A Victorian era window under the cathedral's clock, marked "to the glory of God and in memory of Edward Colston" and commemorating that 17th-century Royal African Company magnate and Bristol philanthropist, was ordered to be covered in June 2020 in advance of its eventual removal. The Diocese of Bristol also decided to remove from the cathedral other dedications to Colston after the toppling of the late 19th-century Statue of Edward Colston in the city centre on 7 June 2020, along with the removal of another stained glass window at St Mary Redcliffe. The cathedral dean previously considered removing the memorial window in 2017 but said in a radio broadcast in February it would cost "many, many thousands of pounds". The legacy of Colston became contentious because of his involvement in, and profit from, the transatlantic slave trade in enslaved Africans, and came to a head after the killing of George Floyd in May 2020.