In March, Prince William arrived in Jamaica to protests. In June, his hand unveiled the monument to the generation whose descendants are still waiting for justice.
Briefing
- 100 Jamaicans sign open letter demanding reparations as William arrives.
- PM Holness tells William: “We are moving on” from the monarchy.
- National Windrush Monument unveiled at Waterloo Station on June 22.
- Jamaican sculptor Basil Watson creates the landmark bronze work.
- 9th Biennial Diaspora Conference convenes under “Stronger Together” theme.
On June 22, 2022, at London Waterloo Station, the Duke of Cambridge unveiled a bronze sculpture of three figures — a man, a woman and a child, dressed in their Sunday best, standing atop a pile of suitcases — that has become the National Windrush Monument. The sculptor was Basil Watson, born in Kingston, Jamaica. The poem inscribed on the work, by Laura Serrant, begins: “You Called… and We Came.”
Three months earlier, the same Prince William had stood in Jamaica, at a formal dinner in Kingston, and expressed “profound sorrow” for “the appalling atrocity of slavery.” He stopped short of an apology. Prime Minister Andrew Holness, at a joint press conference, had looked at the Duke and said, plainly, that Jamaica was “moving on” from its relationship with the monarchy. These two events — the March visit and the June unveiling — bracket the first half of 2022 with an uncomfortable symmetry: the same man, the same institution, the same historical inheritance, in two different countries, in two very different registers.
The Kingston Visit: Protest and a Phrase That Landed
When William and Catherine arrived in Jamaica on March 22, a hundred academics, politicians, artists and cultural figures had signed an open letter calling on the royal family to issue a formal apology for slavery and enter discussions on reparations. Demonstrators gathered at the government residence. Inside, William described slavery as “an appalling atrocity”. The Advocates Network responded that his words contained “no responsibility taken” and “no call-out of centuries of British bloody conquest and plunder.” At the joint press conference, Holness was unequivocal: Jamaica intended to become a republic. Both political parties supported the transition. “We are moving on,” he said — not hostile, not angry, simply declarative.
The Monument at Waterloo
The National Windrush Monument, unveiled on the 74th anniversary of the Empire Windrush’s arrival, represents what Britain has taken decades to offer: a permanent, national, publicly funded acknowledgement of the Windrush generation’s place in the country’s story. Funded by £1 million from the Department for Levelling Up, Watson’s figures — the family standing on their luggage, dressed formally — carry both dignity and vulnerability. They are arriving. They are hopeful. They have brought their best clothes and their best selves.
The monument was unveiled by Prince William and two Windrush pioneers, Alford Gardner and John Richards, who had arrived on the ship in 1948 as young men. Their presence — in their nineties, witnesses to everything that had followed — was a reminder that the Windrush generation is still alive, still present, still waiting in some cases for compensation and acknowledgement. The monument does not resolve that. It commemorates it.
The 9th Biennial Conference
Six days before the monument was unveiled, the 9th Biennial Jamaica Diaspora Conference opened in hybrid format under the theme “Jamaica and the Diaspora: Stronger Together for a Sustainable Future.” Participants from the United Kingdom, United States and Canada engaged with Jamaican government officials on questions of investment, return migration, remittances and political engagement. By June 2022, the Windrush Compensation Scheme had paid out £62.72 million across 1,681 claims — meaningful, but still a fraction of the estimated eligible population. Community organisations continued to press on the gap between those who had applied and the potentially thousands who were eligible but had not yet come forward.
Between the Suitcases and the Summit
The bronze family at Waterloo stands on a pile of suitcases. They represent everything brought across the water — clothes and documents, ambitions and anxieties, the accumulated portability of a life being relocated from one place to another. From Croydon to Clarendon, from Waterloo to Kingston, the first half of 2022 offered the Jamaican diaspora a compressed version of its own history: the monument that says we came and we built this; the royal visit that says we are moving on; the conference that says we are still here and have work to do together. None of these messages resolves the others. Together, they describe the full complexity of a relationship that is not over, not settled and not simple.
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