BOLTON Council leader David Greenhalgh has rejected calls for the town to consider renaming any memorials in the wake of recent campaigns to remove statues and other monuments honouring slave-owners and imperialist figures.

The legacy of one of the borough’s most famous sons ­— William Hesketh Lever ­— has come under scrutiny due to the soap entrepreneur’s links with a system of forced labour in the Belgian Congo during the early 20th century.

The infamous regime reduced the population of Congo by half and accounted for more deaths than the Nazi holocaust.

Lever, who later became Lord Leverhulme, was recently included on a list of statues and memorials across the UK that protestors say should be torn down or renamed.

Bolton’s Leverhulme Park takes its name from Lever who donated it to the people of the town and there are other memorials to his philanthropy including Lever Park in Rivington.

Lever, who was born in 1851, is famous as the founder of Sunlight soap manufacturers Lever Brothers and also served as the town’s Mayor in 1918.

There are several commemorative stained glass windows dedicated to the Leverhulme family in St George’s Road Congregational Church - now the Church of St Andrew and St George, St George’s Road, Bolton - where Lever himself was married in 1874.

But despite calls for a statue of Lever in the Wirral to be toppled and Labour run councils pledging to look into the matter, Cllr Greenhalgh said there was no plans to carry out any such review.

He said: “We are an administration opposed to any form of racism or discrimination, but we will not be dictated to on whether we should eradicate history and we will not support the removal of any memorials or statues.

“In my view, it is simply wrong to judge people who lived hundreds of years ago on 21st century values. Society, it’s stances and morals evolve with time. We learn from history, we educate and we should never be afraid to challenge and update, but eradicating it is not the answer.”