What happened to Rename Seeley Library?
Opening Thoughts
In late 2021, red campaign stickers appeared on the walls of the university with a powerful demand: Rename Seeley Library. The library bears its name from endowments granted by a memorial fund ‘raised to commemorate Sir John Seeley’s services to the Empire and the University.’ Against a global backdrop of mounting calls to ‘decolonise the university,’ the campaign accused the university of perpetuating its ‘historic and ongoing justification and support of colonialism’ through ‘a library that commemorates British imperial conquest.’ However, by February 2022, all organising had seemingly come to a halt, the name of the library remained unchanged, and students were left without any sense of accountability or closure. With a desire to find out what came of the struggle mobilised in those critical months, therefore, we set out to ask what happened to the demands of the Rename Seeley Library campaign.
As researchers and writers, our own perspectives as students of History and HSPS, and thereby as students of the Seeley Library, made the issues defining this struggle feel deeply significant. The questions that emerged from our research were big ones: we spoke with students, organisers, and academics about the meaning of ‘good history’, the challenges of student activism, and the power of the academy.
“I thought something was going to change, and it seemed like something should change”
To begin withwe interviewed students outside ‘the Seeley’ about the campaign. We found that, of the 68% of students who were aware of the campaign, no one knew what had happened to it or how the university had responded to its demands. Instead, many relayed the sentiment that the campaign seemed to have simply ‘disappeared’ or ‘fizzled out’ despite the great amount of ‘student interest’ and ‘momentum’ it had garnered. Some noted how, especially as the faculties for History, Politics and Sociology seem to be increasingly sympathetic to calls for ‘decolonising the curriculum’, it felt ‘shocking’ they had failed to respond. As one student described to us, ‘I thought something was going to change, and it seemed like something should change.’ At the time of writing, the open letter released by the campaign in November 2021 remains an impressive yet inconclusive demand for change, with 612 signatures from students, alumni, staff, and university groups.
Credit to Nuvpreet Kaur Kalra
Foundation of the Campaign and Original Demands
Speaking to head of the campaign Nuvpreet Kaur Kalra, we learnt how the idea of the campaign first appeared. Sat in the Seeley reading Sir John Seeley as part of a History of Politics paper, she wondered about the connections between the two names. Before this, Nuvpreet had never questioned the name of the library. Indeed, without any discussion on Seeley provided to students by the faculty, it was rather a coincidence she ever did. After she made the connection, Nuvpreet recalled how reading Seeley’s endorsements of the British empire in what seemed a physical testament to his enduring legacy gained increasing weight. She began to share her concerns with friends and peers who validated her desire to bring this issue to light and, before long, a WhatsApp group chat and a collective had been created and circulated. From the beginning, Nuvpreet described how the swiftness and scale of student interest surmounted any expectation she might have held and gave the campaign a strong sense of purpose and commitment.
The Debates and Interactions With Faculty and Staff
In response to the momentum gathered by the publication and distribution of the Rename Seeley Library open letter (RENAME SEELEY LIBRARY OPEN LETTER), mounting student enthusiasm, and talks with academics and staff, the campaign collective met with the former chair of the history department (Alex Walsham) in February 2022. Ahead of the meeting, the chair asked that the campaign prepare a detailed outline of their case, culminating in the 23-page Rename the Seeley Case Document, extensively researched by the campaign team. Despite this, during the meeting the campaigners felt that their concerns were not taken seriously and that any departmental responsibility was largely avoided by deflecting to bureaucratic procedures. The department seemed to relay ‘this idea of the library being so old and so set in stone that, like, nothing can change.’ Even so, the meeting did result in a promise to set up a committee reviewing all the names of buildings in Cambridge, on which the department assured a student representative would be present. In their official response to our call for statement, a University spokesperson told TCS that such a ‘working group’ for examining ‘the principles for whether a name should be removed or not from use’ is still only in the process of being established, over a year after the campaign was first told it would begin to come into place. Notably, promises of such a group were also raised in the University’s Legacies of Enslavement report published in 2022, which explicitly calls to investigate the renaming of both the Seeley and the Haddon libraries as part of efforts to end the celebration and memorialisation of figures involved in ‘slavery and racial ideology’ at Cambridge. Ultimately, more questions seem to be raised rather than resolved by the University’s statement which, for one, states the working group will ‘not consider individual cases’ but only publish general ‘terms of reference,’ thus further delaying any direct action in regards to renaming the Seeley.
