you can't actually erase people from history. it was impossible 2000 years ago in the days of damnatio memoriae, let alone now.
you can choose who you publicly venerate
I don't know about this particular case but I do know as a rule of thumb that statues, monuments etc aren't really about their subjects
they're about the motives of the people putting up the statues
Confederate statues, for example, have by and large nothing to do with memorializing Confederate soldiers
they were promoting the Lost Cause myth and its attendant politics, very explicitly including the reinforcement of Jim Crow era white supremacy
and even if they were about memorializing Confederate soldiers, why should we?
why should we publicly memorialize men who fought a devastating war in the name of slavery?
why should the University of Edinburgh associate itself with a racist who chose to profit from the slave trade?
I say the burden of proof is on people who want to maintain these statues, monuments, named buildings