If you visit Harewood House without the advantage of a car, be warned, it is a fifteen minute walk from the main entrance on the A61 Leeds to Harrogate road before you reach the house itself – that gives you an inkling of the scale of the estate. As I approached, I found myself wondering how many enslaved people you would have had to own to be able to afford to build a house like this?
The house was completed in 1771 when the family moved in.
At the time of emancipation in 1833, the 2nd Earl of Harewood claimed compensation for 1,277 enslaved people and received over £3 million at today’s prices. That Harewood House owes its very existence to profits from the trade in enslaved human beings is beyond question.
Not all the owners of country estates are willing to be open about the roots of their family fortune but the present Earl does not shy away from his family’s history:
“I believe very strongly that we can change things in the present, but for better or for worse there is nothing that any of us can do about history and the past.”
David Lascelles, Earl of Harewood
In ‘the present’, the Harewood House Trust supports a wide range of educational projects and it was one of those projects that prompted my visit.
If you are a regular follower of Historycal Roots you will be aware of Bertie Robinson, the black footman at Harewood House. Until the 22nd October an exhibition about Bertie will be on display at the house.
The digital guide doesn’t include any images of ‘downstairs’ at Harewood, an area of the house that Bertie would have been very familiar with.
The kitchen range
The downstairs dining room
The exhibition was researched by members of the Diasporian Stories Research Group based in Leeds. The principal researchers were Audrey Dewjee and Allison Edwards with support from David Hamilton. Members of staff at Harewood threw themselves enthusiastically into the research, finding all sorts of things in Harewood’s own archives that enhanced Bertie’s story (‘they throw nothing away here’ as one of the volunteers on duty when I visited said). A former Harewood House Trust Director, Terry Suthers, helped too. It was a real collective effort which has paid handsome dividends.
Nothing can quite beat seeing an exhibition ‘in the flesh’ so to speak and there is plenty more to see and do at Harewood. Although I resisted (just) the temptation of a cream tea on the terrace overlooking the grounds designed by Capability Brown, there is no reason why you should!
This post owes its existence to a talk given by Pat Candlin at a ‘Guyana Speaks’ event. The monthly events regularly feature interesting presentations which, as the title of the sessions indicates, focus mainly on Guyana. Pat’s talk was about his book (co-authored with Cassandra Pybus) ‘Enterprising Women – Gender, Race and Power in the Revolutionary Atlantic’.
The gap between buying a book and actually reading it can be quite long but, having recently got round to it, this one is very thought provoking for a number of reasons.
How often do we bemoan the absence from the history books of stories about strong, successful and independent women of colour? This book has many such stories.
However, a health warning is necessary. The women featured in the pages of the book were all operating in the southern Caribbean at a time of great political turmoil under conditions that bear comparison with what we know as ‘the wild west.’ This was frontier territory, with islands like Grenada and Trinidad changing hands following tussles between the competing colonial powers of Britain, France and Spain. British Guiana came into existence after Britain seized Demerara, Essequibo and Berbice from the Dutch in 1796. The problematic feature of these women’s stories is that they all owned slaves, in some cases many of them. Having been enslaved themselves, or being the daughters of women who were, their route to riches involved the enslavement of others.
British writers of the time were quick to stereotype women of colour, perhaps some things haven’t changed as much as they should have done over the past two hundred years.
Betsey Goodwin was the woman who ‘shared the bed’ of George Ricketts after he became Governor of Barbados in 1794. An early historian of Barbados, John Poyer, writing in 1808, suggested Betsey’s position encouraged other members of the free coloured community who had ‘assumed a rank in the graduated scale of colonial society to which they had hitherto been strangers.’ He also suggested that, because Betsey was believed to have encouraged the Governor to allow prisoners to go free, other free coloured people had ‘boasted of the impunity which they could obtain through the influence of Betsey Goodwin.’ Betsey was described as ‘sly and insidious’ and this became a familiar stereotype. Enslaved black women and women of colour had much to gain from associating with a powerful white man, if they played their cards right they could gain their own freedom and that of their children. It suited contemporary writers to portray them in a very negative light.
