CONTROVERSY over Drake’s Statue in Tavistock has sparked a major educational project of national significance which will be financed by Historic England.

Nearly £15,000 has been granted by the government body to the ‘Drake Schools Project’ which will educate the young about the full story of the famous seafarer.

It will be trialled at two Tavistock schools before being promoted in the wider area.

The future of the Grade II listed statue of Drake was thrown into doubt earlier this year when he became a focus of the Black Lives Matter protests.

There were calls for the removal of the statue because of Drake’s links to the slave trade. It followed the death in police custody of black man George Floyd in the United States and subsequent anti-racism protests which highlighted connections historic figures had to the history of slavery.

Tavistock Town Council agreed that the statue would not be removed but that it would work with organisations in the town to tell the whole story of Drake.

This week Tavistock Heritage Trust has been awarded funding by Historic England to develop a major educational project around the story.

Chair of the organisation Dr Geri Parlby said: ‘We are delighted that Historic England has agreed to fund this nationally significant project.

‘We will be working alongside Tavistock Rotary and Tavistock College and Mount Kelly to develop the schools programme.

‘The subjects covered in the educational package evolved out of a survey run at the college amongst the pupils following the killing of George Floyd and the global protests it provoked.’

The programme will be launched and trialled in the two local schools during Black History Month before being released as an online learning package for both schools and adult learning via the new Guildhall website and promoted to local schools via the network of Rotary Clubs across Great Britain and Ireland.

The Historic England funding also covers the creation of an interpretation panel on the story of Drake which will sit opposite the statue on Plymouth Road.

‘This part of the project is being developed in collaboration with Tavistock Town Council working with councillors, local historians and community groups.

The schools learning programme will cover Drake’s circumnavigation of the globe and his role in defeating the Spanish Armada alongside his privateering voyages and his involvement in the early slave trade.

It will also look at the lives of people from Black and Ethnic Minority Groups who lived in England as freemen and women between the 16th and 19th centuries, how the slave trade evolved and how slavery still exists today via human trafficking and exploitation.

Tavistock town clerk Carl Hearn said: ‘The council welcomes this innovative and nationally recognised collaboration.

‘It sets out to address the diversity of issues raised and views expressed in recent public discourse in an inclusive, non-judgemental and historically rigorous way to more fully articulate all the strands of history associated with Sir Francis Drake and the contemporary context within which his story now sits.’

Although the project will be focusing on the story of Sir Francis Drake and his statue it will be using the narrative as a means of raising awareness amongst students of the often complex and controversial lives of some of England’s well-known figures from history.