The Windrush Foundation has produced an educational resource pack for teachers to help them talk about the journey of the Empire Windrush and the Windrush generation in an informed way. At Historycal Roots we are pleased to have played a small part in the material’s production. Now, as Arthur Torrington of the Foundation says, ‘every school, parent, and others should have a copy’. Well, Historycal Roots can’t quite achieve that (!) but we can play our part.
The pack contains a wealth of resources and can be found here:
The National Curriculum can no doubt sometimes feel like a straightjacket to teachers but it has always been a flexible tool with scope for imaginative professionals to bring elements of the black experience into many aspects of their lessons. Recent changes to the National Curriculum in History, and the prioritisation of Spiritual, Moral, Social, and Cultural (SMSC) development across Key Stages, have widened the opportunities for teaching students to understand and appreciate the range of peoples, from all places, who have journeyed to and helped to shape the British Isles.
Although our focus is on the Windrush generation there is of course a far wider context to the topic of immigration stories. We are aware of this excellent site that places the Windrush story within that much broader setting:
As attitudes in the country become more polarised and small-minded nationalism seems to be on the rise, it is now more important than ever that the rich and diverse history of the peoples of the British Isles is better understood.
We recently visited Liverpool where we had the great pleasure of meeting up with friends Ray Costello, historian and author, and Adam Duckworth, who works in the education department at the International Slavery Museum. We took the opportunity of handing over copies of ‘Windrush Pioneers and Champions’ to Adam and Ray and also to donate a copy of each of the ‘Fern and Kate Meet…’ books to Adam.
In addition to being a very good historian, another of Ray’s talents is to organise fabulous weather whenever we visit!
Later, we had a very enjoyable afternoon in Ray’s company as he took us on a walking tour of aspects of Liverpool’s black history that even many Liverpudlians are unaware of.
Let’s start with a quote from Olaudah Equiano’s ‘Interesting Narrative’, Equiano, having been promised his freedom, now finds that he is being sold, he argues that, as they are in England this is not legal:
‘I have been baptised; and by the laws of the land no man has a right to sell me.’
He was given short shrift:
‘Upon this Captain Doran said I talked too much English; and if I did not behave myself well, and be quiet, he had a method on board to make me.’
Needless to say, Equiano lost the argument and was duly bought by Captain Doran.
Being such fine, upstanding citizens, the Doran family have a street named after them in Liverpool:
Ray showed us the building that used to be the headquarters of Heywoods Bank. By introducing a system of promissory notes the bank effectively became a key enabler of the slave trade. The building is now occupied by a restaurant but it’s earlier function is still evident from the doorway:
Ray also showed us the site of the headquarters or unofficial embassy of the Confederate side in the American Civil War.
Britain was officially neutral but there were plenty in Liverpool’s merchant class whose sympathies, because their wealth owed so much to slavery, lay firmly with the Confederacy.
That Liverpool (like several other British cities) owed much of its wealth to the transatlantic slave trade was hardly a surprise but, visiting with someone steeped in local history, showed us how reminders of the shameful trade linger on if you know where to find them.
It was a pleasure and honour to be invited to a surprise party at Lambeth Town Hall in honour of Allan Wilmot, a World War 2 veteran who served in both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Allan was in fine form and announced his firm intention to make it to 100 (currently he’s 93). As Allan likes to point out, he was part of the Windrush generation who came before the Windrush, arriving at Southampton on a ship called the Almanzora in December 1947.
The event was hosted by the Mayor of Lambeth who made the presentation:
The Mayors of Croydon, Westminster and Bromley (and one other, whose borough I didn’t catch!) were also present as was Helen Hayes, MP for Dulwich and West Norwood. I can’t remember the last time I was in a room with five mayors – yes I can, never!
Also present was another WW2 veteran, Neil Flanagan. Neil was the man who foolishly gave me his i-pad and asked me if I wouldn’t mind filming while he took the salute at the 2017 Remembrance Day event in Windrush Square. I’d never used an i-pad before and have been worried ever since that I messed up. He reassured me that the pictures had turned out really well – phew! Commenting at the time of that event, Neil said “The Remembrance Day service on Windrush Square is an example of how we are gradually bringing realisation that West Indians were here serving their country, and still do … but it’s taking a long term to have our voices heard. I am proud and honoured that the memorial is there but I am sad that it has taken such a long time and that we have had to fight, step-by-step, for the recognition.” These sentiments were echoed by several speakers at Allan’s event.