After the campaign had delivered their case to the library and the department, the History Faculty eventually hosted a seminar entitled ‘Who was John Seeley?’ which set out to contextualise the man concerned. Indeed, academics involved sought especially to emphasise the multifaceted nature of Seeley. His involvement in pushing for women’s education at Girton College was discussed, alongside his associations to the British imperial project, his desire for a ‘Greater Britain’, and particularly the subject matter and influence of his 1883 text The Expansion of England. Importantly, however, students that participated in this seminar described the conversation as ‘very weighted’ as ‘four or five academics’ compared with only ‘two third years’ present. The campaign leaders left the seminar feeling concerned that ‘they were talking, not particularly about the library, they were talking about Seeley, putting him into context, which felt like a big defeat of actually what the message of this campaign was.’ This misunderstanding and miscommunication concerning the campaign’s aims and message distressed students, and went on to complicate the path of student organising as it continued. Students felt that a discussion of the past, while necessary, had overshadowed discussions of renaming the library in the present.
‘They were trying to keep the conversation very much within history, not about renaming the library’.
This tension between past and present, between the context that brought about the original naming of the library in Seeley’s name in 1897 and the need to reconsider the relevance of this decision today figured repeatedly in our discussions with students and staff involved. While historians from the faculty stress the need for ‘good history’ amidst these fruitful and important discussions, students encourage us to ask what that means. They encourage us to look for both good contextualisation and a balanced report of Seeley not only as an individual, but also as a man that influenced public memory long after his time. Nuvpreet stressed, ‘he represents so much more than just this one man.’
From the perspective of one academic we spoke to, over-stressing Seeley’s imperial ties and affirming narratives of him as a racist bigot was an ‘unthoughtful response’ that wrongly judged him by the standards of today. Against this, students emphasised that while Seeley may have had more progressive educational standards than other thinkers of his time, this does not absolve him of his connections to the imperial project. As campaigners relayed to us, Seeley may well have promoted women’s education at Cambridge, but that does not take away from his own comments on expansionism and, more importantly perhaps, the way in which his memory went on to inform the path of the British Empire. The Case Document, constructed by campaigners to present to the department chair, outlines that Cecil Rhodes and Joseph Chamberlain were inspired by his writings, and historian Deborah Wormell has written about their admiration for his work. Indeed, Wormell argues that Seeley ‘had been profoundly influential… Seeley’s lectures [which make up the content of his The Expansion of England] had been responsible for galvanising public opinion into a state of enthusiasm for imperial affairs.’
Campaigners were met with inadequate alternatives to renaming raised by the department to better contextualise Seeley, such as holding an exhibition or putting up a plaque detailing his work and legacy – none of which ever came to fruition. The campaign felt that such displays, which would have to admit to commemorating a man who, however partly or implicitly, contributed to the perpetuation of the British empire, fail to do justice to the real harm suffered by students right now. Importantly, similar efforts have also been heavily condemned elsewhere, as seen in the Rhodes Must Fall campaign at Oxford. Here, a plaque was raised below the statue of Cecil Rhodes after the failure of Oriel College to remove the statue due to ‘legal and regulatory advice’. In a social media post in 2021, the campaign laments how ‘This sign trivialises the pain and suffering Rhodes caused. It also downplays our demands. Oriel College CAN remove this statue, they choose not to!’ Notably, like the Rename Seeley campaign the organising of Rhodes Must Fall in Oxford seems to have stagnated since 2021, a similarity which may point to a greater pattern in the great challenges facing efforts for decolonial action at universities like Cambridge and Oxford.
After talks between the campaign and the department arrived at what seemed a bureaucratic impasse, the collective recalled feeling deeply disappointed by the failure of the department and the university to take responsibility. ‘I feel like it was a wasted opportunity for them to instead say, the spirit of history is to have discussions about the impacts of individuals within structures. I just felt like they wanted to suppress it so badly, which made it kind of a galvanising force.’ After a while, however, this feeling of being continuously silenced and subverted in their calls for change became overwhelming.
