Adrian Wooldridge

Rhodes to redemption: why Oxford needs a monument to Benjamin Jowett

Benjamin Jowett, Vanity Fair, 1876. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 17 July 2021

Not since September 1642, when a mob of Parliamentary soldiers opened fire on the sculpture of the Virgin Mary carved into the side of the University Church, has Oxford been in such a fury over statues. The ‘Rhodes must fall’ campaign that started among radical students in 2016 has now spread to the senior common rooms, particularly the SCR of Worcester College which, astonishingly, has taken over from Balliol and Wadham as the headquarters of the workers’ revolution.

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