Neil is shown in the picture while Allan cuts his special cake.
You can’t help but feel honoured and humbled at being in the presence of such distinguished veterans.
A series of events are happening to celebrate the life and times of Olaudah Equiano (known in his lifetime as Gustavus Vassa). As a prelude to the events at the American International Church in Tottenham Court Road (which is on the site of Equiano’s final resting place), a small group visited the grave of Joanna Bromley at Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.
Joanna is significant as she was Equiano’s 2nd daughter. Joanna’s sister, Anna Maria, died at the age of 3 so Joanna was the only one of Equiano’s offspring to live to adulthood. She married Henry Bromley who was a Minister in the Anglican church, at St James’ church, Clerkenwell, in 1821. she was 26. Joanna had been left a tidy sum in Equiano’s will (on her 21st birthday she came into a sum equivalent to £160,000 today) and so the likelihood is that she married for love rather than out of financial necessity.
Following the wedding, the couple moved to Appledore in Devon where Henry was a Minister. They stayed in Devon for five or six years before Henry’s work took him to Clavering in Essex. This was to be their home until 1845. Bromley resigned his post as Minister in 1845 citing his wife’s health which was ‘suffering from the injurious influence of the situation.’ Quite what the ‘situation’ was has never been established, leading to some speculation that Joanna could have been subjected to some sort of racism. The couple moved to London where Henry Bromley became secretary of the Provident Society for the Widows of Dissenting Ministers. Later he took up a Ministry in Harwich which is where he was at the time of the 1851 census. At this time Joanna was living a few miles away in the town of Stowmarket (she had a young female servant living in her household so was clearly not in financial difficulty).
Later Joanna moved back to London where she died on 10th March 1857 at the age of 61. Henry Bromley was not present at the time. As she and Henry never had children, Equiano’s blood line died with her.
Joanna died in London at the age of 61 and, as she and Henry Bromley never had children, Equiano’s blood line died with her.
Her grave was only re-discovered a few years ago and Arthur Torrington, who was our guide for the visit, described how the plot was completely overgrown and the monument broken and lying on the ground. It has been partially restored but more work is needed to return it to its original condition and make it into a more fitting memorial.
We are pleased to say that the book we worked on last year with the Windrush Foundation is now available and can be obtained via the Windrush Foundation website or downloaded as a free pdf:
The book was produced as part of the celebrations to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury. It tells the stories of over seventy passengers on the Empire Windrush itself (the ‘Pioneers’) or who came in the following years (the ‘Champions’). The stories aim to document the outstanding contributions that these pioneering men and women have made to British society.
The Historycal Roots team contributed to almost half of the profiles included and, although some of the stories are relatively well known, others are not. We are particularly pleased that our work with Edna Chavannes is included. Edna is a lady you are unlikely to have heard of but, she is one of the thousands of unsung heroes from the Caribbean who helped build the NHS. You can read about Edna in the book or in more detail on the page dedicated to her on this site (in the ‘Windrush Generation’ section).
We hope you enjoy the stories as much as we enjoyed !researching them!
NOTE: This was previously published as a separate page on this site, it has now been turned into a post. If you have previously read the page then nothing has been changed, if you haven’t read the page then welcome to the story of a great uncle who was a pioneering Methodist minister on Barbados.
John Rowland Gleave was neither black nor mixed heritage but he was the great, great uncle (I think that’s the right number of ‘greats’) of a member of the Historycal Roots team and so we have bent the ‘rules’ to include him. He lived in Barbados as a young Methodist Minister, married on the island and had his first two children there. His most significant contribution to black history was to help re-establish the Methodist Church in Barbados less than 40 years after one of his predecessors, Reverend William Shrewsbury, was forced to flee the island when his Church was torn down by a rowdy mob. The mob’s aim was to “eradicate from this soil the germ of Methodism, which was spreading its baneful influence over a certain class, and which ultimately would have injured both church and state.” The mob’s proclamation ended with a warning to any of Reverend Shrewsbury’s potential successors that “all Methodist preachers are warned not to approach our shores as, if they do, it will be at their own peril.”
The mob’s real issue was that they considered the Methodist Church as “enemies of slavery” and when they talked of “a certain class” they meant black people, in particular, enslaved black people.
After Reverend Shrewsbury left Barbados, incredibly brave people such as Sarah Ann Gill defied all threats and violence to ensure all were free to worship. There is little doubt that Gleave would have been a contemporary of Sarah who is now commemorated as one of the 10 National Heroes of Barbados. This is the story of John Rowland Gleave.
