Battle for the National Trust How 'anti-woke' culture warriors met their match

Corinne Fowler remembers sitting alongside her son in their garden shed during the first Covid lockdown, when the very start of an avalanche of hate mail popped up in her inbox.

- Ben Quinn

"There was a barrage of emails, but the first one just said in the title: 'You're cooked.' And it went on from there," recalls the historian, who in 2020 had just published a landmark report into the colonial history behind some National Trust properties.

The email's author, she adds, seemingly shared the views of prominent Conservative MPs such as Jacob Rees-Mogg, who accused Fowler and the trust of "denigrating" British history by detailing the connections to slavery of 93 historic places in the charity's care. Looking back, Fowler believes "heated rhetoric" from politicians and others encouraged anger and even death threats against her and the trust's director general, Hilary McGrady.

An intervention by leading historical bodies took some of the heat out of the debate over perceived "wokeness" and headed off threats of interference by the Conservative government.

But the actions of the National Trust itself - alongside supporters including a slew of keyboard warriors - blunted the impact of the culture war the charity became caught up in. Four years on, the trust has largely defeated repeated attempts to elect opponents to its council, which appoints board members - though the latest is coming up this week.

Treasured institution Europe's biggest conservation charity, with more than 5 million members, the trust is considered by many to be a treasured institution.

Founded 129 years ago and later given statutory powers as foremost guardian of Britain's historic properties and countryside, faultlines have always run through the body - from tussles over how to respond to the postwar growth of mass recreation to the aftermath of the 2004 ban on foxhunting.

In recent years an insurgent group called Restore Trust, as well as media and Conservative figures, began to oppose some of its decisions - especially around efforts to address links to slavery and Britain's colonial past.