Another common stereotype was that of the black (or mixed heritage) brothel keeper. Rachael Pringle Polgreen is one such person and we have a supposed likeness of her.
Rchel Pringle Polgreen – 1796 lithograph by Thomas Rowlandson
Whether this unflattering image or ‘likeness’ is an accurate portrayal is very much up for debate. It is a lithograph by Thomas Rowlandson dating from 1796. Rowlandson could have met Rachel on the one visit he made to the Caribbean but the lithograph was created when he was back in London (five years after Rachel’s death) and based on a drawing by another, un-named, artist. It is a caricature that fits well with the stereotype that the British were happy to perpetuate. As the authors of the book say, the caricature ‘played to the powerful cliches that had enveloped Caribbean women by the end of the eighteenth century.’ For example, writing in 1806, Dr.George Pinckard wrote that the typical tavern keeper in Barbados was a ‘mulatto woman … who now indulges in indolence and the good things in life, grows fat and feels herself to be of importance to society.’
The few known facts about Rachel’s life give a far more nuanced picture. There were white men at various stages of her life but it is clear that she had a strong entrepreneurial spirit and was a shrewd businesswoman. The (long) list of her belongings at the time of her death was, Candlin and Pybus assert, ‘just the kind of inventory one would expect of a wealthy white person in Barbadian society at the time.’ This list included her main property which was valued at £1,000 (£154,000 at today’s prices) and 38 enslaved people, six of whom she chose to grant their freedom.
The story of the Philip clan starts in provincial France where, some time in the 1750s, a baker, Honore Philip, decided to seek new opportunities in the Caribbean. With his two brothers he settled on the small French colony of La Grenade. Two of the brothers chose to settle on the tiny outlying island of Petite Martinique while the third settled on the main island of Grenada. Why they located here is not known but they were soon thriving producing cotton and indigo.
By 1760, Honore had married ‘Jeanette, a free negro woman.’ The authors speculate that his relationship with her started while she was enslaved and that he gave her her freedom at the time he married her. This sort of behaviour was sanctioned by the Code Noire, the ‘rules’ that governed how French colonisers were expected to treat the local black poulation.
At some point in 1770s Honore died and Jeanette became the sole proprietor of his extensive estates. In 1778 a visitor wrote that all the land of Petite Martinique – some 477 acres – was ‘jointly owned by Jeanette Philip and a number of her mixed race children.’ Contrary to the stereotype, Jeanette did not succumb to ‘indolence’ but continued to expand her property empire with vigour. When she died in 1788 the estate was divided among her children, among them a daughter, Judith. There are many twists and turns to the story of Judith Philip, including ten years living at a fashionable address in London, which cannot be covered here, suffice to say that she lived until 1848 and died a very wealthy women.
The book gives some information about the extent of the Philip family’s ownership of enslaved people. But the details are all to be found on the Legacy of British Slavery database https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/search
Looking at the records for Judith Philip alone shows her ownership of enslaved people on three estates on Grenada.
Number enslaved
Compensation
Petit Ance Estate
64
£1,499 18 shillings 6 pence
Susanna Estate
68
£1,558 8 shillings 5 pence
Grand Ance Estate
143
£3,456 17 shillings 5 pence
Judith Philip’s slave holdings on Grenada
The total compensation claimed by Judith Philip was £6,515 4 shillings 2 pence, about £866,000 at today’s prices according to the Bank of England inflation calculator.
As an aside, I couldn’t resist putting ‘Gleave’ into the database search box. I know there was a Gleave on Barbados in the 1860s but he was a Methodist minister at a time when Methodists were still extremely unpopular with the plantocracy because they gave the until recently enslaved people ideas above their station. It is a relief to know that the name Gleave does not appear in the ‘Legacy’ database and that John Rowland Gleave was on the side of the good guys. You can read about him here https://www.historycalroots.com/john-rowland-gleave/
The book is full of surprising stories, none more so that that of Susannah Ostrehan who owned her own mother, Priscilla. Strange as this sounds, owning family members was the best, indeed the only, way of keeping them relatively safe.