On 15th December 1910, after a lifetime of service to the Church, Reverend Gleave entered the Liscard Wesleyan Methodist Church. After getting his breath back he hung up the heavy coat which had protected him from the cold winter air outside. It was exactly 10 days to Christmas Day and, like all clergymen at that time of year, he was facing a busy couple of weeks.
This was his first Christmas back in the Liscard area which forms part of Wallasey in Cheshire. He had retired as resident Minister at Epsom and Ewell in Surrey earlier that year. Sadly, his replacement, Reverend John Wesley Howells, was destined to die in World War 1 in 1917.
Today he was here to give a religious instruction class to children from the adjoining school. He took his Bible from his briefcase, said good afternoon to the children and took his seat. He felt dizzy, then saw only blackness before slumping forward and hitting the floor with a thud. A Doctor was called but it was futile. In truth, Reverend Gleave was probably dead before he struck the ground. A couple of days later an inquest attributed his death to heart disease.
As a man of God, Reverend Gleave would have been content to draw his last breath in a place of worship. But the Liscard Chapel held even more special memories for him. As a former Superintendent of the Seacombe Circuit of which Liscard was part, he was instrumental in the building of the Church which had opened as recently as 12 July 1904.
John Rowland Gleave had been born in Warrington on 21 August 1837. Throughout his adult life he referred to himself as J Rowland Gleave but for the purposes of telling his story as well as for brevity, we will refer to him as Reverend Gleave.
Reverend Gleave’s life had been of sufficient importance for his death to attract interest. A syndicated article appeared in newspapers right across Britain and Ireland the following day. The article was short and to the point. The Dublin Daily Express of 16 December reported that “Reverend J Rowland Gleave, a supernumerary Wesleyan Minister, 70 years of age, died suddenly at Liscard, Cheshire yesterday afternoon.”
As might be expected, the local newspaper, the Liverpool Echo went into greater detail explaining that Reverend Gleave was; “About to give religious instruction to a class. He suddenly collapsed and when medical aid was summoned the Doctor pronounced life extinct and the body was conveyed to the mortuary.”
In summarising Reverend Gleave’s life the article recalled that he had been born in Warrington and went on to become a scholar at one of the great Wesleyan Colleges (the exact location is not quoted). He had worked in Liverpool, London and parts of Kent and also had a lengthy spell as Superintendent of the Seacombe circuit. He became a supernumerary Minister only 12 months previously and at the time of his death was living at Withens Lane, Liscard. He was said to have been 74 years of age when he died. He was, of course, having been born in August 1837, 73 years old when he died but at least the Liverpool Echo got it a lot closer than the syndicated article which had knocked 3 years off his age.
Given that Reverend Gleave had been a Minister since approximately 1861 and Wesleyan Ministers normally changed locations every 3 years, it is clear that the Liverpool Echo article omitted many of his previous posts. In addition to those towns quoted he had served as a Minister in places such as Hull, Huddersfield, Preston, Nelson, Bingley, Colwyn Bay, Rawtenstall and the north-east of England.
But far and away the most notable omission was the spell, almost 50 years before his death, that Reverend Gleave had spent in Barbados. We don’t know the precise year Gleave left for Barbados but it was quite probably his first posting as a newly-ordained Minister. He married on the island and his first two children were born and baptised there. He was living in Liverpool by 1871 which suggests he lived in Barbados for a number of years, certainly no less than three, between 1861 and 1870.
The Methodist, or Wesleyan, Church was introduced to Barbados in 1788 by the first ever Methodist Bishop, Thomas Coke. Methodists were detested by slave owners as one of the Methodists’ objectives was to introduce enslaved people to the Christian faith. The upper class saw Methodists as anti-slavery agitators but even more than that, feared their teaching would upset the ‘natural balance’ where black people identified themselves as inferior to the white population. Every effort was made to disrupt gatherings of Methodists, they were pelted with stones and there were even efforts to make Methodism illegal. In 1823 the Methodist Chapel in James Street (which was to later play a significant part in Reverend Gleave’s life) was torn down.
Coke died in 1814 well before Gleave was born. But Reverend Gleave would certainly have met one of the 10 National Heroes of Barbados – Sarah Ann Gill. Sarah was born in 1795 as a ‘Free Coloured’ of mixed heritage.
