The story of Stephen Hannibal

Who gets married in a church like this?
St Jude’s church, upper Chelsea, where Stephen Hannibal married in 1850

Described in later life as ‘a man of colour’, Stephen Hannibal was born in Poplar in 1814. In 1833 he was found guilty of breaking and entering and theft and was transported to Australia for a term of seven years.

He didn’t take easily to his new life in Sydney and was punished with fifty lashes for his contemptuous attitude when ordered to undertake a menial task. The sentence was doubled for the insolent way he responded when told of his punishment.

Not many convicts returned to England after completing their sentence but Stephen Hannibal did. After seven years in the penal colony he took work as a seaman and eventually made his way back to England.

In 1850 Stephen married Elizabeth Mary Ives at St Jude’s church in Upper Chelsea. We cannot know how many of his fellow parishioners were aware of his chequered past nor what they would have made of it. For us, we admire his evident resilience and  instinct for survival.

You can read the full story here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/from-poplar-to-new-south-wales-and-back-stephen-hannibal-convict-seaman-and-servant/

A Windrush welcome in a Balham church

By Bill Hern

There is no doubt that many of the West Indian passengers who disembarked from the Empire Windrush on 22nd June 1948 suffered challenges and hardships in the ‘Mother Country’ but there were also a great many acts of kindness that should not be forgotten. None more so than that shown by a church in Balham on the first Sunday after the ship’s arrival in Tilbury.

The Church of Ascension in Malwood Road, Balham in London is situated only a few hundred yards from the Clapham South Deep Shelter where on 27th June 1948 over one hundred West Indian men (they were all men) were about to spend their first Sunday in England after arriving in the country five days earlier.

Reverend Bryn Thomas, the Vicar of the Church of Ascension, awoke that morning thinking about the West Indians temporarily housed in the Deep Shelter far beneath the trains running on the Northern Line. Most of the occupants of the Deep Shelter would have been regular churchgoers in the Caribbean but, over 4,000 miles from home and their local churches, they were faced with what appeared likely to be a pretty miserable day. The weather forecast was for coolish temperatures with the occasional shower. In the England of the 1940s everything closed on a Sunday and of course there was no television and certainly no Sunday football. All that lay in store for the men was a day walking and chatting on Clapham Common and perhaps taking shelter from the showers in the huge marquee that had been specially erected on the Common.

Reverend Thomas had the idea of inviting the men to a party at the Church that evening. He made the short walk to the Shelter and announced that all were welcome.

It seems that Reverend Thomas made this offer before he had secured the support of the congregation as he only announced his plan at the morning service. This created a flurry of activity.

When it was realised that there was insufficient crockery a churchwarden came to the rescue by procuring a bathchair to wheel to nearby St Luke’s Church where he was able to borrow seventy cups and saucers. With the rattling of crockery no doubt disturbing the peaceful Sunday afternoon he trundled back to the Church of Ascension without any reported breakages.

Women members of the church rallied to the cause and baked two hundred cakes in a single afternoon as well as making and cutting a similar number of sandwiches. This amazing achievement is made all the more remarkable and commendable as this was during a period of rationing and, as a Church representative Mr. W H Garland told The Clapham Observer, they had to “scrounge tea and sugar.” No doubt many Church members sacrificed their own allowance in order to entertain their West Indian guests.

It is a sign of the times that newspaper reports assumed the baking and sandwich making was the preserve of the female members of the Church.

Between eighty and one hundred of the men from the Deep Shelter accepted the invitation  to the Church.

The event was a tremendous success and was even reported in the national press, the Daily Herald of 28th June gave it the headline “Threw A Party For Men From Jamaica.” Mr. W H Garland said that the West Indians were “charming people; they were churchmen and keen.”

Final word must go to one of the West Indians who, after the evening service and the ‘party’ said he and his compatriots had been given “the time of our lives.”

By mid-July all the West Indians had found work and left the Deep Shelter, the marquee was taken down and Clapham South returned to normality.

