roots1937

Soon gone

I wonder how many remember a series of monologues shown on the BBC in 2019? ‘Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle’ followed the stories of succeeding generations of a family of the Windrush generation. The first story featured Eunice, who, speaking directly to camera, describes what it was like when she first arrived as a passenger on the Empire Windrush in 1948. Set in 1949, a year after her arrival, the synopsis for this first episode describes her experience: ‘the year has not been easy: her aspirations and confidence have been battered by the reality of employment and living conditions in London.’

Subsequent episodes feature different characters from succeeding generations including marriages both within the growing black community and also with the white community. By the time we get to the eighth monologue Michaela takes up the story. Michaela self identifies as black but in appearance she is white. She remembers fondly her great grandmother Eunice and, holding up a photo of Eunice, says ‘most people don’t even realise that we are family.’ The monologues were fictional but they vividly illustrated the experiences of the Windrush generation, the aspirations, the hopes, the disappointments, the compromises and the struggles. Of course there are many real life examples that mirror the fictional ones portrayed.

Some of the early post-War arrivals were already married, men left their wives at home in the Caribbean and set off for the Mother Country in order to establish a foothold and then bring their wife to join them. Lucilda Harris, passenger number 127 on the Windrush passenger list, was one such wife. Lucilda and her husband would go on to become established as elders in the black community in Brixton. A little over six years later Audley Anderson disembarked at Plymouth from the SS Auriga on 12th October 1954 and made his way to Nottingham where his sister-in-law was already living. Audley’s wife, Myrtle, joined him five months later having also sailed to Plymouth on the Auriga. One of the Anderson’s children, Vivian Alexander Anderson, would go on to be England’s first black football full international.

Others had sweethearts in the Caribbean who came to join them in England. Pearl Mogotsi disembarked from the SS Ariguani at Avonmouth on 14th April 1948 (two months before the Windrush arrived at Tilbury). She was unmarried but that changed when she tied the knot with fellow Trinidadian, Edric Connor at Paddington Register Office on 26th June 1948. Pearl and Edric became important figures in black Britain’s cultural life (Edric, for instance, became the first black actor to perform for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford when he appeared in a 1958 production of Pericles).

But the majority of new arrivals did not have wives or sweethearts to bring over and had to look beyond their own community where there were few eligible women of colour. A calypsonian, Lord Beginner, addressed the issue directly in ‘Mix Up Matrimony’. Beginner, travelling under his real name of Egbert Moore, was passenger number 762 on the Windrush passenger list. Several of Lord Beginner’s calypsos captured the zeitgeist in memorable style, ‘Cricket Lovely Cricket’, celebrating the West Indies first ever victory over England in a test match at Lords in 1950, is one of his best known. But it is ‘Mix Up Matrimony’ that we feature here:

The song takes a very optimistic, ‘rose tinted spectacles’, view of the situation, in reality mixed couple were usually viewed with hostility, particularly by the white community. One of the black footballers we interviewed for our forthcoming book ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’, Lloyd Maitland, described how his, white, mother scarcely ever left the house because of the hostility she faced in Birmingham, and Lloyd himself was subjected to bullying on account of his colour.

In researching the book we came across a classic illustration of the ‘soon gone’ storyline. We wanted to identify the first black player at each of the 92 English Football League clubs. We thought we had identified Tranmere Rover’s first black player when we found that a Nigerian, Elkanah Onyeali, had played for them in 1960, however, our friend, the Liverpool historian, Ray Costello, alerted us to a black goalkeeper who played for Rovers at least a decade earlier. The goalkeeper in question turned out to be George Payne but, in fact, we discovered an even earlier black player for Tranmere.

The player we identified was Albert Charles Payne who made his debut for Rovers on 31st August 1946. We met Albert’s son, David, who, unlike the fictional Michaela at the start of this article, has never considered himself to be black. But David is a direct descendent of this man:

On 1^st November 1853, on the Caribbean island of Barbados, Joseph Stanley Payne (pictured above) was born. As a young man Joseph took to the sea and, as so many seamen did, eventually made Liverpool his home port. It was here that he married a local white girl, Sarah Ann Mansfield, in 1880. On 28th June 1884 Joseph and Sarah had a son, Albert Ernest, who joined the growing ranks of Liverpool’s mixed heritage community.

On 12th February 1920, Albert Ernest married Lilian May Tranter and Tranmere’s first black player, Albert Charles Payne, was born three years later in Liverpool on 11^th November 1923.

Albert made only ten appearances in the Football League (more than enough to earn him a place in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’), but his cousin, George Payne, the man Ray Costello originally drew to our attention, made a total of 467 in goal for Rovers in a career that started in 1947 and ended in 1961. Albert and George were cousins who could both claim the distinguished looking gentleman in the picture as their grandfather.

We don’t have a photo of Albert in his playing days but his cousin George is seen here (back row, third from the left).

You may think that George ‘doesn’t look black’ but, as we have seen, he and Albert had a black grandparent. This illustrates the point that the black contribution to British history is not always readily apparent, all the more reason to explore this hidden history.

‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ can be ordered from the publishers: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/product/footballs-black-pioneers-subscriber-copies-for-pre-order/, or from Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops.