Sarah became a Methodist and even in the face of violence and threats, refused to renounce her religious beliefs. She joined the Methodist Church in her early 20s at a time when the establishment in Barbados was most fervently opposed to the principles of Methodism. She was a relatively wealthy person and in 1819 donated £10 towards the building of the first Methodist Chapel in Bridgetown.
In October 1823 that Chapel was destroyed by white rioters. The Methodist Minister William Shrewsbury and his pregnant wife were forced to flee the island in fear of their lives.
Sarah and her sister Christiana continued to defy all threats and hosted worship in Sarah’s home. In April 1825 one of Reverend Gleave’s predecessors, Reverend Moses Rayner wrote to Sarah asking for advice on taking the post in Barbados. She replied that “I don’t advise you to come, but if it was me, I should come.”
Partly due to the abolition of slavery, conditions had improved by the time Reverend Gleave arrived on the island in the early 1860s but nevertheless some of the hatred directed at the Methodist Church only 40 or so years earlier cannot have disappeared entirely. No doubt Reverend Gleave thought and prayed long and hard before deciding to take up the post.
Before leaving England Reverend Gleave had met Louisa Hitchcock a young dressmaker from Liverpool. This must have made the decision to leave England even harder for him. Reverend Gleave resolved the matter by asking Louisa to marry him and move to Barbados. She said ‘yes’ and sailed for Barbados where she joined her husband-to-be in October 1865.
The couple married on 10 October 1865 at the Wesleyan Chapel, James Street, Bridgetown. Reverend Henry Hurd, who was the Chairman of the District as well as the General Superintendent, officiated. Reverend Gleave’s address was shown as Speightstown which is about 10 miles north of Bridgetown.
It would seem highly probable that, as a leading member of the Methodist faith in Bridgetown, Sarah Ann Gill would have greeted Reverend Gleave shortly after his arrival on the island. Indeed she may even have been involved in his selection for the post. Sarah worshipped at the James Street Church so she would almost certainly have been in the congregation on that day in October 1865 to help celebrate the marriage.
Reverend Gleave had been appointed to the Bethel Church which opened as the Bay Street Chapel on 28 March 1844 and became the main church of the Bethel circuit in 1848. It is a beautiful church and has changed little since Reverend Gleave’s days.
A son, Henry Hurd Gleave, was born in 1866 and was baptised at Bethel by Reverend Henry Hurd on 8 August 1866. At this stage the family’s address is shown as Bethel. Reverends Gleave and Hurd obviously had a good relationship and respect for one another as young Henry was named after the Reverend.
A daughter, Florence Louisa, was born on 1 November 1867. We know she was baptised on Christmas Day 1868 but careful checking by officials of the Church and this author has failed to find an entry in the Bethel register of baptisms. This is a mystery that remains to be solved another day.
My search did however reveal the existence of a William Gleave Thomas of Bay Street, born on 17 February 1868 to William and Sarah Thomas. Reverend Gleave had carried out the baptism and the parents had paid him the honour of giving their son his name. Gleave isn’t a traditional Bajan surname but this discovery led me to wonder if there was a small enclave of people on the island who had inherited the unusual moniker. Alas, this wasn’t to be. William Gleave Thomas married his wife Annie on 9 September 1893. The couple moved to New York in 1905 where they had a daughter Kathleen in 1908. William took American citizenship on 16 April 1940, Annie having pre-deceased him. Thus the surname would seem to have disappeared from Bajan ancestry.
The pulpit where Reverend Gleave preached is still there:
Although the Liverpool Echo had failed to mention Reverend Gleave’s spell in Barbados we are fortunate in having a record of his views of the island and its people. On 19 October 1881 he gave a speech at the Annual Public Missionary Meeting and this was recorded by the Jarrow Express two days later.
What he said might seem patronising now but he was trying to argue against the widely held perception that prevailed in those days that black people were lazy, unintelligent and disruptive. He (or perhaps the reporter) avoids using the term ‘black’ or ‘white’ but instead contrasts ‘upper’ and ‘lower’ classes. However, he betrays what he really means by referring to Dr Davies, who, although black, was very wealthy and upper class, as an example of one of the ‘many’ who had an English outlook on life as well as a high level of intelligence.