However, the links with the Empire Windrush don’t end there. On 23rd February 1952 Lloyd Barrington Jackson – passenger number 704 – married Grethel Christine Webster at the Church of Ascension and the officiating Vicar was Reverend Bryn Thomas.

The scene of Lloyd and Grethel’s nuptials

The Church of Ascension (now known simply as Ascension Balham) has remained a place that welcomes everyone. It is a vibrant community Church (see the link below). If anyone is doing a Windrush-related tour they could do a lot worse than stopping off at the Church for coffee and cake and a very warm welcome while they imagine the evening of 27th June 1948 and that great act of kindness.

http://Ascension Balham

Sarah Woodbine: A Black Nurse in Victorian Britain

Those of you who follow us on Facebook or Twitter should be aware of our new book about a Black Nurse in Victorian Britain. If you have missed the news, read on…

You will have heard of Mary Seacole, some of you may have heard of Annie Brewster, now the name Sarah Woodbine can be added to the (very short) list of Black nurses in Britain pre-1900, You can read a short piece about her here: https://www.historycalroots.com/sarah-woodbine-a-black…/

Better still, why not buy the book we have written about her?

It is available on Amazon and also as a Kindle e-book:
 

The book is dedicated to nurses everywhere and we will be donating royalties to NHS Charities Together.

 

Waterloo Day?

As we gear up to commemorate the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury on 21st June 1948 (the passengers disembarked on 22nd) spare a thought for the contribution of an earlier generation of black men to the history of Britain.

On the morning of 18th June 1815 black men stood shoulder to shoulder with their white comrades-in-arms in open countryside nine miles south of Brussels. This was the start of the Battle of Waterloo, a battle that shaped British history, European history in fact, for generations to come. Napoleon’s last throw of the dice ended in the defeat of his army and on 21st June he returned to Paris and abdicated (for the second time). A famous British victory but, in the words of Arthur Wellesley (the 1st Duke of Wellington), commander of the troops facing Napoleon, it was ‘the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.’

Trumpet Major James Goodwin was just one of the Black soldiers who was in the thick of the action at Waterloo. You can read about him here:

http://www.historycalroots.com/trumpet-major-james-goodwin-a-black-hero-of-the-battle-of-waterloo/

But he was not the only ‘man of colour’ to see action that day. John Ellis has also written for Historycal Roots about a selection of them:

  • Peter Bishop
  • William Afflick (Affleck)
  • George Rose, and
  • Thomas James

You can use the website’s index to read about them:

https://www.historycalroots.com/a-z-index/

Anyone who has visited the south coast of England will have seen defences set up to repel invasion, many date from the Second World War but there are also plenty of traces of the earlier threat of invasion by Napoleonic France – Martello towers dotted along the coast are the most obvious. That Napoleon posed a threat is beyond doubt. That black soldiers played a part in defending these shores is equally certain.

Unlike the Windrush passengers, who undoubtedly changed the nature of modern Britain, the contribution of black soldiers (and sailors) during the existential struggle against Napoleon, goes unremarked. So, while we celebrate Windrush Day let’s also remember ‘Waterloo Day’!

Unforgotten Lives: An exhibition at the London Metropolitan Archives

 

I recently visited the ‘Unforgotten Lives’ exhibition at the London Metropolitan Archives in Clerkenwell. If you live in London or visit any time before 27th March 2024, the exhibition is well worth a look. Some of the stories may be relatively familiar (Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, Dido Elizabeth Belle, etc) others will be new to just about everyone.

The story of John Satia was one I wasn’t familiar with. Born on Barbados in c1689, he was enslaved and brought to London when he was about two years old by Thomas Gerrard, a merchant.

Nothing is known of John’s early years in London but in 1725 he completed a seven year apprenticeship as a joiner and was admitted to the Worshipful Company of Joiners. In 1729 Thomas Gerrard died and left John an annuity of £10. On 7th September 1731 John’s application to become a Freeman of the City of London was considered by the Aldermen and was accepted, this allowed him to take on apprentices of his own and expand his business.

