A nation needs heroes
The renaming of Sir Francis Drake Primary School is a sign of our unhealthy alienation from the past.
Sir Francis Drake Primary School in southeast London is no more. The long-dead seafarer was thought to embody values ‘at odds’ with those of the school, so the governing body consulted on a name change. In a vote of 450 parents, staff, pupils and local residents, 88 per cent opted for a new name. Now, in what the headteacher calls ‘an exciting new chapter’, the school will become known as Twin Oaks.
The vote seems emphatic. But how much did the children – and even the staff and parents – actually know about Drake? The BBC’s coverage of the episode is certainly revealing: ‘A school named after the 16th-century slave trader Sir Francis Drake has had its name changed’, it writes. Presented like this, of course that’s how the vote went. Who in 2023 wants to be associated with a slave trader? But at no other point in the past 400 years would Drake have been described in these terms.
Until now, Sir Francis Drake has been celebrated as a national hero for his role in leading the English navy to victory against the Spanish Armada in 1588. His circumnavigation of the globe, captaining the first English voyage to pass through the Magellan Strait from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, guaranteed his place in history. Even in his own lifetime, Drake the man became Drake the legend – a swashbuckling emblem of courage, determination and British military might.