Praise for plans to change name of Luton street honouring 'particularly inhumane' slave owner

The African Caribbean Community Development Forum (ACCDF) described proposals to change the name of Hibbert Street in New Town as "long overdue".

Luton Borough Council came up with the proposal in response to the Black Lives Matters movement following the death of George Floyd in America.

The street was named after the wealthy slave owner Robert Hibbert (1769-1849) who set up 12 cottages in Castle Street as a charity for poor widows in 1819, before they were later replaced by the almshouses in Hibbert Street.

Hibbert lived in East Hyde just outside of Luton, but spent ten years in the 1800s at his sugar plantation in Jamaica, where he owned over 1,100 slaves.

He was compensated £21,000 (£2.5million in today's money) upon the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.

A council spokesman said: "Slavery was and is abhorrent. The treatment and condition of the slaves on his plantations in the early 19th century is historically documented to be particularly inhumane.

"To honour such an individual whose wealth was built on this detestable practice runs totally contrary to the council’s stand on Black Lives Matter, its longstanding position on equality and the Luton in Harmony principles which celebrate the town’s diversity."

To change the name of the street, the council is required by law to carry out a consultation with residents and it plans to start this process in the coming weeks.

Besides its association with the slave owner, Hibbert Street has been dogged by crime in recent years.

A man in the street was stabbed in the neck in August last year. It also gained national headlines on November 9, 2016, when 24-year-old Josh Pitt was shot dead by armed police while wielding a knife inside his flat in Tracey Court off Hibbert Street.

The street's only pub, The Hibbert Arms, closed last year and was put up for sale in January.

Councillor Jacqui Burnett, vice-chair of ACCDF, said: “With the excellent Black Lives Matter demonstration put together by young people a month ago, and the council’s agreement to recognise Windrush Day with an annual event, it is only right we now start taking the real steps to end the recognition of those who profited from trading human lives while putting others through the trauma of displacement, objectification and being treated as commodities.

"In the wake of statues being pulled down in Bristol and taken down at universities across the UK, this new commitment by Luton is timely.

"It’s a shame it has taken several generations of African and Caribbean representation - and the contributions to our town and country of hundreds of thousands of people - to have got to this point.

"But all the signs are that our younger people in the town are taking up the fight and the need to educate that has been such a long battle for so many of us.

"The moment to embed change and bring about real improvements and respect for a level playing field for those of African heritage must be seized.”