Just seven days later the Aldermen who considered the application (most of whom had links with the trade in enslaved people or with the East India Company) met again and decided that henceforth Black people were to be prohibited from obtaining Freedom of the City. This marked a new phase in the development of institutional racism. Although there is evidence that John was able to continue trading others were denied the opportunity to follow in his footsteps.

John Satia died in 1753 and was buried at St James, Clerkenwell.[1]https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/events/unforgotten-lives-exhibition

If you do visit the exhibition why not visit Spa Fields, scene of riots in 1816, directly across the road from the Archives. Now a pleasant public park, it is the ideal place for a sandwich on a sunny day, although it is hard to reconcile the neat and tidy park of today with its tumultuous past.

 

Three fragments of history

It’s nice when you can tell the whole story but sometimes it isn’t possible and all you have is a fragment, insignificant in its own right but, combined with other fragments, they can contribute in a small way to a bigger picture. We know next to nothing about William Heywood, George Dony or Johnson Freeman other than that two were servants and one was a former seaman – but research by John Ellis has identified all three as black men who were living in England at the time of their deaths in the 18th/19th century. In the case of Freeman Johnson our knowledge of him comes mainly from a rather graphic description of his sad death.

Fragments are frustrating but can sometimes develop into something more significant – John has written the fascinating story of a black nurse in Victorian England and we will be bringing that to you shortly.

William Heywood

From the Leeds Intelligencer, 7th March 1780:

Saturday died at Liverpool, in the 79th years of his age, Thomas Crowder, Esq; formerly a Jamaica merchant, where he acquired a large fortune; and on Tuesday last died, his faithful Black Servant, who had served him upwards of twenty years.

William Heywood “a black servant to Thomas Crowder, Esq. deceased, (of) Water Street” died on the 29th of February and was buried at St Nicholas Church, Liverpool on the 2nd of March 1790. (‘Our Lady and St Nicholas’ in the parish of Liverpool). The church is one in which a number of baptismal, marriage and burial records belonging to the Black population of Liverpool have been identified, including George Wise a Nova Scotian veteran of the Peninsula Campaign.

Thomas Crowder of Liverpool (1701-1780) was one of the founder members of the ‘African Company of Merchants’ in 1752. As such he was involved in the trade in enslaved people. He died on the 26th of February and was buried at the Church of St Nicholas, Liverpool on the 1st of March 1780.[1]Sources: For William Heywood see: Leeds Intelligencer, 7th March 1780. findmypast.co.uk Bishop’s Transcripts. Dr/2/59. Liverpool, Lancashire. Lancashire Archives. ancestry.co.uk For Thomas … Continue reading

George Edward Doney of Cassiobury House

Cassiobury House[2]https://victoriaalexander.com/notes-extras-and-fun-stuff/cassiobury-house/

From the Sun (London), 7th September 1809:

On Monday, at Cashiobury-House (Cassiobury House, Watford), the seat of the Earl of Essex, George Donney, a black servant belonging to his Lordship, who had lived in the family upward of 4 years.

George Edward Doney was buried at St Mary’s Church, Watford on the 8th of September 1809. He was described as a “Widower, Negro Servant to the Earl of Essex”. A search of both ancestry.co.uk and findmypast.co.uk has failed to find further reference to George Edward Doney or any relatives.

St Mary’s church, Watford[3]

George Capel-Coningsbury (1757-1839) was the 5th Earl of Essex (1799-1839). His first wife, Sarah Thompson (nee’ Bazett, 1759-1838), had been born on St Helena, which may provide some clue as to the origins of George Edward Doney but his gravestone tells a different story.

George Edward Doney c1758 – 1809 worked as a servant for 44 years at Cassiobury House. The inscription on his gravestone reveals that he was captured from Gambia as a child and sold into slavery

Poor Edward blest the pirate bark that bore His captive infancy from Gambia’s shore To where in willing servitude he won Those blest rewards for every duty done.

Kindness and praise, the wages of the heart, none else to him could joy or pride impart, And gave him, born a pagan and a slave, a freeman’s charter, and a Christian’s grave.