In 1809 Susannah realised she was dying and she went to extraordinary lengths to ensure that her mother became a free woman once her owner died. The British colonial authorities put all sorts of obstacles in the way of those seeking to manumit slaves. Just a few years earlier in 1801, the Governor had become so concerned at the number of enslaved people being freed that he increased the cost of issuing a manumission certificate from £50 to £300 and even if the money was raised, officialdom could not be relied upon to issue the appropriate papers. It was cheaper and more reliable to entrust a friendly ship’s captain bound for London with the requisite papers and rely on him to secure the enslaved person’s freedom through the appropriate authorities there (where the cost was still only £50).
Susannah entrusted a Captain Welch with the mission to secure her mother’s freedom. This was clearly a lengthy process as, having made the voyage to London, a ship would have to complete a return journey with the precious papers. Susannah died before the ship returned but she had prepared for that eventuality in her will by bequeathing her mother to a friend, Christian Blackman. The story has a happy ending as, although her daughter did not live to see it, the papers arrived from London and Priscilla was freed.
Finally, if we learn anything about the abolition of slavery in schools it is likely that the names of William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson will feature prominently. What we hear less about is the agency of enslaved people themselves in bringing the whole trade to an end. There is plenty of evidence of this in the book, one of Judith Philip’s own brothers, Joachim, turned against the system. He was eventually hanged in the market square in St Georges for his part in the 1796 uprising in Grenada led by Julien Fedon. Hopefully we will learn more about how enslaved people fought against their oppression thanks to projects like this one https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/18/secrets-of-rebel-slaves-in-barbados-will-finally-be-revealed
As I suggested at the outset, it is very hard to pretend that people like Judith Philip were exemplars of enlightened behaviour – they were not. As the authors say of Judith Philip, ‘she owned people on a large scale almost all of her life. Her wealth was built from plantation slavery and when the horror of slavery was over, her powerful attorneys made sure she was substantially compensated for her loss. But should we only see women like Judith Philip through the prism of slavery?’ They conclude ‘her singular success marks her as a remarkably enterprising women, worthy of our attention in a world so profoundly shaped by white men.’ More generally they conclude ‘one does not have to valorize self-emancipated slaves who became slave owners and helped perpetuate the system that held them in bondage – or even admire them. However, we would argue it is important to know such women existed in all their complexity and contradictions.’
An uncomfortable read, but I certainly found it a thought provoking book.
I’m sure you know the story of the Empire Windrush – 492 Jamaican men, invited to Britain to rebuild the country after World War Two – right?
Wrong on all counts and hopefully if you have read some of the articles on this site you will be able to spot the errors in that opening sentence.
Today we introduce two very different stories that add to our knowledge of those who were on the Windrush – one article by Audrey Dewjee is actually called ‘A different Windrush experience’. It deals with the lives of just some of the early post-war migrants who settled in Leeds and you can read it here: https://www.historycalroots.com/a-different-windrush-experience/
Working as a young reporter on the Daily Worker in 1948, Peter Fryer (who would later become one the of the first to attempt a chronicle of black British history) was one of those sent to Tilbury to meet the ship. He asked some of those on board their reasons for coming: ‘Some 30 have volunteered for the mines and will, I understand, be given full facilities for training. While on board, I met masons, mechanics, journalists, students, musicians, boxers and cyclists attending the Olympic Games.’ We have been unable to identify any Windrush passengers among the cyclists who competed at the Olympic Games in London and so it seems someone may have spun Fryer a yarn. However, there was a link to the Olympics and Bill Hern writes about it here: https://www.historycalroots.com/mcdonald-bailey-windrush-passenger-and-father-of-an-olympic-hero/
These two stories demonstrate that, in history, there is always more to learn no matter how well-known a story might be!