Global reflections on a Yorkshire Day tea

By Audrey Dewjee

From a friend I received an account of the way she celebrated Yorkshire Day on Saturday by sharing a socially distanced Yorkshire Day tea with a neighbour in their gardens. The menu consisted of “Parkin, tea loaf, Wensleydale [cheese] and, of course, Yorkshire Tea!” This set me thinking about the origins of the Day, of the food, of Yorkshire’s wealth and the history of Yorkshire’s “Broad Acres,” which is a lot broader than many people realise.

The origins of Yorkshire Day

According to Wikipedia, “Yorkshire Day is celebrated on 1 August to promote the historic English county of Yorkshire. It was celebrated in 1975, by the Yorkshire Ridings Society, initially in Beverley, as ‘a protest movement against the local government re-organisation of 1974’. The date alludes to the Battle of Minden [in which the 51st (2nd Yorkshire East Riding) Regiment of Foot were involved], and also the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, for which a Yorkshire MP, William Wilberforce, had campaigned.”

Wilberforce was not the only abolitionist who had connections in Yorkshire. Although he was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Thomas Clarkson, arguably the greatest of all white British abolitionists, came from a family with its roots in Thirsk. Olaudah Equiano, then known as Gustavus Vassa, the chief black British abolitionist, had many supporters in Yorkshire, including in the cities of Huddersfield, Leeds, York and Hull.

Letter of thanks from Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano) to Yorkshire supporters, Leeds Intelligencer, April 19, 1791

Other heroes in the struggle against slavery and racism included Wilson Armistead, a Quaker businessman from Leeds who, in 1848, published what is probably the first British Black History book, A Tribute for the Negro. His illustrated book included biographical notes, some short and some longer, about the lives of almost 200 people of African descent. In the book he states, “With regard to the intellectual capabilities of the African race, it may be observed, that Africa was once the nursery of science and literature, and it was from thence that they were disseminated among the Greeks and Romans….Solon, Plato, Pythagoras, and others of the master spirits of ancient Greece, performed pilgrimages into Africa in search of knowledge; there they sat at the feet of ebon philosophers to drink in wisdom!” A Tribute for the Negro is available to read on line at https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Tribute_for_the_Negro.html?id=t8ENAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Portrait of Olaudah Equiano from ‘A Tribute for the Negro’

In more recent times other Yorkshire men and women have joined these heroes in welcoming newcomers with darker skins to the county. [I will shortly be writing an article which includes two from the years just after World War 2 – John Murray-Robinson and Charles Henry Charlesworth.]

Parkin

Those of you who live in the south may not know about the much-loved Yorkshire parkin – a moist, sticky, spicy cake mostly eaten in the autumn and an integral part of Bonfire Night celebrations. Besides butter and eggs, its ingredients include oatmeal as well as self-raising flour, but the essentials which give it its taste and dark appearance are ground ginger, black treacle and soft brown sugar. Some recipes also include golden syrup, nutmeg and mixed spice, or use molasses instead of the black treacle.

As you will see, many of the ingredients could not be grown in Britain. Before sugar was made from sugar beet in the 1920s, Britain imported cane sugar (and its derivatives – molasses and treacle) from various territories in the former British Empire, particularly from around the Caribbean. Ginger was originally grown in South East Asia. In the 16^th century plants were successfully transferred to Jamaica from where the ginger was exported to Britain in addition to supplies from India. Enslaved labour produced the sugar and the ginger from which parkin’s recipe developed over the years.

Yorkshire Tea

Traditionally, the tea most admired in Yorkshire has always been a good strong, dark brew (possibly called builder’s tea in other parts of the country). Yorkshire Tea has now become a famous brand name marketed by Taylors of Harrogate. https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/about-us

I gave a box to a 101-year-old Asian Muslim relative when he visited London last November. He enjoyed it so much that he now regularly buys Yorkshire Tea, at great expense, in his home-town in Canada. Thinking of him reminds me that 1^st August this year was also celebrated as part of Eid al-Adha. Eid Mubarak, Amir! I hope you enjoyed some cups of Yorkshire Tea as part of your celebrations.

Of course, the name of the tea is interesting. As David Olusoga has asked, “Where in Yorkshire do they grow tea?” Listen to him raise the question in discussion with Akala on this podcast: https://soundcloud.com/southbankcentre_book_podcast/akala-and-david-olusoga-striking-the-empire. Tea is now imported from various parts of the old British Empire and it has a chequered history. Perhaps you would like to reflect on its history next time you enjoy a reviving cup.

The first tea to reach Britain came from China and it quickly caught on with the very rich: it was so expensive that it was kept in locked tea caddies. Once it became indispensible to a much greater number of people, Britain had to find a way to pay for it. This was a problem, as China had no desire to buy any British exports and only accepted silver bullion as payment. Two solutions to the problem were found.

The first was to grow massive amounts of opium in India which was then exported as a cash crop to China. In earlier times, opium was used as a very useful medicine, but the new practice of smoking opium for recreational purposes increased demand tremendously and millions of Chinese people became addicted as a result. Chinese emperors issued laws in 1729, 1799, 1814, and 1831 which made opium illegal but still British (and, later, American) traders found ways of getting it into the country via Chinese smugglers. Britain fought two Opium Wars in 1839-1842 and in 1856-1860 to force the Chinese to accept the narcotic. When we consider the problems we now have with drugs in this country, it brings to mind the saying, “Chickens coming home to roost”! As an outcome of the First Opium War, China was forced to cede Hong Kong to Britain, setting in motion more problems for the 21^st century.

