Leopold II of Belgium (pictured) laid the foundation stone of the library at Queen Mary University of London in 1887. The two plaques commemorating his visit have been torn down after student protesters said they were offensive to ethnic minority students

Two plaques commemorating a visit to a British university by King Leopold II of Belgium have been torn down after student campaigners claimed they were racist.

The 19th century monarch visited Queen Mary University of London in 1887, when he laid the foundation stone of the library.

But student protesters said the plaques were offensive to ethnic minority students because they ‘pay homage to a genocidal colonialist’ and should be removed.

They claimed this would help black students feel ‘welcomed, respected, integrated and entitled to a sense of belonging on campus’.

Campaigners lobbied the student council to take down the plaques, but members voted against it. However, it emerged yesterday that university authorities removed the memorials quietly in June ‘as part of ongoing refurbishment’.

THE TYRANT BEHIND MURDER OF MILLIONS OF AFRICANS He posed as a generous philanthropist bringing civilisation and wiping out slavery. But King Leopold II of Belgium’s exploits in the Congo in the Victorian era were motivated by personal greed and ambition. Jealous of Britain and France’s empires, he joined the ‘scramble for Africa’ by the great European powers, and succeeded in making the vast Congo his personal fiefdom. It was owned by him alone – and he became one of the richest men in the world from ivory and rubber he looted there. His personal triumph came at a terrible cost. Although Belgium long kept secret the horrifying documents detailing his activities at the end of the 19th century, it is now believed that as many as ten million Africans were killed under his orders. It has been described by some as genocide. The King talked openly of plans ‘to secure a slice of this magnificent African cake’, and had done so by 1885. Whole villages were massacred at the first hint of rebellion. The Daily Mail was only a year old when it helped expose Leopold’s crimes in 1897. The first in a series of campaigning articles was headlined ‘Congo Horrors: Slaughter of rubber gatherers, Smoked hands as trophies’. Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad worked on a steamer on the river Congo during the period, and drew on his grim experiences to write Heart of Darkness, his novel about man’s capacity for evil. King Leopold succeeded his father to the throne of Belgium aged 30 in 1865, and ruled until his death in 1909. He was 18 when he married Marie Henriette of Austria. Their only son died of pneumonia aged nine. Leopold disinherited their three daughters after separating from his wife and taking a teenage French prostitute as a mistress. Setting his sights on one of the few unclaimed parts of Africa, he took control of the Congo’s rainforests, populated by tribes with no modern weaponry. The region boasted huge herds of elephants, and there was an insatiable demand in the West for ivory. But the king also made money from rubber. Unpaid villagers would be ordered to provide huge amounts of the substance – in what amounted to mass slavery – and were sent out at gunpoint to gather it in the jungle. If they failed to provide enough, they would have their hands cut off. Many were forced to watch as their children’s hands and feet were amputated. The king’s exploits came to light after a young British shipping official Edmund Morel – working in the Belgian port of Antwerp – realised Leopold’s ships were arriving from Africa with ivory and rubber but returning only with soldiers and weapons. He later wrote: ‘I had stumbled upon a secret society of murderers with a king for a crony.’ He returned to England to mount a huge public campaign, reported on by the Daily Mail, and eventually the truth was revealed, forcing Leopold to hand over the Congo to Belgium in 1908. The African country was granted independence in 1960. Advertisement

A spokesman for the Russell Group university said: ‘Queen Mary University has no historical ties with King Leopold, other than he visited Mile End in April 1887, and then returned to lay the foundation stone in June 1887.

‘The size and prominence of these inscriptions suggested a strength of association that was never the case, and as such the decision was taken to remove both from view.’

Critics said the move was counterproductive to the aims of a modern university. Alan Smithers, education professor at Buckingham University, said: ‘King Leopold of Belgium is history and it makes no sense to reinterpret his actions as racist … Queen Mary University is only pandering to this unhealthy search for racism and other “isms” everywhere.

‘The University should stand up for the truth, which is the point of universities.’

The plaques were in the university’s Octagon Library. King Leopold was invited to lay the foundation stone in 1887 when the library opened – a great honour for the university at the time as he was Queen Victoria’s first cousin.

Queen Mary University authorities removed the memorials quietly in June

A plaque in the library read: ‘Foundation stone of this library was laid by his Majesty Leopold II King of the Belgians, June 25, 1887.’ Another plaque states that it was unveiled by the Belgian ambassador on behalf of the king.

Both have now been put into an archive, according to the university.

It follows a ‘Leopold Must Fall’ campaign by the institution’s Pan-African Society, demanding the plaque be moved to ‘a museum or space, preferably one dedicated to the memorialisation of the crimes of genocide, colonialism and imperialism’.

They said the plaques needed to be accompanied with a ‘commentary that addresses King Leopold’s colonial past and historical crimes’.

They added: ‘Queen Mary should be a space that elevates the victims and people who resisted imperialism and colonialism as opposed to those who perpetrated it.’

Last year, protesters at Oxford University tried to get a statue of Cecil Rhodes torn down over claims it amounted to ‘violence’ against ethnic minority students.