It was 2015 when the individual members of the Historycal Roots’ team first got involved in the search to identify black soldiers who served in World War One (in fact Historycal Roots didn’t exist as an entity before 2016). The project we worked on was specifically aimed at identifying black servicemen who were commemorated in the UK. One of our successes was to find the exact location of the grave of Lionel Turpin. It was an unmarked plot when we visited but, finally, in 2019 a stone was placed to mark his final resting place.
One of the first things we did back in 2015 was see what had been written about the subject and two books, both relatively recently published at the time, very quickly became our starting point. ‘Black Poppies’ by Stephen Bourne had been published in 2014 and ‘Black Tommies’ by Ray Costello was published in 2015. Two of us travelled to Manchester to hear Ray speak and we were thrilled to chat with him afterwards, the first of several very pleasant and fruitful meetings.
Both books had the sense of new ground being broken; how different they would look now, not least because of the ongoing efforts of John Ellis published on this site. One of John’s latest discoveries would have fitted perfectly into the scope of that 2015 project, Private Valleron Redman served as a member of the Royal Fusiliers and is buried at Compton Chamberlayne cemetery in Wiltshire.
Like nineteen members of the British West Indies Regiment who are buried in Commonwealth War Graves at Seaford in Sussex, Private Redman never saw active service. It was the harsh and unfamiliar climate that he succumbed to rather than enemy action – he died of pneumonia in February 1916. Read his story here: http://historycalroots.com/private-valleton-redman/.
We have published a number of other of John’s ‘finds’ recently, their stories demonstrate the diversity of those who served both in terms of their origins and the roles they performed, you can find them here:
Audrey Dewjee recently wrote about Bertie Robinson, the black footman at Harewood House. Bertie was born on the tiny Caribbean island of St.Vincent. John Ellis has now written about a seafarer who also started life on St.Vincent (a decade after Bertie), Charles Harold, who enlisted in the British Army in 1915, served in France and Italy and eventually lost his life whilst working as a merchant seaman during World War Two.
I have commented before that, although the actual events of the past (the raw material of ‘history’) do not and cannot change, our understanding and interpretation of them certainly can. New research uncovers fresh information that broadens and deepens what we ‘know’.
The story of ‘Bertie’ Robinson, who Audrey Dewjee first wrote about in May 2020, is a case in point. A great deal more is now known about ‘Bertie’s’ life – for instance, that his name was actually George!
Bertie, or should we say ‘George’, is now the subject of an exhibition at Harewood House where he lived and worked for many years.
Bertie Robinson: The Footman from St. Vincent will be on display in Harewood House until Friday 22nd October, 2021.
Bertie was originally from the tiny Caribbean island of St Vincent, an island that hit the headlines for the wrong reasons recently. Audrey continues the story…
The 2021 eruption of La Soufrière volcano
At several points in its history, St. Vincent has been at the mercy of eruptions from La Soufrière the island’s tallest volcano. St. Vincent is also in the “hurricane belt”, which means it is battered by violent storms every year from June to November, and is periodically hit by even stronger hurricanes that totally devastate the island.
During the period of Amelia’s letters to Harewood (see my new article), there was a particularly terrible hurricane in 1898 which killed around 300 people and wiped the island bare of animals and vegetation. No wonder Amelia begged for help. There was also a massive eruption of La Soufrière in 1902/3 during which at least 1,680 people died.
In 2021, La Soufrière has erupted again, forcing up to 20,000 people to be evacuated from their homes and covering the island in ash – again resulting in dead animals and damaged crops as well as destroying homes and ruining businesses. A photograph taken in 1905 – a couple of years after the 1902/3 eruption – shows just what happens to the land after such an event.
St Vincent, 1902
And now the 2021 hurricane season is imminent.
For more information about the current situation, see:
Anyone wishing to send a donation to help the relief effort can find details of how and where to donate on the website of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines High Commission. https://www.svghighcom.co.uk/site/Charity.html
A volcanic eruption may only last a few hours or days but the impact on a fragile island economy is devastating and will take many years to recover from.
