Putting the 'story' into 'history'
Apologies, we got so carried away with the lovely new photo of Mona Baptiste that this morning’s post contained the wrong link for the separate website about her. This is the correct link: https://mona-baptiste.com/.
Still, it gives an excuse to send you a cropped version of the photo with the full original (incorrect) caption – she was 22!
We recently came across this photo of Mona Baptiste on board the Empire Windrush. Mona had celebrated her 22nd birthday the day before this was taken and was getting ready to disembark and start her new life in England. We have no particular excuse for posting it today, but we make no apologies for doing so, it’s a lovely picture that captures the hope and optimism that many Windrush passengers would have felt.
You can read about Mona’s life in our book ‘What about the Princess? The life and times of Mona Baptiste’. Since publishing the book we continue to find fresh snippets of information and we publish these on our sister site https://mona-baptiste.com/, if you are interested in Mona why not take a look there?
References
| ↑1 | https://www.topfoto.co.uk/groupitem/68/ |
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We have long been intrigued by the story of Evelyn Wauchope, the female stowaway on the Empire Windrush. We were able to find out quite a lot about her and in July 2019 published what we knew (we have now updated the article):
What became of the Windrush stowaway, Evelyn Wauchope?
But we were left with two big frustrations.
Until now!
We are grateful to Audrey Dewjee for drawing out attention to a fantastic trove of photos on this site: https://www.topfoto.co.uk/groupitem/68/ and also to Ioan and Flora for licensing the photo to us at a reduced rate.
I think we can safely say that Evelyn looks ‘pensive’ but who can blame her?! Having used her initiative to get to England she now faced the daunting prospect of making a new life for herself in a strange and, very probably, hostile environment.
Pensive, maybe, but Evelyn was a determined woman who repeatedly overcame the challenges life threw at her. She absolutely deserves to be regarded as a ‘Windrush Pioneer’ and we are so glad that we can finally see what she looked like on 22nd June 1948 as she arrived to start the next chapter in her life.
I expect you know where Guadeloupe is, I mean, exactly where it is, beyond ‘in the Caribbean somewhere’? I’m going to confess that I didn’t – sometimes I learn more than history from articles by John Ellis!
John’s latest contribution features William Buckland. Born on Guadeloupe in about 1786, he went on to serve in the British Army from 1810 until he retired on a small pension in 1823. His medical records show that he was ‘worn out and unable to march’ and had ‘imperfect vision of both eyes’ – not exactly conducive to life as a soldier!
After leaving the Army he registered as a British Merchant Seaman from 1835 and obtained work as a cook and steward. Having retired in Limerick he moved to Liverpool, possibly driven out of Ireland (along with many others) by the Great Famine of 1845 to 1849. He spent the last years of his life working as a merchant seaman, based in Liverpool, as so many seamen were.
John’s exploration of the historic black presence in the British Army continues apace and you can read about William Buckland here:
The article in the link below isn’t written by regular contributor John Ellis but he has clearly made a big contribution to the research that informs it.
The story starts with the birth of Henry Tite in Waterford, Ireland, in around 1804. When Henry enlisted in the British Army in 1825 the records identify him as a black man. This raises the intriguing question of how a black man came to be born in that place at that time.
A letter recently discovered in the archives at Chatsworth House raises the possibility that Henry was descended from a young crew member of a ship that docked at Waterford in 1756. It was a French ship and, as Britain was at war with France at the time, the ship and its cargo were impounded by the British. The letter recently discovered in the archives at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire is from Lord Frederick Cavendish, stationed in Ireland at the time with troops of the 29th Worcestershire Foot Regiment, to his brother. In it he mentions ‘three little Black boys’. The boys are mentioned in the same sentence as the cargo which implies that whether they were technically ‘free’ or enslaved was a moot point as far as Lord Cavendish was concerned. In the letter he makes it clear he regards them as ‘his’ to dispose of as he chooses.
John Ellis has identified a soldier with the 29th Worcestershire Foot Regiment, Joseph Provance, who could very possibly have been one of the ‘black boys’ mentioned in the letter, the speculation is that Henry Tite may have been descended from another.
You can find out more by following the link. Before you do I would add the point that if we take literally the description of Henry Tite as ‘black’ then that suggests he had a black mother as well as a black father. That raises the even more interesting question – who was she? In fact, the balance of probability is that Henry’s mother was white and he was of mixed heritage but, as nothing is known about either of Henry’s parents that question is likely to remain unanswered.
What amazing lives some people lead!
In his latest article for Historycal Roots John Ellis follows the extraordinary life of Stephen Pappin.
