Author: roots1937

Sean Creighton – 17th July 1947 to 15th May 2024

Some who subscribe to this blog will be aware of Sean Creighton and also, sadly, that he died recently. For those who weren’t aware, Sean was a community activist and stalwart of the local history scene, particularly in London, where he lived latterly, and in the North-East.

We first met Sean when he hosted a local history walk around some of the local sites associated with our favourite composer, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. The wealth of research that had gone into the walk was very evident and Sean was an engaging guide, happy to share his knowledge. We enjoyed a pint or two in a convenient hostelry afterwards.

After that, we met Sean many times at events where he regularly ran a book stall. He was a publisher too and several of his books and pamphlets jostle for space on our bookshelves. He was a great organiser (one comment at his funeral was that, thanks to his passion and commitment, ‘Sean was the secretary of every group going’) and he graciously invited us to speak at the Norbury Literary Festival (of which he was a driving force) last year on the topic of ‘Writing Black History.’ There are many who knew Sean better than us but it was a privilege to be invited to his house for a birthday gathering last year, his last as it turned out, and to have known him.

His funeral was a fitting tribute, there was standing room only at Lambeth crematorium, with others watching a livestream.

There were tributes from family and friends. One comment that would resonate with those who knew Sean was that, had he lived a few more weeks, he would doubtless have penned a paper on 5th July on how the Labour Government needed to do better!

Perhaps funerals shouldn’t have ‘highlights’ but Tayo Aluko gave a powerful and moving rendition of the Ballad of Joe Hill, here is Paul Robeson’s version (without Tayo’s added verse about Sean):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Kxq9uFDes

The central message of the song is certainly one that sums up Sean’s outlook…

‘Organise!’

The ill-fated voyage of the SS Verdala

On 11th March 1916 the SS Verdala left Jamaica with 1,160 recruits on board, men who had enlisted to fight for Britain in the ‘Great War’. As the ship steamed out of the harbour, even the Governor of Jamaica, Sir W H Manning, didn’t know the precise details of the planned voyage other than that England was the ultimate destination. What transpired shook many Jamaicans’ faith in the colonial authorities.

Recruits marching through the streets of Kingston on their way to the Verdala[1]From ‘Jamaica and the Great War’ by Herbert G De Lisser
On the eve of departure from Kingston[2]De Lisser, Op.cit.

The Verdala was ill-suited for the voyage that lay ahead and nine of the men who left Jamaica with high hopes of contributing to the war effort died long before the ship reached England. Hundreds of others were  permanently disabled.

You may be familiar with the story, the broad outlines are relatively well-known, but even with well-known stories there is often more that can be learned. We think our latest article will contain new information for even the most well-read of this site’s followers.  You can read it here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/an-ill-fated-voyage-the-ss-verdala-march-1916/

References

References
↑1 From ‘Jamaica and the Great War’ by Herbert G De Lisser
↑2 De Lisser, Op.cit.

New discoveries: Black soldiers in Edinburgh 1792-1848

Edinburgh Castle, Scotland

New discoveries cause us to constantly revise our thoughts about history in general and Black British history in particular. More and more records are being digitised and made available online and these lead to new finds and deeper understanding.

Regular contributor, John D Ellis, recently stumbled across a set of data he had never seen before. Careful analysis of the Army attestation registers for Edinburgh, has enabled John to identify the names of over forty Black soldiers who enlisted in British Army regiments between 1792 and 1848 in the city of Edinburgh alone. John makes the point that if such a register was maintained in Edinburgh, similar registers must have been kept in other cities – where are they and what would they reveal about the Black presence in Britain?

We first became aware of John’s work when he spoke at an event we attended in Huddersfield in 2018, what he had to say about the presence of Black soldiers in the British Army in the late 18th and early 19th centuries opened our eyes to an area of black British history that we had been largely unaware of. Since then, our understanding of the Black presence, in terms of both numbers and geographical spread, has come on in leaps and bounds. Working on this site and becoming aware of the work of John, Audrey Dewjee, Ray Costello and many others has been an educational experience for us and, we hope, for you too.

You can read John’s article here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/black-soldiers-and-edinburgh-c-1792-1848/

From Jamaica to Hampton Court

Hampton Court palace

Born on Jamaica in about 1780, a ‘Black man’, John Fitzhenry, had seen service in the British Army  in Spain and in ‘the War of 1812’ in America before the 1841 census found him living at Hampton Court Palace with his wife and three children. John was working there as a servant.

Interesting enough, but John D Ellis’s latest article for Historycal Roots about John Fitzhenry’s life has two postscripts.