Peter De Silva was one of the tens of thousands of men who lost their lives on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Peter had been working as a clerk in the Office of the Governor General before enlisting.
Lewis Aubrey Walcott was born in Barbados but was living in London when he enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1906. He served until 1911 but was called up again at the outbreak of war in 1914.
John Ellis has researched the military careers of these two men who served the ‘Mother Country’ during the First World War and you can read about them here:
As the site has expanded it has become increasingly difficult to find information about individuals you may be interested in. For someone entirely self-taught in the mysterious ways of WordPress, creating an index has been a major technical challenge, but, today, I have made an index page live on the site:
All the main people on all the pages of the site have been indexed. Some of the main posts have been indexed too but, by their nature, posts may be of only temporary interest and so not all posts have been included in the index. The index is a work in progress and, if you have any comments, please feel free to use the ‘contact’ page to offer feedback.
I will get my apologies in first. The internal links should all work today but that might change (!), I will check from time to time to make sure they are still working but, if you come across one that isn’t and you get a ‘page not found’ message, please let me know. The index will take you to the right page for that person but not always to the exact place on the page where their name appears, you may need to scroll a little to find the name.
I hope the index helps you find what you are looking for!
Our knowledge of the rich tapestry of ‘men of colour’ who served in the British Army during World War One gets a little bit richer today with three, yes three, new articles by John Ellis about the service of men who were hitherto lost to history.
Pictures of men who served below the rank of officer between 1914 and 1918 are rare as hen’s teeth, we are lucky that the story of one of them featured in newspapers of the time.
Their stories include a court martial, two who were wounded and someone who was discharged as ‘unfit to serve’ because he was suffering from malnutrition.
As promised last week, we can now, courtesy of John Ellis, introduce you to Walter Albert Moore. Some people may still cling to the notion that black soldiers did not serve in front line roles during World War One, Walter’s story provides yet more evidence that nothing could be further from the truth. He served in the Gallipoli campaign (1915-16) and then in Flanders at the Battle of the Somme (1916). Did he survive? Read John’s article to find out!
Before you do though, John’s article prompted me to look at the War Diary of Walter’s battalion for the period he was serving in France during the Battle of the Somme.
We get used to thinking about the shocking carnage of the first day of the battle (around 19,000 British troops lost their lives on that day alone) and on the days that followed. But what we tend to lose sight of is the drip, drip, drip war of attrition in the periods between one ‘big push’ and the next. War diaries will rarely mention the names of rank and file soldiers like Walter whether they were black or white but they do give an impression of what life (and death) was like in the trenches. Here is a short selection of extracts from the War Diary of Walter’s battalion. The diary starts with an account of a night raid on enemy lines:
“4th July, 12.45 am: Party consisted of 70 men and 6 officers which were split up into two parties. Raid was a failure and the officers put down the cause to a certain German listening post. Only the right party got anywhere near the trenches which however they did not penetrate. Casualties in the raiding party were light but there were a good many in the trenches caused by the German artillery retaliation which lasted half an hour. Casualties A Company NIL, B Company OR [other ranks] 1 killed 2 wounded.
A and B companies relieved by C and D companies at almost midnight and returned to huts at COUPIGNY. C Company 200 wounded D Company NIL.”
The troops seem to have then spent a few days out of the front line but there was still business to attend to:
“8th July: temporary commission and appointment of RH McLean, RNVR, Drake Battalion, terminated due to medical unfitness.”
Then they were back in the trenches:
“13th July Lieutenant Commander H B POLLOCK wounded by shrapnel, OR 300 wounded.”
On 18th July, during another respite from the front line, a Field Court Martial was convened and “LS W SMITH was found guilty on three [unspecified] charges and reduced to AB.”
After what seems to have been a quiet period (21st July – “situation quiet throughout”), when a lot of effort went into improving the trenches, the war of attrition continued:
“10th August: Enemy active with LTMs rifle grenades in particular . Two killed.
11th August: Enemy very active in sector with LTMs rifle grenades in particular. One killed three wounded.