He was born in about 1788 in the French colony of St Domingue on the island of Hispaniola (as it was then known) in the Caribbean. This was a tumultuous period in the history of the island. The French, Spanish and British were all vying for a piece of the action but the enslaved black population had their own ideas. Their inspirational leader, Toussaint Louverture, led the efforts that eventually led to the creation of the first black independent nation state outside of Africa in 1804 (although Toussaint Louverture had died at the hands of the French the previous year).[1]The book ‘Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture’ by Sudhir Hazareesingh tells the full, complex story Stephen Pappin, a ‘man of colour’ may have been just old enough to play a part in the fighting.
What we do know is that by 1807 he was serving in the French Army of Napoleon Bonaparte. I won’t ‘spoil’ John’s story here but suffice to say it includes time spent as a Prisoner of War, 24 years of service in the British Army (including front line service during the Peninsular War), marriage to a French woman, the birth of ten children in three different countries, retirement from the Army on a pension, a move to New South Wales where he became a farmer (of 100 acres of land) and time spent playing the bugle and drums at the Royal Victorian Theatre, Sydney.
Phew!
You can read the full story of Stephen Pappin’s remarkable life here: https://www.historycalroots.com/a-well-conducted-man-corporal-stephen-estiphania-pappin-of-st-domingo-and-the-39th-dorsetshire-foot-1788-1845/
References
| ↑1 | The book ‘Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture’ by Sudhir Hazareesingh tells the full, complex story |
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If you read the article by Roxanne Gleave and Audrey Dewjee about GEMS in art you will be familiar with a number of images of black people in paintings. Roxanne and Audrey focussed in particular on the paintings as evidence of the black presence in Britain at various times (16th to 19th centuries), various locations (town/country) and in various roles (servant/groom/sailor/worker). They sought to answer the questions ‘who/what/where/when?’ If you missed their article you can see it here:
https://www.historycalroots.com/gems-in-art/
We must thank Liz Millman for drawing our attention to a recent article with a similar theme. Liz runs Black History Conversations[1]Series 5 of Black History Conversations has just concluded but series 6 will start shortly http://www.blackhistoryconversations.com/index.asp?pageid=717246 and is very good at finding material that we would otherwise have missed. During a recent conversation she mentioned an article she had seen ‘The visible invisibility of black people in aristocratic portraiture.’ Naturally we were intrigued. It contains more examples of GEMS in art. The article by Marjorie H Morgan, cites paintings found in stately homes across the country, including a number of National Trust properties. You can read it here:
Roxanne and Audrey concluded their article by saying ‘We hope that you will seek out such representations when you next visit a museum or gallery and would love to hear about your ‘discoveries’.’ Marjorie’s article has introduced some more examples, there are many more out there, feel free to tell us about them.
References
| ↑1 | Series 5 of Black History Conversations has just concluded but series 6 will start shortly http://www.blackhistoryconversations.com/index.asp?pageid=717246 |
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Perhaps we take our ability to travel long distances in a short space of time for granted?
The distance from New York to London can now be traversed in less than six hours.
The flight time from Halifax in Nova Scotia to London is very similar.
An ocean going liner can cross the Atlantic in four days.
Taking things in more leisurely style, a ship like the Queen Mary will stroll across in seven days.
Going back a little further in time, the Empire Windrush took over two weeks to bring the Windrush pioneers from the Caribbean to England in 1948, but only a little over.
The troop ships bringing men from the Caribbean to England in 1915 also took about two weeks. The RMS Danube landed an initial contingent of recruits from British Guiana (as it then was) at Plymouth, their journey started on 21st August 1915 and they disembarked on 5th September.
But if we aren’t careful we may forget that it was not always like that.
We don’t know how long it took George Wise to get from Nova Scotia to Liverpool, certainly many years as his journey was a circuitous one. His Army record shows that with the 29th Worcestershire Regiment of Foot he “served four years and six months in the Peninsula [Spain], seven months in Gibraltar, two years and one month in North America, and eight years seven months in the Mauritius. Was present at the battles of Rolica, Vimiera, Talavera and Albuera, and also at the capture of the Ponotscot Territory, United States, North America, in the expedition under the command of Lt.Gen. Sir John Sherbroke in 1814.” His first recorded presence in Liverpool was in 1837 (where he was part of a burgeoning black community), thirty two years after he first enlisted in Nova Scotia.
There are so many things about today’s world that George would find incredible, among them our ability to cross the Atlantic in hours rather than weeks, but, if you read the latest article for Historycal Roots by John Ellis, there are many aspects of the story of George Wise that we might find incredible. You can judge for yourself here:
There are many ways to uncover the lives of people ‘lost’ to history. If you look at the articles on this site you will find evidence of most of them:
Of course, each article will use a mixture of the above (and probably others).
