Hello, I'm Julia.
And we here today for local residents in the Florence Park area of Oxford to introduce you to our project of decolonising those local street names,
bearing the names of military men with brutal histories in the British colonies.
Our approach to decolonising this frequently unnoticed part of Oxfords relation with NPR is not to rename them,
since this would upset many who've lived in the neighbourhood for years.
Rather, we wish to raise awareness about the men and colonial history embedded in their names.
In contrast, this with the real ongoing history of our area.
We also hope to inspire more locals to develop and take forward this project in different ways.
As a first step to achieving this, we plan to place local history community boards in different streets,
presenting these contrasting historical perspectives. Hi, I'm Jay.
I have a long term critical interest in inequality and its colonial and imperialist underpinnings.
My research into the man behind road names such as Cornwallis Road, Litten Road,
Ultimate Cliver Havelock Road and Lawrence Road revealed they were all employees of the notorious East India Company.
The East India Company was the first private company to concatenation and use its tax revenues
and military might to enrich itself and its shareholders while impoverishing its subjects.
It was also the world's largest opium trader starting the Opium Wars in China, where it seised Hong Kong and submitted China to decades of decline.
When it was created the turn of the 17th century,
China and India will predominant international superpowers by the time it was dissolved by the British government.
After one too many atrocities and after having been bailed out by the state is the first too big to fail business.
Britain was the global superpower with the largest empire the world has ever seen.
Down to the individuals, our streets are named after all, of whom were key players in British rule India,
during which 35 million people died from war and famine alone.
Hi, I'm Caroline. And I've lived in Florence Park for many years.
I'm now standing on the junction of Cornwallis and Campbell Roads.
Cumulous Road was named after Charles Cumulous as Governor-General and commander in chief of India in 1786.
He took some positive steps, for example,
demanding better behaviour from East India company officials who had fathered numerous children with Indian so-called dancing girls.
But more significantly, he enacted racist policy that forbade natives from holding high office in the
company and the offspring of Anglo Indian Union couples holding any office.
He also enacted land tax reform, which led to the enrichment of the company and the ruin of peasant farmers.
Colin Campbell, after whom Campbell wrote, was named, commanded the first Opium War, which drained China of wealth while creating many opium addicts.
He was the commander in chief during the Indian rebellion, which saw 6000 European casualties and killed eight hundred thousand Indians,
possibly more in battles and subsequent famines and epidemics.
Not far away is Litten Road, named after Robert Bulwer Lytton, who was viceroy of India from 1876 to 1880.
His reputation was one of ruthlessness in both domestic and foreign affairs and his
handling of the Great Famine in 1876 to 1880 in which millions died was controversial.
Hi, I'm Judith from Campbell Road. Despite the connotations of the street names, the actual history of florals,
Paul began in the 1930s when it was built on marsh land with some houses completed in as little as three week.
Terrible housing conditions result. The state was built by Fred Moss, who named the park after his sister, Florham.
Wall Street won't stop little wilds of the Welsh miners who lived here.
Seeing job losses and grinding poverty in the economic crash of 1929,
they had walked all the way to Oxford to take up jobs in the expanding Cariddi Koplow.
This they first face discrimination from local people who saw them as undercutting their own prospects
when all the rest of us pulled together to organise a rent strike in 1934 against the state of housing.
Things improved a bit. Solidarity eventually led to improvements in the lovely houses we live in today.
Regional residents also left as valuable remnants of their home culture, such as the Welsh male voice choir.
Still say. County Baptist and Congregational Churches, which were established with a friendly welcome, the migrant community all still here to.
These achievements are surely an example of how we could all benefit from diversity today.
Clearly,
it is important to publicise our research because we want to involve our neighbours in a discussion of what the area and its history means to that.
Importantly, through a better understanding of our past,
we can work together to create community with a history we can all be proud of whatever our diverse backgrounds.