The first, identifies some other ‘men of colour’ who served with John Fitzhenry’s regiment (the 14th Dragoons). It includes an instructive detour to Australia where a former officer of the regiment came to an inglorious end whilst hunting down members of the Nyungar tribe, whose ancestors had lived on the land for countless centuries before the arrival of British colonists, in Van Diemen’s Land (now  Tasmania).

The second postscript traces the exploits of John Fitzhenry’s son who competed as an athlete in Yorkshire in the 1840s and subsequently moved to Liverpool.

You can read John’s wide-ranging article here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/from-jamaica-to-hampton-court-palace-private-john-fitzhenry-of-the-14th-dragoons/

The Royal Academy, London: Entangled Pasts 1768 to now

This exhibition brings together several of our favourite paintings under one roof. As the mini guide says:

‘Entangled Pasts explores connections between art associated with the Royal Academy and Britain’s colonial histories.’

The mini guide handed to visitors and free audio guide draw out the associations and the full catalogue contains an excellent introductory essay. You can buy the catalogue from the RA shop, it is pricey (as these things always are) but it is beautifully illustrated and gives a real flavour of the exhibition:

https://shop.royalacademy.org.uk/entangled-pasts-1768-now-art-colonialism-and-change

To whet your appetite here are just a few of the paintings on display.

Ignatius Sancho is believed to have been the first Black man to vote in a British Parliamentary election and in 1768 Thomas Gainsborough painted this portrait of him.

Sancho was a man of letters, as was Ottobah Cugoano and a selection of his manuscripts was on display:

Better still, the exhibition also includes the only known image of Cugoano, an etching on paper (now attributed to Thomas Rowlandson) dating from c1784 or c1790. Cugoano was employed for a time as a servant by Richard and Maria Cosway and this depicts him in that role.

‘The Head of a Negro‘ by John Singleton Copley was painted in 1777/78 and the subject matter is extremely unusual, at this time biblical scenes or paintings of great battles were the general order of the day. Although Copley had been the owner of enslaved people, this man, whose name, regrettably, is not recorded, is painted with evident respect for his humanity:

These images were previously known to us but a lot of others were not, including this one, a detail taken from a painting by Zoffany, ‘Colonel Blair and his Family and an Indian Ayah’. The catalogue of the exhibition points out that the girl looks too young to be an Ayah (nanny) and is more likely to have been the daughter of an Ayah or an illegitimate daughter of Colonel Blair. We are grateful to Audrey Dewjee for pointing out that Zoffany was in India in 1786 when this was painted.

There are many, many more exhibits to enjoy but we will finish with, Dido Elizabeth Belle, who in many ways was the inspiration that led us to start this site in 2015/16. It was painted in 1779 by David Martin, the previous attribution to Zoffany is now believed to be wrong. To think we travelled to Scone Palace, Perth to see this painting! Our visit was in 2014, before its importance was fully recognised by its owners and we found it hung in a rather obscure corner of a guest bedroom.

The exhibition is on until 28th April and, if you are in London and can spare the time, we can thoroughly recommend it.

 

 

Daphne Steele honoured

Photo courtesy of AGNAP (the Association of Guyanese Nurses and Associated Professionals

We were so pleased to see that Daphne Steele has now been commemorated with a Blue Plaque in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. Daphne is credited as having been the first Black matron in the NHS (from 1964). The new plaque commemorating her contribution is at what was formerly St Winifred’s maternity home where she was based for a number of years.

Daphne was one of several members of the Steele family who came to England from British Guiana (now Guyana) in the early 1950s. She arrived in 1951 and was soon followed by the best known of her siblings, her sister, Carmen, now known as Carmen Monroe, the actress. My own father-in-law was another Steele who made the journey, he was met by Carmen when he arrived in London in 1952 and spent many years working in the Post Office, a less glamourous contribution to Britain’s post-war regeneration but important nonetheless. The Steeles are just one example of the countless families who helped rebuild Britain after the devastation of World War Two.

Daphne trained at St James’ hospital in Balham and it was our privilege to be present when a Nubian Jak plaque was unveiled there in 2018:

https://www.historycalroots.com/daphne-steele-first-black-matron-in-the-nhs/

After two years in south London she then trained as a midwife before going on to work for the NHS in Oxfordshire and Manchester (as well as a stint in America) before settling in Yorkshire.

The unveiling ceremony was featured on the BBC news website and you can read more about Daphne here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bradford-west-yorkshire-68380732

One fact about Daphne you won’t find in any of the articles about her online is that, according to my sister-in-law, she baked a mean scone!

