.

The development on the south bank of the River Clyde will be home to the multinational bank’s new Northern European hub, as well as over 300 new flats, and has been marketed as Buchanan Wharf.

But following days of Black Lives Matter protests that have erupted all over the UK and a petition signed by hundreds calling for the name to be changed, Barclays has confirmed the development will now be known as ‘Barclays Glasgow Campus’.

The name Buchanan is associated with Andrew Buchanan, one of the city’s most famous ‘tobacco lords’ and one of the first Scots to own tobacco plantations in Virginia, where he made most of his wealth.

The petition against the name was signed by more than 350 people. It stated: “Glasgow should not be glorifying the horrific barbarity of the slave trade and its slave masters by naming its new city centre riverside development Buchanan Wharf.”

Barclays said it made the decision to rename its new facilities in line with “consistent naming convention for our key global sites”.

“We will be using the city’s historic Tradeston district in our address and we have already notified Glasgow City Council of our intention,” said a spokesperson for the bank.

A spokesperson for the Drum Property Group, which is developing the site, told Glasgow Live that changing the name of a site is the “natural evolution of any development process”.

The group said the development had been named after “one of Glasgow’s most well-known steamboat owners” Captain William Buchanan, not Andrew Buchanan. However, it acknowledged that people would associate the name with the latter.

He said: “In the meantime, we are fully supportive of the City of Glasgow’s commitment to widen both debate and education on the matter of the city’s merchant and slavery past and look forward to participating in the forthcoming programme of consultation.”

Buchanan Street in Glasgow, just one of the many streets linked to slave owners (Getty Images)

The change comes after the Black Lives Matter protesters challenged the prominence of slave traders and owners in the form of monuments and street names in cities all over the UK.

The statue of a 17th-century slave trader, Edward Colston, was pulled down in Bristol on Sunday and thrown into the harbour.

Following the incident, the London mayor announced a commission to review all monuments in the capital to ensure they reflect diversity. The statue of slave trader Robert Milligan, which stood outside the Museum of London Docklands, was subsequently removed.

Glasgow's own ties with the transatlantic slave trade and slavery have come under scrutiny. Anti-racism campaigners last week sought to rename streets in the city centre, replacing the names of slave traders and tobacco merchants with those of slaves, black activists and black people who have died in police custody.

Protesters briefly renamed Buchanan Street at George Floyd Street after the man whose death ignited protests throughout the US against police brutality and racism faced by black people.