Chad readers demand Bentinck Memorial is left where it is after call to remove it over links to slavery

Mansfield Council is planning a carnival celebrating the town’s Windrush generation in the shadow of the Bentinck Memorial next month.

There have been calls to remove the memorial as Lord George Bentinck “lived off the profits of slavery” however comments on your Chad's Facebook page were almost unanimously in favour of keeping it where it is believing the monument should stay as a reminder of our history.

Michael Revill said: “Leave it alone, we cannot change our past, but Mansfield would not be the same without it.”

Alison Savage said: “You can’t change history, it happened. It’s not like nobody else was profiting from slavery, it was the done thing in its time.

"The focus should be in learning from it, not trying to hide the fact it ever happened. The memorial is there as a reminder to learn from past mistakes.”

Annie Moose said: “Leave it as it is. It was never completed in the first place and most of Mansfield are unaware of what its there for anyways.”

Nigel Wilson said: “If we remove all these reminders of history, bad and good, we will never learn not to make these mistakes again.

"Are we going to remove all signs of the Roman conquest of Britain as they made slaves out of the native Britons, can we ask Denmark to apologise for the atrocities caused by the Vikings? History happened, it’s there to learn from.”

Linda Johnston said: “Leave it alone, it's part of history and history is still being taught in school or do we need to forget the past?”

Beverley Lee said: “For goodness sake. This is history. Good or bad, we cannot, or should not, rewrite history.

"We document it. Record it and learn from it. Pray to do better. History is everything. Where or what would we be without our past, good or bad?”

Kath Henderson said: “And will removing it alter history? Leave it where it is. Every country has history. Not always what we want to remember, but it happened. Learn from it.”