Amanda Ira Aldridge and Avril Coleridge-Taylor: Getting the Tempo Right

Life is full of surprises and we certainly were not expecting Stephen Bourne, a published author with a number of books to his credit, to ask us out of the blue to publish his latest book. When he said he wanted to tell the story of Amanda Ira Aldridge and Avril Coleridge-Taylor we really could not refuse. Both these ladies, the mixed heritage daughters of famous fathers, have long been of interest to us.

Stephen’s informative and nicely illustrated book is now available to buy (just click on the cover):

For a long time recordings of the work of these two composers were hard to find but that is changing, gradually.

There are two short pieces by Avril on ‘Beyond Twilight’, a CD of music for piano and cello by a number of female composers, and her ‘Sussex Landscape’  is included on a CD that features some her father’s best music (his Violin Concerto is a particular favourite).

Music by Amanda (aka Montague Ring) is harder to come by but the American pianist, Rochelle Sennet, has included some piano pieces by her on two recent releases:

 

 

 

 

 

 

This music is all available on Spotify for those of you who have access to that service.

We do hope you will have the chance to listen to their music while reading about these ground-breaking women in Stephen’s book.

You can find more about Stephen’s work here: http://www.stephenbourne.co.uk/

 

Roots entwined

Audrey Dewjee’s latest contribution to Historycal Roots is of particular interest to us and we hope you will find it enlightening too. Audrey has chosen the title ‘Roots entwined’ for the article and in it she explores the history of inter-racial marriage in her home county of Yorkshire.

The earliest mixed marriage she mentions in the article took place in Deptford, London,  in 1613, but, as she puts it, ‘Yorkshire eventually caught up.’ She goes on to mention the marriage of John Quashee and Rebecca Crosby at Thornton by Pocklington on 12s. November 1732.

St Michael’s church, Pocklington, the site of John and Rebecca’s wedding?

Audrey goes on to cite 18th, 19th and 20th century examples. One of her 19th century Yorkshire marriages features John Perry, a Black man born in Annapolis in Nova Scotia in about 1819, who married in Ripon in 1844 and ended his days in Sydney, Australia, having been transported to the penal colony. As an illustration of how ‘entwined’ these stories can become, John Perry has featured in an earlier Historycal Roots article by John Ellis which Audrey references.

Of course, similar stories can be found in virtually any part of the country and there must be people who are puzzled by the results they get back from a DNA test. As Audrey says ‘colour fades quickly if [mixed heritage] children and grandchildren have White partners … and gradually the memory of a Black ancestor fades,’ something my wife and I are only too aware of as we watch our grandson growing up.

Audrey’s article is here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/roots-entwined-inter-racial-families-in-yorkshire/

A handsome new book about the Empire Windrush

In recent years our knowledge of who was on the Empire Windrush when she docked at Tilbury in June 1948 has developed considerably. Bill Hern has played a big part in this and some of the fruits of his latest research can be found in a new book produced by the Windrush Foundation. It is beautifully illustrated – I was going to describe it as a great ‘coffee table’ book, but such books are usually used as rarely opened adornments, this book is so much more than that. The words tell the stories of over eighty of the Windrush passengers, most of which have never previously been told. If you still believe the passengers on the Windrush were all Jamaican men coming to the UK in search of work, this book will set you straight!

My understanding is that the book is only available through the Windrush Foundation, it can be downloaded as a free e-book / pdf via this link:

http://www.windrushfoundation.com

 

‘Women of Colour’ in Newgate Gaol

Over recent months we have published a number of stories that John Ellis has produced following his extensive research into Black inmates of Newgate Gaol. We try and draw John’s articles to your attention as they are published but one very important piece of research has not been specifically flagged up in this blog, an oversight that we are now correcting.

We have to take evidence of the Black presence in British history where we can find it. The stories of Black women in Newgate Gaol and of their trials at London’s criminal court, the Old Bailey, may sound unpromising, but working class Black women are rarely reflected in what we might call ‘standard’ history. They are rendered practically invisible precisely by virtue of being, Black, female and poor. The records of Old Bailey trials are available online, easily searched and are an incredibly rich source.[1]https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/ In fact, transcripts of court hearings are one of the few places where we hear the voices of Black women of this period in their own words as they desperately plead their innocence.[2]Examples are: Sarah David https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/record/t18260216-169?text=DAVID; Ann Gilbert https://www.oldbaile:yonline.org/record/t17731208-48?text=GILBERT; Mary Kendrick: … Continue reading

John has identified twenty seven women of colour from the records of Newgate Gaol, not all stood trial at the Old Bailey, and of those that did, not all were found guilty. As is so often the case with John’s work, you will not have seen this history anywhere else!

https://www.historycalroots.com/forgotten-stories-women-of-colour-in-newgate-gaol-1817-1882/

References