My initial reason for visiting Harewood House was to see the exhibition about the life of Bertie Robinson that I have written about elsewhere, but I was lucky enough to get a ticket for a black history walk around the house and grounds.
My tour guides were none other than Pablo Fanque and his charming wife Susannah. This was quite something as Pablo died in 1871 and Susannah pre-deceased him in 1848. Pablo (actually Joe Williams, founder of Heritage Corner) and Susannah (Vanessa Mudd) took us on a whirlwind tour of black history that encompassed Egypt, the three west African trading empires of Ghana, Songhai and Mali and much more besides, before returning us to York and Harewood.
When I was working I used to feel that if I learnt one thing on any course I attended it had not been a complete waste of time. This walk certainly passed the ‘one thing’ test with plenty of room to spare.
I will focus here on one story that was new to me (apologies to those who are familiar with it). It concerns ‘ivory bangle lady‘. whose remains were discovered during an excavation in York in 1901. She gains her name from one of the bangles she was wearing. One of her bangles was made of jet, a stone that can be found in Yorkshire, but the bangle fashioned from ivory clearly had a more exotic origin.
It was evident that she was a wealthy woman from the jewelry and other items buried with her. It also seems likely that when she died (in her twenties) in the second half of the 4th century AD she was a Christian as a message carved in bone was found in her grave: “Hail, sister, may you live in God”.
Scientific advances since 1901 mean that far more is now known about her. She has been identified as of mixed heritage with at least one parent from north Africa. Applying the same scientific techniques to the remains of others in the same burial ground suggests that maybe 10% of the population of Roman York were of similar heritage. Perhaps you were aware of that but, for me, it was a revelation.
There are several interesting articles on the internet about this remarkable lady, this is just one of them: https://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/collections/collections-highlights/ivory-bangle-lady/
Returning to Pablo Fanque (real name William Darby), I had heard his story before but it was good to hear again about his remarkable life. The fact that he was born in Norwich in 1810 surprised me when I first heard about it but since then I have become more and more aware that the black presence was not restricted to major cities like London, Liverpool and Bristol but could be found in the countryside too. The evidence for this wider black presence can be seen not just in references in newspapers but in paintings and illustrations that date at least as far back as 1658 and may feature in a future post.
Pablo Fanque was a circus impresario and the walk took its name from a great storm that engulfed Pablo’s circus during a show at Harewood. The dramatic description of the storm reminded me of an event I attended recently where we were caught in a flimsy gazebo during a downpour of epic proportions.
Sadly, Susannah died when she was hit by falling beams when a gallery collapsed in the building where the circus was performing but Pablo soldiered on.
My one disappointment?Anyone familiar with the Beatles song Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite might reasonably have expected to see a bear, sadly no bears were in evidence! Apart from that, top marks to Joe and Vanessa for an entertaining and informative walk.
If you are in the Leeds area it would be well worth going on a future Heritage Corner walk and you can find out more here: https://heritagecornerleeds.com/