An East India Company opium warehouse, c.1850

The second solution was to steal both tea plants and details of the methods needed to grow them successfully, which the Chinese had kept as a closely-guarded secret. This knowledge was then used in the establishment of tea gardens in India, where workers toiled under conditions very similar to those endured by the enslaved. At a later date, tea growing was established in Africa, and now our tea comes from both areas of the former British Empire.

Recently, when a local far-right activist tried to make something out of Yorkshire Tea’s seeming lack of response to the Black Lives Matter movement by tweeting “I’m dead chuffed that Yorkshire Tea has not supported BLM,” Taylors issued a short, sharp response: “Please don’t buy our tea again. We’re taking some time to educate ourselves and plan proper action before we post. We stand against racism.”

Taylors aim to be ethical producers, for example by planting trees in both Kenya and Britain and by treating their workers fairly – and they can claim some success, although there may still be some way to go, according to this report in the Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/09/yorkshire-tea-and-pg-tips-respond-to-anti-blm-boycott-with-solidaritea

Wensleydale Cheese

How could Wensleydale and its cheese possibly have a “hidden history” which links it with slavery and empire? Few would believe that beautiful Wensleydale in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park could have any connection with transatlantic enslavement or exploitation in India. However, when research was done for the Hidden History of the Dales exhibition, which was on display at the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes in 2007 and 2009, many such connections were discovered.

Rigg House, Wensleydale – retirement home of George Metcalfe, a former plantation owner in Dominica and Demerara (Dales Countryside Museum)

George Metcalfe’s grave in Hawes churchyard (Dales Countryside Museum)

Men left the Yorkshire Dales to settle in the West Indies and India. They worked as sailors and merchants in the slave trade, and as overseers, millwrights and surveyors on plantations. In some cases they owned plantations and enslaved workers. Those Yorkshire people who survived perilous sea journeys, at a time when shipwrecks were frequent, and tropical diseases, which killed many, remitted money to their families back home. Some retired to homes in the Dales. Returnees contributed to the built environment and invested ill-gotten gains in land and in industrial development and growth. They also brought people of African descent to live in the area in the 18^th and early 19^th centuries.

The baptism record of John Yorke, ‘A Negro Servant,’ at Marske in Swaledale, in 1776 (North Yorkshire County Record Office)

Two of John Yorke’s descendants talking with historian/actor, Joe Williams [1] (as Equiano) at the ‘Hidden History of the Dales’ Exhibition, in 2007 (Dales Countryside Museum)

Dales people who remained in Britain sold their wares to the plantations in America and the West Indies – for example knitted stockings, “bump caps for the negroes,” and agricultural products such as cheese.

Reflecting on all of this history, I trust that in future we will find ways to commemorate Yorkshire Day in a manner that honours the contributions made by the ancestors of all Yorkshire citizens – including those who grew the tea and the ginger or slaved in the cane fields and boiling houses to produce the sugar and treacle – and celebrates those people who fought for freedom, justice and equality and who extended a genuine Yorkshire welcome to settlers from all parts of the world.

[1] Joe Williams is the founder of Leeds Black History Walk https://heritagecornerleeds.wixsite.com/heritage-corner/l

A terracotta bust of Mary Seacole

By Audrey Dewjee

It is a privilege and a pleasure for the Historycal Roots team to work with Audrey Dewjee, Audrey has forgotten more about black British history than we will ever know.

News that a bust of Mary Seacole by the sculptor Count Gleichen is to be auctioned on 30th July 2020, reminded Audrey of the story of how the bust came to be made. You can read Audrey’s article on the subject below. It is a story known to very few people and Audrey is the perfect person to tell it as, back in 1984, she co-edited (with Ziggi Alexander) the first modern re-issue of Mary Seacole’s autobiography[1].

As the bust has been in the hands of a private collector for many years, we fervently hope that the auction leads to it being purchased by an institution which will put it on public display. At a time when we are debating the importance of celebrating the contribution of black men and women to British history it would be a travesty if this important artefact were to fall into the hands of a private collector to be squirrelled away from public view or, worse, shipped overseas. There are all too few public images of Mary Seacole available for people to view and it is important that we maximise the visibility of those we have.

In the article that follows Audrey tells the story of the remarkable friendship between Mary Seacole and the man who sculpted the image.

—————————————————————————————–

The sculptor, Count Gleichen, was a nephew of Queen Victoria. He was born Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, but he changed his name to the lesser title after his morganatic marriage in early 1861 to Laura Williamina Seymour, daughter of a British Admiral, as she was only permitted the title of Countess, not Princess.

As an officer of the Royal Navy, Prince Victor served in the Crimean War (1853-1856) and was one of the customers of Mary Seacole’s renowned British Hotel which acted as a sort of gentleman’s club to officers in the British forces. Here they could not only purchase alcoholic drinks and delicious meals but also essentials such as boots and shoes, socks and underwear, saddles, caps and handkerchiefs – in fact “everything from an anchor to a needle” – which the Commissariat (the government department responsible for the supply of food and equipment) was, for many months, unable to provide.