12th August: Btn [Battalion] relieved by Hood Btn – Relief complete about 12 midnight. One killed, one wounded.”
The relieved troops marched to Aix Noulette Woods where they spent the next few days ‘in huts’ presumably beyond the reach of German artillery. But they were soon back in the front line.
War diaries are not an easy read in more ways than one
“20th August: A bombardment of gas release started in the ANGRES SECTOR at 10.30 pm which lasted til about 11.45 pm. Some of the enemy retaliation with field guns and trench mortars were [‘was’ has been deleted, grammatical standards must be maintained after all] directed at our Front and Relief lines. Damage slight. Three wounded.
21st August: One wounded.”
And so it continued, the diary reports one killed (22nd August), 23rd August (two wounded), 24th August (two wounded) and, after a brief respite, one killed, one wounded (27th August).
It seems that when you weren’t in the front line being shot at you were behind the lines waiting for your turn to be shot at.
Walter Moore, a black soldier from Trinidad, was part of all this.
Several books have been written about black soldiers in the British Army during World War One, ‘Black Tommies’ by Ray Costello and ‘Black Poppies’ by Stephen Bourne spring immediately to mind, no doubt there have been others. But you can’t help feeling that those books only showed the tip of an iceberg. John Ellis has now turned his attention to the period of the First World War and is uncovering the stories of many more black soldiers.
This picture and headline (‘Coloured men’s response to the new appeal for recruits’) in the ‘Daily Mirror’ of 1st June 1915, caught John’s eye:
Eight Black recruits for the Royal Artillery in 1915 (1)
John writes: “World War One saw thousands of ‘men of colour’ serving in the regiments and corps of the British Army, the Royal Navy and the forces of the Empire. Many of the men were drawn from Britain’s Black population. The men in the photo above volunteered for service in a Territorial regiment of the Royal Artillery in the North of England in 1915.
Two of the men were named by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, as Ben David and Henry Basker, both Jamaicans.(2) It is not possible to identify either Ben or Henry in the photo, or the names of the other ‘Gunners’. However, a little more is known about Henry Basker.
He was born in Jamaica in 1888 and enlisted in May 1915, when it was noted that he was a seaman by occupation and had a ‘West Indian’ complexion, was 5 ft 5 inches tall, had a chest measurement of 37 inches and good vision.(3) Henry signed up for four years ‘provided His Majesty should so long require your services’ and he swore ‘I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to His Majesty King George the Fifth.’
His service in the Royal Artillery was brief and he was discharged in Durham in October 1915 after 164 days, ‘his services being no longer required.’ We don’t know why he was discharged, he may well have gone on to serve his country in other ways as he was obviously keen to volunteer. He clearly had a close connection to the North East prior to enlisting because his intended place of residence on discharge was Thrift Street, South Shields, Tynemouth, where his mother, Lucy, lived.”
John and I have both tried to trace ‘Lucy Basker’, so far without success, there is no sign of her in the 1911 census for instance. The presence of black men in South Shields is no surprise, it was a thriving port with a well established black community and it was where Lionel Turpin was living when he enlisted http://historycalroots.com/lionel-fitzherbert-turpin/ . But the presence of Henry’s mother is much more unexpected, if Henry was born in Jamaica in 1888 what was it that brought Lucy to South Shields? We may never know.
The full page from which that item is taken reveals the impact the war was having:
The Daily Mirror, 1st June 1915
The heading ‘Found on the battlefield – do you recognise anyone?’ is heartrending. Especially poignant is the photo at the top left of the page – it has a bullet hole through it. You can’t help but wonder how the young woman in the picture would have felt if she saw it.
This is just a taster, there are more revelations to come from John!
1)Daily Mirror, 1st June 1915. findmypast.co.uk
2)Newcastle Evening Chronicle, 26th July 1915. findmypast.co.uk
3)For Henry Basker see: UK, British Army World War I Pension Records 1914-1920. TNA WO364/172. ancestry.co.uk