Photo by Bill Hern of Historycal Roots

The Earl and his wife resided in the ancestral home of the Earls of Essex at Cassiobury House, Cassiobury Park.[3]Sources: Sun (London), 7th September 1809. findmypast.co.uk Family Transcriptions © Hertfordshire & Population History Society. Hertfordshire Burials. findmypast.co.uk

Freeman Johnson, a Black Merchant Seaman, 1825-1848

From the South Eastern Gazette, 25th April 1848:

CORONER’S INQUEST.- On Saturday last an inquest was held at the Lunatic Asylum, Barming-heath, before F.F. Dally, Esq., on the body of Freeman Johnson, a man of colour, aged 23, who had been an inmate of the Asylum since the 11th inst., having been sent from the Greenwich union house. It appeared that the deceased was in a very weak state, when admitted, and was found by Robert Jones, a keeper, at about nine o’clock on the evening on the 13 th , quite dead, with his face hanging over the side of the bedstead, and blood oozing from the mouth and nose. He was last seen alive by George Baker, a keeper, at about half-past six on the same evening, when he refused his supper, but said he was in no pain. Dr Huxley, who had made a post-mortem examination, deposed that the deceased was suffocated by the flow of blood arising from a rupture of one (of) the vessels of the lungs, which were much diseased. Verdict accordingly.

Freeman Johnson was born at Nassau in the Bahamas in 1825. He
registered as a British Merchant Seaman either in 1845 or sometime
shortly after. Freeman Johnson was interred at All Saints Church,
Maidstone on the 18th of April 1848.[4]Sources: TNA BT114/12. findmypast.co.uk South Eastern Gazette, 25th April 1848. findmypast.co.uk Burial: Maidstone All Saints burials, 1838-1907. Kent Burials. findmypast.co.uk

References

References
1 Sources: For William Heywood see: Leeds Intelligencer, 7th March 1780. findmypast.co.uk Bishop’s Transcripts. Dr/2/59. Liverpool, Lancashire. Lancashire Archives. ancestry.co.uk For Thomas Crowder see: England Deaths & Burials, 1538-1991. Index © IRI. Used by permission of FamilySearch Intl. findmypast.co.uk Bishop’s Transcripts. Dr/2/59. Liverpool, Lancashire. Lancashire Archives. ancestry.co.uk For George Wise see: www.historycalroots.com/george-wise-from-nova-scotia-to-liverpool-via-the-battlefields-of-the-napoleonic-wars/
2 https://victoriaalexander.com/notes-extras-and-fun-stuff/cassiobury-house/
3 Sources: Sun (London), 7th September 1809. findmypast.co.uk Family Transcriptions © Hertfordshire & Population History Society. Hertfordshire Burials. findmypast.co.uk
4 Sources: TNA BT114/12. findmypast.co.uk South Eastern Gazette, 25th April 1848. findmypast.co.uk Burial: Maidstone All Saints burials, 1838-1907. Kent Burials. findmypast.co.uk

International Women’s Day 2023

There are too few stories about women on the Historycal Roots website. We correct the balance slightly with our latest article by John Ellis which is about Charlotte Gardiner, a black woman who was hanged in 1780 for her part in the Gordon riots. Charlotte did not speak in her own defence when she appeared at the Old Bailey and so we have only the prosecution’s side of the story and this inevitably shows her in a less than favourable light.

Nevertheless, the black presence at major events in British history, which is so often overlooked, is worth recording even where that presence was at inglorious events like the Gordon riots.

As this is International Women’s Day it is appropriate to celebrate some of the stories on our site that feature women. There are links below to a small selection of stories that we have featured over the years, if you missed them when they were published (and even if you didn’t) they are well worth exploring!

First, the new article:

https://www.historycalroots.com/charlotte-gardiner-a…/

And now some articles you may have seen before:

Amanda Aldridge

What to make of Amelia Francis?

John Ellis is back with a fascinating piece about Amelia Francis, a black woman living in Georgian London. If you have never heard of her, fear not, no one else has either!