Mary’s friendship with the young prince, who was then in his early twenties, came in useful to him. In her autobiography she describes a couple of instances where her aid was of use:

“Of course the summer [of 1855] introduced its own plagues, and among the worst of these were the flies. I shall never forget those Crimean flies….There was no exterminating them – no thinning them – no escaping from them by night or by day….The officers in the front suffered terribly from them. One of my kindest customers, a lieutenant serving in the Royal Naval Brigade, who was a close relative of the Queen, whose uniform he wore, came to me in great perplexity. He evidently considered the fly nuisance the most trying portion of the campaign, and of far more consequence than the Russian shot and shell. ‘Mami’, he said (he had been in the West Indies, and so called me by the familiar term used by the Creole children), ‘Mami, these flies respect nothing. Not content with eating my prog [food] they set to at night and make a supper of me,’ and his face showed traces of their attacks. ‘Confound them, they’ll kill me, Mami; they’re everywhere, even in the trenches, and you’d suppose they wouldn’t go there from choice. What can you do for me, Mami?’

“Not much; but I rode down to Mr. B—–’s store, at Kadikoi, where I was lucky in being able to procure a piece of muslin, which I pinned up (time was too precious to allow me to use needle and thread) into a mosquito net, with which the prince was delighted. He fell ill later in the summer, when I went up to his quarters and did all I could for him.”

Here Mary Seacole was being rather modest: Prince Victor credited her with saving his life when he was stricken down with cholera.

At the British Hotel, Mary also provided a canteen for other ranks, where she carried out first aid for a variety of conditions including injuries, battle wounds and frostbite. She dispensed her medicines for the treatment of diseases such as dysentery, diarrhoea and cholera which were endemic in the camp and which killed six times more men than did wounds sustained in battle. For officers, Mary provided more individual care – she visited their tents and huts close to the battlefront where she administered her medicines as well as nutritious food to her patients.

Her successful treatment of Prince Victor resulted in even closer friendship which continued after the war, when they were both living in London. By 1871, and now known as Count Gleichen, Prince Victor had retired from the Royal Navy and was practising as a talented sculptor. His bust of Mary Seacole, created that year at the studio in his apartments at St. James’s Palace, was exhibited at the Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1872.

Of special interest is the fact that Gleichen portrayed Mary wearing her Crimean medals. There has been much controversy over claims by Seacole detractors that she had no right to wear these medals because no evidence has been found of her being officially awarded them. The evidence may not have been found, but I do not believe that an officer of the Royal Navy of Gleichen’s rank would have featured the medals so prominently in his sculpture if there was any doubt about her right to wear them.

Incidentally Mary wore her medals without challenge when she attended a high profile review of the army at Aldershot in September 1866. Sheldrake’s Aldershot and Sandhurst Military Gazette reported the presence of the “Crimean celebrity…decorated with her three war medals – the Crimean medal with three clasps, the Legion of Honour and the Turkish medal, that had been presented to her by the different governments for the valuable services rendered by this extraordinary lady to the allied army during this memorable campaign.” The report continued by describing her acknowledgement on the day by the army top brass: “As the troops were formed up to march past, she was recognised by the generals and Sir James [Lieut.-Gen. The Hon. Sir James Yorke Scarlett, K.C.B] rode up to her, and shook her warmly by the hand, remarking that the last time he saw her she was ‘totting’ out brandy to the soldiers in the Crimea…. Gen. Hodge also gave her a warm reception, and particularly requested her to visit the female hospital before she left Aldershot. Sir Wm. Codrington also rode to her and shook her by the hand, and, as well as the other generals, inquired where she had been since the Crimean War…. On her way homewards, Capt. Wolfe also accosted her…and expressed his pleasure at seeing her in Aldershot.”

In fact, Mary and Count Gleichen remained friends for the rest of their lives. The Fortnightly Review, of January, 1892, in an article entitled “The Late Prince Victor of Hohenlohe” [p.313] recorded that, “During the summer of that year [1855], Prince Victor for the second time nearly died of cholera. He was however, brought round by the devoted nursing of the well-known Mother Seacole, the West Indian black woman, who had become much attached to him. Up to the time of her death, not many years ago, the warm hearted old lady used to come and see him, and bring little presents for his children.”

In her will, Mary bequeathed to Count Gleichen “the diamond ring given to my late husband by his Godfather, Viscount Nelson”. She also left her best set of pearl ornaments to his eldest daughter, the Countess Feodora Gleichen, and nineteen guineas each to his other three children.

I trust the bust which illustrates their friendship will remain in this country, to be seen here by all who want to view it.

Details of the auction can be seen here: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/Auction/Lot/297-crimean-war-victorian-terracotta-bust-modelled-as-mary-seacole/?lot=357372&so=0&st=297&sto=0&au=748&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=48&pn=1&g=1

[1] The illustrations in this article come from Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, edited by Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee, Falling Wall Press, 1984.

The voyage of the Empire Windrush – A different perspective

By Dr Jo Stanley

Nancy Cunard (on the left) and Freya Stark

The original passenger list for the journey of the Empire Windrush from the Caribbean to Tilbury is held in the National Archives at Kew. Of the 1,027 passengers listed as being on board, two were stowaways. In spite of the existence of this raw data, myths and misconceptions about who was on board have proliferated. At various times it has been said that the passengers were all male, all Jamaican and all black. None of these statements is correct, even the number of passengers has been widely misquoted (the number 492 is constantly repeated, even by reputable historians).