“At one time the upper classes were callous and immoral, the lower sunk in ignorance and superstitions, whereas the immoral men were shunned and the lower classes were intelligent, religious, law abiding and industrious”. Of the Wesleyan churches on the island he said, “the people were conscientious, liberal and regular in all that pertained to their religion and had the respect of all classes of the community.” He also referred to the “people being imbued with English ideas, and many were endowed with the highest intelligence” and instanced several bright examples, including Dr Davies, at one time well known in this country. The ‘Doctor’ in question is surely James Pinson Labulo Davies the wealthy African who married Sarah Bonetta Forbes, the goddaughter of Queen Victoria, in Brighton in 1862.
By 1871 Reverend Gleave had returned to England and was living in Warrington with his young family. Shortly afterwards he took up a post in Lambeth, London. The rest of his career would see no more foreign postings but he did cover many other locations in England and Wales.
In the late 1890s Reverend Gleave was Minister at the Wesleyan Church in Carr Road, Nelson. The Home Reading Union, part of the Church, had organised a trip to the Lake District. On Friday 12 August 1898 eight members of the trip had set out on a boat on Derwentwater. The wind suddenly got up and the boat began to rock and take in water. Panic set in and the boat capsized. Five young girls drowned. They were all cotton weavers from Nelson. Four were aged 21 and the other was 20.
The girls were buried together. A monument in memory of them was unveiled in Nelson on 12 May 1889. At this ceremony Reverend Gleave, as reported in the Burnley Express of 17 May 1899, expressed his feelings at having to break the news to the devastated families. He said he “would never forget the testimony which was borne by those who had passed through great sorrow. The families bereft lost precious treasures, but they were cheering themselves with the thought that one day they would see their loved girls in the Father’s house on high.”
Reverend Gleave continued to serve the Church diligently until his death in 1910. If he was to now return to Barbados, he’d find that there are still people who believe black people have many of the negative traits touched upon in his speech at the Missionary Meeting in 1881 but his spirits would be raised to the rafters by his old Church in Bridgetown. It remains a beautiful, light and airy building. The congregation is thriving and enthusiastic. It is the most welcoming of churches and the young people that attend are truly inspirational. It also provides support for the less advantaged in the local community.
The inside will have changed very little since he last stood in the pulpit about 150 years ago and he would recognise the font (if not the dodgy wiring behind it!) where his first two children were christened:
and he would no doubt experience with joy the shaking of the floor when the famously loud Bethel organ gets into full flow.
Two thirds of the Historycal Roots team attended the final event of the Windrush 70 project at Lambeth Town Hall. It was a varied evening of: entertainment (calypsonian De Alberto, supported by Alexander D’Great and flautist Keith Waithe, performing with Manjeet Rasiya on tabla); education (Ansel Wong, who spoke about the many different components of the Caribbean diaspora and how they had transformed British society); and inspiration (Baroness Floella Benjamin, who spoke about some of the obstacles she had faced and overcome during her life).
The event was well supported by Lambeth council. The current mayor, Councillor Christopher Wellbeloved, spoke from the heart about his own experiences growing up as a young man of mixed heritage in the UK. Councillor Sonia Winifred spoke about the importance of education and the need to love our young people and help them turn away from violence (if you live in London the subject of knife crime is hard to avoid).
I will focus though on the presentation by Arthur Torrington, founder with the late Sam King, of the Windrush Foundation. Arthur spoke about the e-book that the project has produced. The book, which will be available shortly through the Windrush Foundation website (https://windrushfoundation.com/profiles/), tells the story of 70 ‘Windrush Pioneers and Champions’. The Historycal Roots team are proud to have played a part in producing this book.
We were lucky enough to have several pioneers in the room with us: Allan Wilmot, who arrived in December 1947 on a ship called the Almanzora; and Alford Gardner who was on the Windrush itself.
Also present was Edna Chavannes. Edna came to the UK in 1951 as a trainee nurse and served the NHS for 45 years before retiring in 1996. Edna was delighted to be presented with a silver salver commemorating her role as a pioneer.
Edna Chavannes – Windrush Pioneer
Without Edna and the thousands like her who travelled to the UK in the 1950s and 1960s there really would not be an NHS. As the event’s compere, Burt Caesar, said, the story of the Windrush itself is usually a story about men, the story of the many thousands of women who migrated to Britain has never properly been told.
Another pioneer who featured was Mona Baptiste. Although Mona is no longer with us, the Windrush Foundation had nevertheless produced a silver salver in her name.
Mona Baptiste – Windrush Pioneer
We collected this on her behalf and hope to have the great pleasure of presenting it to her family in 2019.
Returning nicely to the theme of education from earlier in the evening, Arthur also spoke about the education resource pack the project has produced to help teachers tell pupils at Key Stage 2 (about the ages 7-11) about the contributions of the Windrush generation.