All that is known about her comes from a series of newspaper reports, the first from 22nd March 1819 and the last from 1st June 1829. Two further reports from 1833 may very well also refer to her but we cannot be absolutely certain that they do.

Several of the reports mention her ‘curious’ history but they all detail her increasingly fractious brushes with the criminal justice system. The reports variously refer to her as ‘deranged’, ‘vicious’ and ‘violent’. Her ‘victim’, the Earl of Powis was the son of Robert Clive (‘Clive of India’). As the first born son, he had inherited, what most would now regard as, his father’s ill-gotten gains and lived in splendour at one of London’s smartest addresses, Berkeley Square. Amelia had been employed there as a servant.

Let’s start by examining the slightly different versions of how she came to be in the household of the Earl. The accounts agree that Amelia was a native of distant St Helena (best known as the remote island where Napoleon Bonaparte was incarcerated and died). The story starts when the Earl’s ship stopped at St Helena as he was returning to England from India. In one account he had ‘found her on the island, then an infant, deserted by her parents’ and ‘desired her to be taken on board his ship.’ In another version he plays a more passive role, ‘some person’ took her onto the ship and, once on board, ‘his Lordship was pleased with the child’. A third version says more bluntly that ‘he purchased this female’. She would have been about five years’ old when this transpired, whatever ‘this’ was.

Whatever the circumstances, the newspaper reports all paint the Earl as an honourable man entirely undeserving of the campaign that Amelia waged against him after she emerged from her teens. He had ‘sent her to a boarding school, where she received a genteel education’ with a view to her being employed as ‘a servant in a respectable family’ and subsequently ‘had several situations provided for her.’ One report mentions that she ‘served in his household as an attendant on his children.’ When she started to cause trouble for him (quite a lot of trouble!) his Lordship ‘provided a passage for her to St Helena having ‘given her a considerable sum of money, with ample equipment of wearing apparel of every description and everything else she might want’. She didn’t stay on St Helena long it seems and, when she managed to get back to London by stowing away, ‘his Lordship … very humanely offered to pay the parish officers for her support.’  He also offered to return her to St Helena ‘at his own expense’ but she refused to go.

We will turn now to how Amelia repaid this paragon of virtue for his kindness.

The first report (from 22nd March 1819, by which time she would have been about twenty) tells us that ‘her behaviour was such as to prevent his Lordship’s keeping her in his establishment.’ In July 1827 she was ‘charged with collecting a mob and creating a riot’ outside his house (‘a crowd of 100 persons at least’) and ‘indulging herself in the most gross and obscene  language’ and that she had ‘frequently before been committed to prison for similar conduct.’ She was still at it in July 1828 when she was once again in front of the Magistrate ‘charged with a riot and breaking the windows at the house of Earl Powis.’ Having ‘collected a heap of stones in the street, she very deliberately set about smashing all his Lordship’s windows.’  On more than one occasion she resisted arrest (and that’s putting it mildly if the accounts are to be believed).

Clearly there had been a major rupture in the relationship between the Lord and servant / purchase. What caused the schism? We cannot know although Amelia obviously felt grievously wronged and wanted the world to know about it. Nor was it a fleeting thing, she carried on her campaign against him for a full decade during which she repeatedly kicked over the traces.

Was the timing significant? Reports of Amelia’s campaign span the period March 1819 to June 1829 and this was a decade that featured much social unrest. The Peterloo massacre, when the local militia in Manchester savagely set about unarmed and peaceful protesters, eighteen of whom died, took place in August 1819; the Cato Street conspiracy, a plot to assassinate the entire Cabinet, was planned for February 1820 (the plot failed and six conspirators were executed); and the Spa Fields riots of 1816 were still a recent memory, a black woman had been one of those hanged for her part in the disturbances. It is intriguing, therefore, that Amelia was not altogether alone in her campaign against the Earl, one report refers to her ‘collecting a mob and creating a riot’ outside his house in Berkeley Square. The ‘mob’ was perhaps easily roused but the fact that a black woman was able to enlist the support of a hundred or more perhaps suggests that, whatever Amelia’s grievance was, others shared her sentiments.

