Cambridge University quietly removed from prominent public display a portrait and a bust of the former South African prime minister Jan Smuts, long regarded as a British ally of Churchillian stature but now under fire from anti-colonial student protesters.

The bust of Smuts, a former chancellor of the university, has been moved from a public area of the Old Schools building, which houses the main university offices. Since then the Old Schools has carried posters from the first election after Nelson Mandela’s release from prison in 1990.

A portrait of Smuts was taken down from the hall of Christ’s College, from which he graduated with a first-class degree in law in 1894. Christ’s says that the portrait remains hanging in the Hall where it has