Similarly, head of the campaign to change the name of the Christ’s College History Society (previously ‘Seeley Historical Society’) Jo Compton told us of her experience with student organising. She spoke passionately of the commitment involved coming up against the strength of the university. Jo spoke about the dedication of students to the campaign, and the feelings of ‘intimidation’ that many of her peers experienced as their relationships with supervisors and fellows at their own colleges were changed and challenged as a result of this action. Nuvpreet commented on the fact of having to sacrifice so many of her third year essays in favour of researching Seeley to the full, and ultimately developing a full case to be presented to the faculty board. From the perspective of the campaign leaders ‘reflecting on it now, it seemed [they] had quite a clear goal’ - they recall, ‘maybe not intentionally, but basically… feeling like you’re being stonewalled’. The weight of the campaign, which had the power to ‘set a precedent for, like, the whole university’, was driven by the commitment of this collective. The lived experience of participation in a student campaign such as this one was discussed at length. The labour of change is so often placed in the hands of marginalised students in particular, who risk themselves in positions of greater vulnerability as they raise their demands.. These decisions, of course, are not made lightly.
A second debate followed in June, this time organised by the students rather than the faculty. Students felt the need to make their demands heard on their own terms. It was titled: ‘Commemoration & Colonialism at Cambridge: The Seeley Library & Beyond’. Academics and students discussed the renaming process, and students reflected on the opportunity to talk through these topics seriously. The History Faculty members we spoke to shared this sentiment and their excitement about conversations that emerged from this Rename the Seeley ‘moment’. ‘Good history’ cannot be achieved without debate and discussion. At last, it seemed that productive discussion was had and campaigners and academics alike shared comments on the subject of renaming the library itself. However, even with this further debate, no concrete solution was given.
Credit to Nuvpreet Kaur Kalra
Notes on Student Organising and Meaningful Decolonial Activism at Cambridge
During this investigation, the great sacrifices students made to demand for a better university emerged as an absolutely central theme. This, alongside the great disillusionment felt by them after their efforts were continuously sidelined by a university that is capable of outlasting the short time they spend studying and organising here. There is so much that is lost because of student turnover - students have three years to make the impact that they want to have on the university, and with most students becoming significantly involved in organising in their third year, the university is able surpass resistance on a logistical basis. As Nuvpreet described it, student turnover ‘is the biggest core issue at organising in universities.’ Jo agreed,, ‘that’s how they always win, it’s just that, people leave.’ They described the great losses suffered due to this steadfast exchange of student organisers; losses in memories, energies, strategies, and hope.
The academics we spoke to shared this sentiment, recalling previous campaigns that they had seen achieve success and reflecting on reasons why. The campaign to ‘Decolonise the Curriculum’ was raised as a successful example that had infiltrated university practice on many levels, including during the employment of new staff, with interviewees asked what they would do to support the movement. This particular campaign, cited as influential in 2017 in particular, was boosted by an MPhil thesis written on the campaign at Cambridge at the same time as the movement developed. The student’s thesis research pushed for further discussion, and encouraged the university to reflect as the research went on. We were told that for a campaign to have such an impact, considering the issue of undergraduate turnover, teams must collaborate with postgraduate students who are often around to see the campaign through for longer, and with staff.
The Relaunch
On the 8th of February 2023, the campaign posted an update for the first time in many months, proclaiming: ‘This campaign is not over.’ The post detailed the timeline of the campaign so far and announced that contact with members of the History Faculty had resumed, with a working group being set up to meet in late February. In returning, the campaign is refusing to be outlasted by the university.
The update cites these feelings of burnout after involvement in the campaign. It importantly ends with a call to students still in Cambridge to continue the campaign - while Nuvpreet continues to check in with the Libraries Syndicate and others, the update highlights the need for people still in Cambridge to involve themselves. Jo Compton ended her discussion with us with the same galvanising message: ‘it just needs people’.
Concluding Thoughts
We have stressed in this article the issue of the university outlasting its student campaigners. One way to respond to this is to involve new interested students in the campaign. To contact the campaign, reach out to Rename Seeley Library on Facebook.