John Ellis’ most recent article is based almost entirely on another source – newspaper reports. More and more old newspapers are being digitised and you can search them easily enough from the comfort of your own home. The British Newspaper Archive currently claims to give access to over 48 million pages. And we aren’t just talking about the big names of the newspaper publishing world. John’s article about ‘Black Geordie’ Graham, draws its content from The Lanarkshire Upper Ward Examiner, The Hamilton Advertiser and the Ayr Observer, which, with respect, were hardly household names (in most households at any rate) even in 1886 when the stories appeared.
But enough on methodology, what of the story?
The newspaper reports from 1886 tell of a ‘strange visitor’ who appeared mysteriously in the countryside of Ayrshire near the small village of Cumnock ‘half a century ago.’ Variously described as a ‘foreigner’, a ‘sable stranger’, this man of ‘ebony colour’ was clearly initially regarded as a curiosity, but gradually the villagers came to know his story, why he disappeared for months on end and how he came to make his living, for ‘Black Geordie’, as he came to be known, was a man of surprising talents and unsuspected skills. The story could have ended sadly with ‘Black Geordie’ found dead in one of the fast flowing streams or deep pools in the countryside around Cumnock but … well, it’s best to just read John’s article for yourself to see how it ends:
The film ‘1917’ was released in cinemas in January 2020 to generally good reviews. It scored highly on specialist film review sites like Rotten Tomatoes (it scored 89% on the ‘tomatometer’ based on 461 reviews and 88% based on over 25,000 audience ratings) and IMdB (where it scored 8.3/10 based on 529,000 reviews). The Rotten Tomatoes summary had this to say:
‘Hard-hitting, immersive, and an impressive technical achievement, 1917 captures the trench warfare of World War I with raw, startling immediacy.’
The ‘top review’ on IMdB said:
Don’t listen to the critics saying this movie is boring. This movie is one of the most tense and exciting movies I’ve seen in years. Amazing cinematography and overall amazing experience of a movie.
By way of comparison, ‘No Time to Die’, the latest film in the James Bond franchise, scored 83% on the tomatometer and 7.4 /10 on IMdB.
What has this to do with Historycal Roots you may ask? Is this now a film review site?
To answer the second question – no, it isn’t. But there were those who attempted to enlist the film into their spurious ‘culture war’ against ‘woke history’.
One of those who spoke out against the film was actor, Laurence Fox. He expressed himself unsettled by the ‘oddness of casting’ when a Sikh character appeared in the film and that this ‘broke his immersion in the film.’ He went on ‘there is something institutionally racist about forcing diversity on people in that way.’ He made these remarks on the high profile TV programme, Question Time, at a time, surely no coincidence this, when he was attempting to launch a career in politics.
When challenged, Fox admitted ‘I’m not a historian I don’t know’ (making him well suited to a career in politics some might say), which does rather beg the question why he made the comments in the first place (jumping on a passing bandwagon seems the most obvious explanation for his ill-informed remarks).
Sikh historian Peter Singh suggested that Fox should ‘check his facts’, adding: ‘Laurence Fox is incorrect with his facts as Sikhs did fight with British forces, not just with their own regiments.’
One way Fox could educate himself would be to take a look at the Historycal Roots website and in particular at articles by John Ellis’ (over a dozen of them) and Bill Hern, about black and Asian soldiers in World War One.
This post was prompted by another soldier ‘discovered’ by John. James Eversley did not make it to France but John has identified plenty of others who did. As John says ‘it seems to me that there were plenty of bullets and shrapnel flying about in WW1 and it does not seem to have been particularly discerning about the ethnicity, nationality and social class of the squaddie it hit. They all shed the same blood in the same mud.’
James Eversley
No.5130 Private James Thomas Fitz-Evan Eversley was born at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad in August 1889. He was the son of Thomas Fitz-Evan and Elizabeth (nee’ Regis) Eversley, of Concord Village, Saddle Main Road, San Juan, Trinidad. Educated at St. Mary’s College, Trinidad, he travelled to Britain with the volunteers of the ‘Second Merchant’s Contingent’ in December 1915 (Private Valleton Redman was in the same contingent); subsequently enlisting at Mansion House, London, in the 4/4th Battalion, City of London Regiment, (Royal Fusiliers). He died of sickness at Brompton Hospital, London, in June 1916, and was buried with full military honours at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green (Mary Seacole is buried in the same cemetery). Whilst his grave does not have an individual marker, he is commemorated on the Screen Wall bearing the names of casualties of both world wars.
Sources: Trinidad 1919 Year Book. (West India Committee, 1919). Trinidad-1919-Year-Book-extract.pdf (westindiacommittee.org) caribbeanrollofhonour-ww1-ww2.yolasite.com/army-ww1.php#E Lives Of The First World War 1914-1918. Findmypast.co.uk Soldiers Died in the Great War database © Naval and Military Press Ltd 2010. www.cwgc.org
For Private Valleton Redman see: https://www.historycalroots.com/private-valleton-redman/
