Rename Seeley Library – Open Letter

More info on the campaign: see the Facebook group

The letter is reproduced here:

sign here: https://forms.gle/pUHFYKaWRQtdQzDJ9

To the History Faculty at the University of Cambridge,

The Seeley Historical Library was named after John Robert Seeley, a Cambridge Regius Professor known for his justification of the British Empire. The library’s name must be changed to the History Faculty Library. In dedicating the history library to Seeley, the University is associating itself with his career and beliefs. It reflects the University’s historic and ongoing justification and support of colonialism. If Cambridge is committed to looking into its legacies of empire and colonialism, then it cannot continue to blindly celebrate such a figure. Current and future students should not have to set foot in a library that commemorates British imperial conquest.

John Robert Seeley was born in 1834 in London, and went on to study at City of London School, and Christ’s College, Cambridge. After becoming head of the Classics tripos, he was elected fellow of Christ’s and became a tutor in Classics. In 1883, while a Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, he wrote ‘The Expansion of England’. This text has been lauded as “the single influence which did most to develop the imperialist idea” by Robert Ensor¹ In 1895, a memorial fund was raised to commemorate his services to the British Empire and the University. Most of this fund was endowed to the history library, which was named in his commemoration in 1897. 

For too long figures like Seeley have had their legacies neutralised by their vague liberal beliefs like supporting the admission of elite women into universities. The library’s naming and association is representative of Cambridge’s lack of desire to confront its legacies of colonialism. Permitting Seeley to remain an unchallenged, neutral figure in history serves to naturalise how logics of imperialism and colonialism remain central to the university.

The library could instead name a section with texts on imperialist history to make it clear what Seeley’s legacy represents. At Seeley’s own Christ’s College, the History Society has been renamed from the Seeley History Society to Christ’s College History Society. Changing the name would be a symbolic act to show Cambridge University’s commitment to decolonisation. 

¹ Ensor, R.C.K. (1936). England: 1870-1914. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

We, the undersigned, call on the University of Cambridge and its History Faculty to immediately remove Seeley from the name of the library and to rename it to the History Faculty Library. 

see latest signatories here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Ho9g8zbrM-agGbCX-8WvFzyYFhNhmkhnG0kmM3yS8I/edit