A West Lothian festival has agreed to cut ties to the 'racist slave owner' John Newland from their name.
The event had previously been known as the Bathgate Procession & John Newland Festival but they received multiple requests to consider its ongoing linkage to John Newland due to his historic relationship with the slave trade.
Newland was a Jamaican-plantation slave owner who donated some of his wealth to creating Bathgate Academy in 1833.
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The complaints started last year in the wake of the George Floyd protests in America, when a petition was started in the area calling for John Newland to be removed from the festival’s name.
Throughout the last year the festival’s committee have been deliberating on whether to remove the name or not, with some locals against the move.
However, after taking legal advice they moved onto voting as a committee last month and the name change was decided.
A spokesperson explained: “On Thursday October 7, in line with our articles of association and the legal advice received, a committee meeting was held to vote on the name change.
"At that meeting a majority vote was recorded in favour of amending the name Bathgate Procession & John Newland Festival. A further vote by a majority of the committee approved a new name and moving forward Bathgate Procession & Community Festival will be an inclusive community event for all.
“We are now working to take the necessary steps to fully implement the name change. The committee has also previously received a number of questions regarding the name change, for your convenience we have outlined our response to these below. As a voluntary organisation this process has been a significant undertaking for the committee, we would like to thank the community of Bathgate for their ongoing contribution and understanding.”
Due to the Covid-19 pandemic the festival has had to be cancelled for the past two years running but the organisers now promise to be back better than ever in 2022.
They want to move on from the furore surrounding the name change and believe it is the right thing to do.
The committee say they are not "erasing the past" but just decided to stop promoting John Newlands name.
They continued: “We do not believe we are erasing the past, we are deciding to no longer promote it. John Newland was celebrated as part of this event due to the sum of money he left which funded schools in Bathgate & Armadale, including the old Bathgate academy.
“In the spirit of education and community we need to continue to grow and evolve with our modern society. By making this change, we believe that we are acknowledging and learning from our past, rather than ignoring it. We strive to continue to use this event as a platform to educate our town on its history, however we believe what should now be celebrated is the diversity of our amazing community and its members who continue to do wonderful things for the good of others.”