The following article by Dr Jo Stanley gives a fascinating and unique account of the journey as experienced by two white women with very different temperaments and outlooks on life. The story is told through the eyes of Nancy Cunard, scion of the Cunard shipping dynasty, and Freya Stark, renowned travel writer. Other passengers in First Class with them included the singer Mona Baptiste, Ellis Clarke who 14 years later would become the first President of the newly independent Trinidad and Tobago and McDonald Bailey on his way to the London Olympics to watch his son run for Great Britain. Nancy and Freya describe what life was like on board; the musicians, the discovery of the female stowaway Evelyn Wauchope, racism in Bermuda and an eight-day diversion to pick up 66 Polish passengers in Tampico, Mexico. They evidently didn’t much enjoy the journey, commenting on the rigours of the trip from the vantage point of white privilege.

The story of the voyage is complex and multi-layered, Dr Stanley’s beautifully written article approaches it from an unfamiliar angle and casts fresh light on what it was like on board.

The article is reproduced by kind permission of Dr Jo Stanley and Marine Quarterly where it first appeared in 2018.

MARINE QUARTERLY

A JOURNAL OF THE SEA
AUTUMN 2018

Homeward Bound

Jo Stanley

Voyage stories can be told from many vantage points. So let me offer you this unusual version.

Two footloose white women are the focus. Their voyages began separately, in Barbados, in late April three years after the end of the Second World War. On an island nicknamed `Bimshire’ and `Little England’ ennui was inevitable for these new sojourners, whose lives usually involved voracious discovering. After three months Freya Stark, the famous travel writer, had exhausted her capacity to play the diplomat’s wife, and wanted to escape to her home in Asolo [46 miles north west of Venice]. Her cabinmate, the scandalous writer-publisher and black rights activist Nancy Cunard, was similarly bored with the bridge-playing world at her cousin Edward’s beachside house in Glitter Bay. She had been recovering there for two months after a horrible holiday in Mexico, where a cactus had pierced her cornea and her latest lover had careered away.

Around Easter 1948 Caribbean newspapers offered a batch of one-way cheap passages to Britain, the shipping company wanting to avoid loss by filling up berths. The women each booked a ticket that cost as much as five cows, or forty weeks’ wages for a banana loader — £43, because females were all by definition ladies, and must therefore travel A class, in cabins. By contrast, men prepared to rough it in the C class dormitories paid only £28.1os.

In May Freya told Jock Murray, her London publisher, that she was leaving, and that all the frangipani were in flower and the Caribbean Sea was ’emerald green because of the Orinoco waters’. As she started the 251 nautical miles crossing to Trinidad, the embarkation port, it was strange to see Bimshire ‘vanishing back into the waves and clouds from which I saw it emerge so few months ago’.

According to Nancy’s biographer, Daphne Fielding, Nancy waited for ‘three suffocating days . . . in evil-smelling Port-of-Spain, after which she felt she really knew what it was like to be a poor Negro living in one of those wretched wooden shacks in Cock-Crow Alley or Barking-Dog Lane.’ The passengers were joining the ship for the last two legs of its outward voyage from Southampton: Jamaica, then Bermuda, before the ship headed northeast, home to the UK.

Just after 20 May, Captain John Almond’s less-than-full ship bore them away from Trinidad. To coop up two grand and headstrong public figures, one radical, one conservative, in the same cabin, might have been a recipe for ructions. Impeccable manners and busyness helped prevent them. Nancy was writing about Mexico. Freya was writing her autobiographical Traveller’s Prelude. Maybe they shared personal stories, as both were struggling with failing relationships with younger bisexual partners. Nancy, then 52, had been ditched by the wealthy wanderer William Le Page Finley. Freya, three years older, had recently married the Hon Stewart Perowne, Colonial Secretary to Barbados, who had metamorphosed into ‘the perfect civil servant’.

When they got to the Royal Mail Lines pier at Kingston they found that, like hungry newspapers in any small port, the Gleaner detailed all arrivals and departures. Miss Cunard, ‘whose affinity for the cause of the coloured peoples of the world caused such a furore in the middle 193os’ was mentioned as one of the celebrity arrivals: ‘During her [two-and-a-half-day] stay, short though it is, she hopes to see as much of the island as possible. She is particularly keen to observe at close hand the mental and political changes which have taken place in Jamaica [since her 1932 visit]’.

Nancy noted the quotidian, thinking about what could happen, including West Indies federation, and Mrs Perowne gazed upon evidence of old colonial glories. A brigadier whisked her off to use the official residence of the Governor, Sir John Huggins. She visited Port Royal — no longer swashbuckling, but near derelict — with a Nelson-revering naval guide. Determined to make the most of every opportunity, Freya obtained passes for a jaunt on an ordnance boat. Out in the waters round the Palisadoes it was bliss, admiring the accompanying pelicans and dreaming of walks and wayside inns in those distant Blue Mountains.

Then, bump, it was back to the ship’s ‘desolating efficiency’.

By the evening of 24 or 26 May 1948 (the accounts vary) tentative newcomers were finding their feet with the established communities in cabin and deck class. The ship was now full, and the atmosphere was more militarised. The public address system `blares’, Freya haughtily complained. ‘One’s time and thought taken up forcibly in listening to things one doesn’t want to hear.’ Soon gossip revealed that one of the six stowaways at Kingston was — gasp — a female! She was dressmaker Evelyn Wauchope, aged 27. Enter gallant rescuers who collectively paid the fare for what the Gleaner calls ‘this adventurous woman [who would otherwise] be imprisoned on arrival in England’. Jamaican musicians, including Delroy Stephens, gave a benefit concert for her. ‘From then on nothing very exciting happened.’

