Steam Trains are CANCELLED due to 'racist history'

In the latest effort from British institutions to cancel our history, National Museum Wales (NMW) has declared that the use of steam trains is “rooted in colonialism and racism”.

National Museum Wales (Amgueddfa Cymru) owns a to-scale replica of Richard Trevithick’s steam-powered locomotive, which debuted in 1804 when it replaced a team of horses. It pulled a train nearly ten miles along the tramway of the Penydarren Ironworks — a groundbreaking achievment widely perceived to be “ahead of its time”.

However, the Welsh government-sponsored NMW has now pledged to “explore how the slave trade linked and fed into the development of the steam and railway infrastructure in Wales” as they conduct a woke audit their collection — which could lead to the placement of a disclaimer next to their engine replica dubiously connecting it to the slave trade.

While NMW —  which runs the National Museum Cardiff, St Fagans National Museum of History, Cardiff Big Pit National Coal Museum, Blaenavon National Wool Museum, National Slate Museum, National Roman Legion Museum, and National Waterfront Museum — has admitted they can not prove “direct links between the Trevithick locomotive and the slave trade”, they insist that the locomotive is still complicit as “links to slavery are woven into the warp and weft of Welsh society”.

“Trade and colonial exploitation were embedded in Wales’ economy and society and were fundamental to Wales’ development as an industrialised nation”, the museum alleged in an official statement.

It is unclear how this relates to the Cornish inventor Trevithick, who has no personal links to slavery, and while some investors in the railroad were slave owners there is no evidence to suggest that they were connected to Trevithick.

The colonialism audit comes after National Museum Wales launched a so-called “Charter for Decolonising” which plans to “identify collections linked to colonial aggression and the transatlantic slave trade”.

It has attributed the initiative to the Black Lives Matter movement, claiming it inspired them to “confront history and challenge present-day injustices”.

The Charter for Decolonising claims that “Museums and their collections are often rooted in colonialism and racism – Amgueddfa Cymru [National Museum Wales] is no different.”

One of the other examples they use to suggest their collection is racist is a handkerchief from the 19th century that commemorated the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1897.

The museum has suggested that as the handkerchief contains the the “Union Jack, the Royal Standard, and White Ensign flags” alongside an inscription of  “WORLD WIDE EMPIRE”, it “is a visual representation of the celebratory, unchallenged narratives of Empire that we are finding across the collections”.

Ironically, Victoria’s reign began after the total abolition of slavery in the British Empire and was marked by a sustained and energetic campaign by the Royal Navy to stamp out the slave trade worldwide — a feat which would have proved impossible if Britain was not a great imperial power.