Pub Sign Removed As Word ‘Racist’ Scrawled On It – Hours After Tweets Claim ‘Slave’ Issue

A town centre pub sign was defaced with the word ‘racist’ hours after it was highlighted on Twitter as being potentially problematic.

Update: We have been sent the below picture of the word ‘rasist’ scrawled on the sign, appearing to be in marker pen rather than spray paint.

Original article below:
Readers will have seen us retweet several tweets last night regarding the ‘top spoons’ Wetherspoons Elihu Yale pub sign, after an initial public complaint was made from a visitor to Wrexham – although there is no suggestion that he or she was involved in the subsequent incident.

In a now deleted tweet @TraxxCardiff put a picture of the pub sign up (below) last night commenting: “This damn pub in Wrexham has a sign with a guy and a slave with a yoke of iron around his neck !!!! If I had a ladder I’d rip it down, PRICKS“, later adding “Wrexham is disgusting“, tagging in Wrexham Council asking for the sign to be taken down and posting a screengrab of Elihu Yale’s wikipedia page noting he was a slave trader.

The sign itself was based off the James Worsdale painting ‘Elihu Yale with his Servant’, the original being in the archives of Ivy League Yale University, itself named after Elihu Yale.

A spokesperson for Wetherspoons today told us that the sign had been removed by pub staff ‘after the word racist was spray painted on it’ overnight by an unknown person or persons. It does not appear the incident was reported to North Wales Police.

Wetherspoons told us: “The name has been used for the pub since it has been opened, around 15 or 16 years ago and has been used in good faith as it is connected to the local history of Wrexham.”

Yale was born in Boston and had family connections with Llandegla, himself returning to the area in 1699 living in the Wrexham area. Yale died in 1721 in London and is buried in St Giles’ Church in Wrexham town centre.

The following is the painting used as the basis for the sign:

Describing the spray painting as ‘mindless vandalism’ they added: “If someone had an issue we would have preferred them to speak direct to us as we are an open and transparent company.”

We retweeted @TraxxCardiff’s picture and comment last night, that prompted a range of replies including the following:

@traxxcardiff As much as the Yale story is a part of history and has it’s place being told, it’s 2017: this imagery is unacceptable.

— Chris Wood (@crwexe) May 11, 2017

@traxxcardiff Just looks like he’s robbing out of his pocket to me, though I’m not sure that’s any better.

— Jack Freeburn (@JackFreeburn) May 11, 2017

@traxxcardiff Have a go at Wetherspoons you clown not Wrexham!!!!!!!!

— Barry Daniels (@BarryDaniels13) May 11, 2017

Elihu Yale’s history is well documented, although the Council’s version does omit documenting the slave trade element and his dodgy deals outlined elsewhere, similar to the Wetherspoons summary.

Yale University have previously published this essay entitled ‘Elihu Yale was a Slave Trader’, which references the image used on the pub sign describing it as ‘…Yale with yet another collared slave this time euphemized as a servant’ and is well worth the time to read.

Wetherspoons told us they are not looking at changing the pub name.