Detouring to Tampico to pick up Poles made Freya chafe: ‘It seems wildly extravagant to send a huge ship, 2,000 on board, eight days out of its way for sixty passengers who could have been flown or taken by schooner to Bermuda.’ Throughout the war she had coped at long range with distant Whitehall bureaucracy. Now she believed ‘it is just that someone in London was unable to realise the difference made by looking at a small-scale map, and thought this was all on our way.’

For four days and nearly fifteen hundred nautical miles there was confinement, ‘chugging through the Mexique Bay, cutting its dark flat waters in swelter of heat and noise’. She told her husband `I hope I may never have to travel in a troopship again; regimented from morning to night … It really is sordid.’

Privation intensified upper-crust solidarity. ‘It is a godsend to have Nancy Cunard. We omit breakfast and lie with very little on in our cabin till lunch, and then sit in hot shade with typewriter or Russian. Heat really exhausting.’ At night the ship was ‘as bad as Delhi’ (where she had enjoyed Viceroy’s House’s elaborate hospitality). With not so much as a punkah now she found ‘the sheets scorching; and poor miserable people are down below in decks that descend to E without a breath of outside air’.

In Tampico, the ‘New Orleans of Mexico’, they were dismayed at not being allowed ashore. The sixty Poles joined the ship by boat. Fresh water supplies were low. The ship’s desalination system was not adequate, and currency problems meant that none could be bought in Mexico. So over the next few days they headed east, past the tip of the Yucatan peninsula, then across to Havana on 3 June. Four years before the revolution, the city gave a glimpse of opulence: ‘wide, straight streets; porticoes and shops; shiny rich cars: the waterfront finished off with a low parapet of stone and backed with gardens … one has a feeling of a metropolis standing on its own feet.’ But they were not allowed ashore in this city either: ‘just frying like the Ancient Mariner on a painted ocean … how maddening not to be able to land,’ Freya told her husband.

Water obtained, they could start heading northeast. Bermuda was a scheduled stop. Here they had to wait two days because of engine failure, which was handled at the dockyard and again in Hamilton. The Royal Gazette reported that ‘Bermudians went all out to show hospitality to passengers and crew. . . A major social event, with plenty to eat and drink, was a dance on the old Unity Patio in Happy Valley.’ The ship’s calypsonians provide extra music. Passengers were, however, shocked at the apartheid here, especially in education.

As in Jamaica, Freya managed a brief respite ashore thanks to her connections. Vice-Admiral William Tennant, briefly Commander-in-Chief of the America and West Indies Station, hosted her overnight. She enjoyed ‘a bathe before breakfast . . . slipping down barefoot over the wet grass and finding the little cove all pure and quiet from the night and swimming out among the white birds in an almost waveless sea.’

On 11th June she calculated: ‘This depressing boat, eleven more days to go.’

Two days out from Bermuda they had rough weather for the first time. On 21 June, after a thirty-two-day trip, the two women arrived at Gravesend [Tilbury], and discovered that their ship was a floating political problem called the Empire Windrush, filled with people who, like them, were recognised then and now as bona fide British subjects.

Ronald Fitzherbert Hall – February 1915 to 15th July 2009

Today, on the anniversary of his passing, we celebrate the life of Ronald Fitzherbert Hall. Ron’s name will not be widely known beyond the circle of his friends and family but he contributed greatly both during and after World War 2. Our story, which you can find here http://historycalroots.com/ronald-fitzherbert-hall-navigator-here focuses mainly on his time in the RAF during the War.

Ron is just one of the many unsung black heroes who deserve a place in our collective history. We hope you enjoy reading about him.

More about Dido Elizabeth Belle and her Mother

History is history, it happens and things move on, today’s news is tomorrow’s history – right? Well, not exactly. Whilst the basic facts may not change, what we know about them certainly does.

Dido Elizabeth Belle is a case in point.

At Historycal Roots we first became aware of her story in the 1980s when local history researchers in Camden looked into the, now famous, double portrait that hung in Kenwood House, Hampstead.

Who, they asked themselves, was the black girl in the painting? They had found some information about her in the archives and published the story. There wasn’t a lot but, what there was, was intriguing. We kept in touch with developments in the telling of Dido’s story over the following years (and decades!)

Fast forward to 2014 and the film ‘Belle’, directed by Amma Asante and starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw in the title role, was released in the UK. Also that year, using Dido’s story as the inspiration, we wrote the first of our books for children, ‘Fern and Kate Meet Dido Elizabeth Belle’.

The book combined a short story (two modern school girls go back in time and meet Dido) with a summary of the true story of Dido’s life and the times she lived in. We did our best to get the real history accurate and read all the information we could find about her. Based on that we wrote ‘Dido’s Mother was an enslaved woman from the Caribbean’ and that she ‘might have been called Maria’. We concluded by saying ‘no one knows what happened to Maria (if that really was her name) after Dido was born but she may well have died soon after childbirth.’ We didn’t write it at the time but can remember thinking ‘and we never will know.’

Well, I didn’t bargain on the tenacity of historians and on the paper trail that marks out the course of our lives now and which marked out the lives of those who lived before us. Some very determined people have filled in many of the gaps in our knowledge of Dido and her mother.

On this site we like to add something to the work that others have done, rather than just repeat it. In the case of Dido we don’t have any fresh insights and can only share with you discoveries that others have made. In a book published recently, ‘Britain’s Black Past’, there is an article by Gretchen Gerzina which brings us up to date on Dido’s story and that of her mother. It is just one of 18 fascinating essays in the book which is a treasure trove of information, much of it new.