Amelia was poor, black and a woman; her opponent was an immensely wealthy white man with the weight of the establishment behind him. There was only ever going to be one winner and it is no surprise that by 1833, Amelia, if the last two reports do refer to her, was ‘destitute’ and ‘half-starved’. Was she, as one report said ‘deranged’, or had she been sorely wronged by the Earl? Clearly, understandably, he was keen to be shot of her and paid once to send her back to St Helena and offered to do so a second time. Was this because he had genuinely liberal feelings and felt it was the least he should do or was he assuaging a guilty conscience and trying to keep her quiet?

We can never know the answers because what is missing in all of this is Amelia’s own voice, she is just another black women whose story is only told through the, unforgiving, eyes of others.

John’s article is here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/with-fury-and-violence-amelia-francis-a-black-woman-in-regency-england/

John Camden’s long journey to Chelsea

John Camden was born in Calcutta (now Kolkata), India in about 1750. He was a ‘man of colour’ although we don’t know precisely what his ethnicity was. He travelled the world with the British Army and served in seven Regiments over a period of 43 years. He saw action and sustained wounds ‘in the head and both arms’ fighting against the Spanish in Menorca and was discharged on a pension in 1803 as he was ‘worn out’. He spent his retirement years in Chelsea, living near to the Royal Hospital. You can read this and more in John Ellis’s article:

https://www.historycalroots.com/john-camden-of-chelsea-c-1750-1824/

John identified John Camden’s last resting place as plot 63, row 51 in the North-east quarter of the churchyard at St Luke’s church, Chelsea. John and I agreed that, although it was unlikely I would find a stone marking his grave, the plot should at least be there.

It wasn’t.

It is evident that the North-east quarter of the churchyard has been redeveloped and is now a public park with a 5-a-side football court and kiddies playground. The stones have been moved and preserved but do not appear to be in any particular order and are illegible anyway. Of course, John Camden may not have had a stone as it is unlikely he would have been able to afford one but, as a parishioner, there must be a reasonable chance that he attended services in the magnificent interior and that people who knew him prayed for his recovery after the unfortunate accident that John reports in his article.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

A fine start to 2023

In case you think John Ellis has been resting on his laurels since the start of 2023 I am here to disabuse you of that notion, the apparent hiatus in activity stems from my delays in uploading the material he has sent to me. There are three new pages from him that, between them, illustrate the diversity that has long existed in the British Armed forces.

Perhaps the saddest story of the three is that of Charles Girling who was born in St.Domingo in about 1781. Originally colonised by the Spanish in 1496, the island that came to be known as Hispaniola was to be heavily contested by competing colonial powers, with the English and French vying with the Spanish for influence and control of the area before Toussaint L’Ouverture came on the scene.

Charles Girling enlisted in a British regiment, the 20th Light Dragoons, in 1798 when the regiment was in Jamaica. In 1802 the regiment returned to England and Charles Girling went with them. But by 1805 Charles had been admitted to the notorious Bethlem Royal hospital (‘Bedlam’) afflicted by ‘lunacy’ (a diagnosis that could cover a wide variety of issues) and, having been declared ‘incurable’ in May 1806,  he spent his remaining time in institutions until he died in 1807. His story is not a happy one but John has done a remarkable job in tracking Charles’ progress through the several institutions responsible for his care.

https://www.historycalroots.com/from-st-domingo-to-bedlam-trumpeter-charles-girling-of-the-20th-light-dragoons/

The stories of William Perera and the Jacotine brothers, Harold and Eric, date from World War One. All three were born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and served in the British Army. Harold Jacotine was killed in action in April 1918 but his brother and William Perera both survived the war and returned to Ceylon. Eric Jacotine would later return to England, settle in London, become a taxi driver and raise a large family.

https://www.historycalroots.com/faugh-a-bella-private-william-perera-a-sri-lankan-in-the-royal-irish-fusiliers-during-the-first-world-war/

https://www.historycalroots.com/an-admirable-spirit-private-harold-jacotine-of-the-coldstream-guards/

Harold Jacotine