It was a lovely evening and well done to Arthur and his team for this event (and the others that preceded it) and for the delivery of a very successful project.
To conclude, I can’t resist including a link to the song that De Alberto performed live. Ardent monarchists may prefer not to click on the link!
The Historycal Roots team’s quest for the truth knows no limits, well very few anyway!
Our search for more information about Mona Baptiste took us to Dublin recently where we: visited her grave at Deansgrange cemetery; visited the house where she used to live in Ballsbridge, a mile or so from the centre of the city; and obtained a copy of her death certificate from the General Register Office. As you might imagine, this was thirsty work, fortunately Dublin was not short of places where weary travellers could quench their thirst.
Our first stop was the cemetery, situated several kilometres to the south of the city:
We had the reference number for Mona’s plot but, almost inevitably, it was incomplete and inaccurate. For the record, she is actually buried in the St.Patrick’s section, row Q, plot 56. She was interred in the Morrison family grave and lies with her mother-in-law and father-in-law – not perhaps everyone’s ideal scenario!
It’s a little surprising how worn the stone has become, Mona only died in 1993.
Having paid our respects we next went to her old home in Ballsbridge. Here we were in for a pleasant surprise because the front door of her old house still bears her name. It was quite moving to think that this door must have changed very little since she passed through it for the final time twenty five years ago:
Our final visit was to the Register Office which we walked past at least three times before finally locating the entrance at the back of a car park. The staff, possibly surprised that we had managed to find them, were very helpful and after only about ten minutes we held a copy of Mona’s death certificate in our hands. Such certificates always make sad reading, this one was no exception. It showed that Mona died from natural causes after a short illness. She passed away on 25th June 1993 at St James’s Hospital, Dublin. just four days after her 65th birthday and 45 years and three days after she stepped off the Empire Windrush at Tilbury.
Until very recently Wikipedia and other sources stated that Mona died and was buried in Krefeld, Germany, it’s nice to have set the record straight.
We are pleased to announce that a new book in the ‘Fern and Kate Meet…’ series is now available. This time the girls meet Walter Tull, one of the first black professional footballers and one of the first black officers to lead troops in combat in World War One. Walter Tull’s achievements are all the more remarkable when you consider the difficult start he had in life – both his parents died before he was ten and he was sent away to be brought up in a children’s home in the East End of London.
The book is a short story for children between the ages of 7 and 10 (it’s difficult to be precise as children develop their reading skills at such different rates). In addition to the fictional story, the book gives factual information about Walter’s life and achievements.
The book is available from Amazon or you can order through this site, just go to the Walter Tull page (look for the ‘Our Books’ heading) for details.
At Historical Roots we are so grateful to Yorkshire historian, Audrey Dewjee, for drawing our attention to dramatic new research into the story of Dido Elizabeth Belle.
Dido has been something of a fixation with us for approaching 30 years, ever since going to Camden library to get a copy of a short pamphlet that the local history society had produced about the mysterious black girl in the double portrait at Kenwood House. Gradually over the years, more snippets of information have emerged but until now, if anyone asked, we always had to say that, sadly, no one knew what had happened to Dido’s mother, Maria.
Now, thanks to fantastic work by Joanne Major, we know rather more about what became of Maria Bell. If you share even one tenth of our interest in Dido’s story you really must read Joanne’s article:
Joanne has found that John Lindsey, having fathered a number of illegitimate children, married in 1768. But it seems that Lindsey ‘did not neglect his former lover.’ Indeed, Joanne goes on to say ‘In 1773 Lindsay began a process to transfer a piece of property he owned in Pensacola, Florida to Maria Bell, with the requirement that she build a house there. At the time, Maria Bell was living in London but a year later, when the deal was finalised, she had travelled to America. In the document, she was referred to as “a Negro woman of Pensacola, formerly of Pensacola, and then residing in London”’. This, of course, raises the tantalising thought that, if Dido’s mother lived in London for several years while her daughter was being raised in Lord Mansfield’s household at Kenwood House, might they have been in contact?
There is a great deal more of interest in Joanne’s article which is a fascinating read.
I notice that the heading of the page is ‘All Things Georgian’ and underneath it says that the site is for: ‘Super Sleuths who blog about anything and everything to do with the Georgian Era’. Well, Joanne Major definitely deserves to be regarded as a ‘super sleuth’ for casting fresh light on Dido’s story.