Looking at Gretchen Gerzina’s article about Dido we now know much more than we did just six years ago.

Dido was born in London on 29th June 1761 and was a free woman from birth. Earlier suggestions that Dido could have been born into enslavement and might have been born at sea are now known to be incorrect. The ‘birth at sea’ story seems to have originated with the descendents of Lord Mansfield but, as anyone with experience of researching family histories can attest, these traditions handed down through the generations can often be wrong.

Dido’s mother was indeed Maria Belle and, far from dying ‘soon after childbirth’, Maria lived in London for most of the period from 1761 to 1774. There is a strong likelihood therefore that Dido was able to see her mother even though they may only have lived together while Dido was an infant. It still isn’t known when Dido moved into Lord Mansfield’s household. Logic rather than any kind of historical research suggests it could have been 1764 when Maria left London.

Dido had at least four half brothers or sisters fathered by John Lindsey with different women during his time serving in the Caribbean. John Edward, born in 1762, died young. But Ann and Elizabeth, both born in 1766 to different mothers, and John born in 1767 survived childhood. Indeed John went on to become a Colonel in the Madras Army and amassed a fortune. Dido was the only one of John Lindsey’s illegitimate offspring who was born in the UK, the others were born in Jamaica.

Maria Belle lived with Dido’s father, John Lindsey, for a time (1764-65) in Pensacola, Florida. Their address was No.6 Western Bayfront. Lindsey was commander of naval forces stationed at Pensacola (from 1763 to 1781 Florida was in British hands). Lindsey married in 1768 and, as far as anyone has been able to establish, fathered no more offspring, legitimate or otherwise.

Even though Lindsey had been married for five years Maria was clearly someone who was still in his thoughts as, in 1773, he, now Sir John Lindsay, signed a plot of land in Pensacola over to Maria who was described as ‘a negro woman of Pensacola’.

Excavations at the site of the plot of land where the house stood have even found traces of fine quality glassware and ceramics, finds that contrasted sharply with the more masculine accoutrements found at other plots nearby (things like pipe stems and bottle fragments). The evidence suggests that the occupant of No.6 was a lady with a ‘higher status life-style’ and the researcher, Margo Stringfield, suggests Maria’s tastes may reflect the life she had become accustomed to during her time in London.

More is also now known about Dido’s husband, John Daviniere, and about her life with him. Daviniere was born in the town of Ducey in the Normandy region of France. He was baptised on 16th November 1768. They married on 5th December 1793 at St George’s Hanover Square and one of the witnesses was the son of 7th Earl of Coventry which shows that Dido continued to enjoy connections with the aristocracy. You can visit the very spot where they exchanged vows:

The couple moved into a newly built house at 14, Ranelagh Street North. They had three children together, two of whom (both sons) survived into adulthood. Etienne Daly has gone to great lengths to establish where Dido’s sons (and a grandson) are buried. The excellent website ‘All Things Georgian’ has several fascinating articles about Dido and includes one that documents Etienne’s research (having spent many hours in cemeteries looking for long lost graves the account of his search sounded all too familiar) https://georgianera.wordpress.com/2020/05/20/where-are-dido-elizabeth-belles-sons-buried/

Dido herself died on 25th July 1804 and was probably buried in St George’s Field burial ground. Much of the site was excavated in modern times to build a block of flats but not all of it was and it is possible Dido is still there. At the risk of being proved wrong (again) it seems unlikely that the exact location of Dido’s final resting place will ever be identified.

I will give Gretchen Gerzina the last word. Summing up Dido’s story she has this to say: ‘the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle challenges us to rethink what we thought we knew about Britain’s black past, about women like her, and about their lives in unexpected places.’

Armed Forces Day – Remembering The Black Presence

On this Armed Forces Day we remember the black service men and women who have served Britain in armed conflicts since the 19th Century and before.

Clarence Gittens, buried on Barbados (World War One)

Alford Gardner (right) and Dennis Reid (World War Two)

Allan Wilmott and Neil Flanagan (World War Two)

Their contribution must not be forgotten.

Football’s Windrush Generation

Football doesn’t often feature on the pages of Historycal Roots but members of the Windrush Generation, who have contributed so much to so many aspects of British Society, have had a very visible impact on football pitches up and down the country. On this Windrush Day it seems appropriate to celebrate their contribution.

There have been black players in British football from the start of the game as an organised professional sport. A mixed heritage player called Arthur Wharton made his First Division debut in goal for Sheffield United in the League on 23^rd February 1895, just seven years after the competition started in 1888.

There were 92 Football League clubs at the start of the 2019/20 season, 18 of them had fielded a black player before the outbreak of World War Two but, for a further 29, their first black player was a member of the Windrush Generation.

There were boxers on the Empire Windrush when it docked at Tilbury on 22^nd June 1948 but no professional footballers. However, some came later having been born in the Caribbean. One of them was Brendon Batson. Born in Grenada in 1953, he came to England with his parents as a nine year old and went on to become the first black player in Arsenal’s 1^st team in 1972. Roland Butcher, born in Barbados, was the first black footballer to play for Stevenage but is better known as England’s first black international cricketer.

More were born in the UK, the sons of parents who made the journey from the Caribbean in the 1950s or 1960s. Some achieved notable successes in their football career.

London born Laurie Cunningham first played for Leyton Orient before transferring to West Bromwich Albion where, in 1977, he was the first black player to make it into Albion’s 1^st eleven. Laurie subsequently moved to Spain where he won a European Cup winner’s medal with the mighty Real Madrid.

Others had long and successful careers for clubs in lower divisions. Tony Ford, Grimsby Town’s first black player, made 1081 League and Cup appearances over a career that spanned 27 seasons from 1975 to 2001. This remains the highest number of appearances for any outfield player (only goalkeeper, Peter Shilton, played more). Tony’s father was from Barbados, in the UK he met Bradford-born, Jean Ford and Tony was born in 1959.

Not all were as successful. Lloyd Maitland’s father arrived from Jamaica in 1951 and Lloyd was born on 21^st March 1957. Lloyd only made only 39 appearances in the League for Huddersfield and a further 71 for Darlington before his career was brought to a premature end when he was run over by a car driven by one of his own team mates.

One thing they had in common was that they faced racist abuse of varying degrees of vitriol. Peter Foley, Scunthorpe’s first black player, once feigned injury to avoid playing at Millwall’s notorious ground. This was a seminal moment in Peter’s life as he vowed he would never again hide from racism but would fight it with all his might – he was later awarded the MBE for his work to combat racism.

But none of the Windrush Generation of football pioneers achieved more than Viv Anderson.

Viv’s father, Audley Anderson, sailed from Jamaica on board the SS Auriga. He left behind his young bride, Myrtle. Like so many men of the time he recognised the need to make sacrifices to achieve a better future for himself and his family. Audley arrived at Plymouth on 12^th October 1954. Five months later, Myrtle followed him, also travelling on the Auriga to Plymouth.

Myrtle was a qualified teacher but, as so many in her position found, her qualifications didn’t satisfy the UK authorities. She found a job as a school dinner lady but later qualified as a nurse, becoming one of the many thousands of nurses from the Caribbean who helped make the Health Service such a success.

The Andersons had set up home in Nottingham and that is where Vivian Alexander Anderson was born on 29^th July 1956. Viv went on to be a key part of the team that won the First Division title (what would now be the Premiership) and the European Cup (forerunner of the Champions League) twice with Nottingham Forest. He was Forest’s first black player and, in 1978, also the first to win a full England cap.

All these players and many more are included in a book, Football’s Black Pioneers, by Bill Hern and David Gleave, that will be published in August 2020. It will include the stories of the first black player at each of the 92 EFL (English Football League) and Premier League clubs. The book is available for pre-order here: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/shop/

[This story has also been posted on The Voice website and on our sister site, Football’s Black Pioneers]

George Rose – An Exemplary Soldier

As the sun came up on Monday 19th June 1815 George Rose counted his blessings. He had been in the thick of the action during what we know as the Battle of Waterloo. He had been badly wounded (so badly that it was not until June 1816 that he was discharged from the military hospital in Colchester) but, unlike many of his comrades, he had survived. George wasn’t to know it but an eventful 58 years lay ahead of him. He died in his native Jamaica in 1873.

On 10th June we published a post about Trumpet-Major James Goodwin, another black soldier who survived Waterloo. We made a passing reference to George Rose and, John Ellis, author of the article about Goodwin, told us that over a decade ago he had done a lot of original research into the career of George. Today we reproduce John’s original article about George Rose with a short postscript by John that casts further light on George’s life.

You can read the remarkable story of George Rose here:http://historycalroots.com/george-rose-an-exemplary-soldier

‘The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life’

‘The nearest run thing you ever saw in your life’, that’s how Arthur Wellesley, the 1st Duke of Wellington, described the Battle of Waterloo, a battle that saw the final defeat of Napoleon and shaped the course of European history.

In an event of less historical significance, in 2014 two thirds of the Historycal Roots team visited Perth (in Scotland, not Australia!) with the intention of visiting Scone Palace for an exhibition about Dido Elizabeth Belle. After a fascinating afternoon at Scone, the following day we found ourselves with time on our hands in Perth and decided on the spur of the moment to visit the Museum of the Black Watch Regiment. At the door we were greeted in friendly fashion and asked if we had any particular reason for visiting. We said that we were especially interested in any evidence of black soldiers having served in the Regiment during World War One (a project we were working on at the time). The gentleman thought for a moment and said he regretted he couldn’t think of anything but perhaps we would like to meet George?

‘George’ turned out to be George Rose who served at the Battle of Waterloo.

Up to that point I don’t think it had ever occurred to us that there might have been black soldiers at Waterloo but indeed there were and they were in the thick of the action too. George Rose was one, but there were others.

The battle was, as already noted, a very close run thing and there were heavy losses on both sides. The Duke also commented ‘believe me, nothing except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won: the bravery of my troops hitherto saved me from the greater evil.’

In 2018 we attended a What’s Happening in Black British History event in Huddersfield where we heard a fascinating talk by John Ellis about the black presence in the British Army in the 18th and 19th centuries. John’s talk reminded us of our ‘meeting’ with George Rose and added a huge amount of information about other men we had been unaware of.

These threads came together for us recently when John contacted and offered to write a piece for Historycal Roots. We were thrilled! As we approach the 205th anniversary of the battle on 18th June there could be no better time to introduce you to the story of James Goodwin, a black soldier at Waterloo. You can find John’s article here: http://historycalroots.com/trumpet-major-james-goodwin-a-black-hero-of-the-battle-of-waterloo