Putting the 'story' into 'history'
John Ellis continues his quest to identify black sailors involved in the Battle of Trafalgar. We are running out of words to describe how impressed we are by his ground-breaking research. You can read the stories of Jacob Loring (http://historycalroots.com/jacob-loring-a-black-able-seaman-at-trafalgar) and Thomas Stanley (http://historycalroots.com/thomas-stanley-a-black-veteran-of-trafalgar) only on Historycal Roots.
Audrey Dewjee shares her thoughts.
This year’s Service of Remembrance at the Cenotaph has been like no other because of covid-19. It has set me thinking about previous Remembrance Sunday commemorations – and omissions – which, to some extent, have been corrected in the very recent past.
For years and years, the BBC presenter of the Remembrance Sunday programme recited the same old script in a solemn pompous voice – while simultaneously revealing either his ignorance or his racism. For years and years the virtues of “Commonwealth” participation in the two World Wars were extolled and tribute was paid to the contribution of people from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, but there was little or no mention of the sacrifices made by people of colour, whether from the Indian subcontinent, Africa, the Caribbean or any other part of the former British Empire from which they came. I used to watch in fury, every year, and many times wrote to the BBC to tell them that they must acknowledge these contributions. Colleagues at the time did the same, but perhaps none did so for as many years as my friend Kusoom Vadgama. Our protests fell on deaf ears.
I was especially infuriated when the commentator, usually David Dimbleby, would mention the countries from which the various High Commissioners came, without ever mentioning that the people of those countries had fought and died side by side with their comrades from the British Isles. The insult was even greater when you knew that two of the High Commissioners themselves had fought in the war – Arthur Wint (Jamaican High Commissioner from 1974-1978) and Ulric Cross (High Commissioner for Trinidad and Tobago from 1990-1993). Arthur Wint was a pilot and Ulric Cross a navigator in the RAF.
Something else that has never been commented on – the shape of the Cenotaph itself. Many war memorials in British towns and cities include a cross, but a cross is significantly absent from the Cenotaph. As Mary Lutyens pointed out in an article in Ms London (16 November, 1981), her father, the architect Sir Edwin Lutyens who designed the monument, “refused to put a cross on it, because he said the troops marching past were of many different religions.” Good for you Sir Edwin! – at least someone had awareness and integrity.
Gradually, and possibly grudgingly, over recent years, things changed a little and Britons began to hear stories in the media about those who had been omitted for so long. However, the Black Lives Matter movement, the 75th anniversary of the ending of World War 2 and, in particular the VJ day anniversary this year, have resulted in a sea-change in reporting and suddenly the stories of veterans from all over the world are starting to be told – too late for many of those who would have appreciated this recognition.
I watched the 2020 Remembrance Sunday Ceremony on TV and noted with pleasure that the Queen’s equerry, Ghanaian-born Lieutenant Colonel Nana Kofi Twumasi-Ankrah, was in attendance, as he was at the private ceremony earlier in the week, when the Queen laid a bouquet on the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. [Find out more about Lt. Col. Twumasi-Ankrah on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqRUjE2MAV8 ]
On Wednesday 11th November, the actual Remembrance Day – I will be thinking, among others, of the following:
Adolphus Meheux a Sierra Leone-born merchant seaman from Hull who lost his life off the Netherlands when his ship the SS Cito was attacked by German destroyers on 17 May, 1917. His name appears on the memorial boards at the entrance to Hull Station. https://www.africansinyorkshireproject.com/adolphus-meheux.html
James Bailey, brother of Lilian Bader, a merchant seaman who along with 21 of his shipmates on board the SS Western Chief went down in the Atlantic on 14 March, 1941, after being torpedoed by an Italian submarine. He is commemorated on the Trinity House Memorial at Tower Hill in London.
The following who all died in World War 2 and are buried or commemorated in Stonefall Cemetery, North Yorkshire:
Private Selemani Shabani of the African Pioneer Corps [East Africa]
Sgt. Pilot Isikeli Doviverata Komaisavai of Fiji served with 234 Squadron. He died on 19th October 1944 at the age of 24.
Flying Officer Ulric Leslie Look Yan of Trinidad, aged 21.
Flying Officer Edward Fred Hutchinson Haly DFC of British Guiana [now Guyana], aged 23.
This site https://www.caribbeanaircrew-ww2.com/ is an unparalleled source of information about Caribbean aircrew. It contains information about the Caribbean aircrew mentioned above and many more besides.
Leading Aircraftman Isaac Roland Bryan of Jamaica, aged 21.
AC2 Ivan Copeland Ashman of Jamaica.
AC2 Wilfred Octavius Dawns of Jamaica, aged 24.
AC2 Patrick Constantine Marshall of Jamaica, aged 19
AC2 Byron Martin of Jamaica, aged 19.
The last five were ground crew members of the RAF. Just because you didn’t go into battle, didn’t mean you were safe from accident or illness. A number of non-combatants never returned to their families.
The hundreds of thousands of East Africans killed in World War 1 who don’t have individual marked graves, but who are commemorated on three memorials: one in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, the others in Mombasa and Nairobi in Kenya.
The inscription (in English, Kiswahili and Arabic) on both monuments reads as follows:
This is to the memory of the native African troops who fought: to the carriers who were the feet and hands of the army: and to all other men who served and died for their King and Country in Eastern Africa in the Great War 1914-1918.
If you fight for your Country even if you die your sons will remember your name.
Wing Commander Karun Krishna Majumdar, who flew and survived the war in Europe, only to die fighting in Burma in February, 1945.
Flying Officer Man Mohan Singh, who came to Britain in 1939 and was eventually stationed in Australia where he was killed in a Japanese air raid.
http://www.australiansikhheritage.com/flying-officer-manmohan-singh
Pilot Officer Gurbachan Singh, who was killed in an accident when his plane hit a telephone wire in Wiltshire and crashed on 12 April, 1941, aged 21.
Pilot Officer Hukum Chand Mehta, who died when his Hurricane IIB flew into the ground at Kielder in Northumberland, during a formation practice on 3 November 1941, aged 24.
Warrant Officer James Hyde
a Spitfire pilot from Trinidad (featured on this film around minute 7: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViGwxJloI70 ), who was killed in a dogfight over Nijmegen in the Battle of Arnhem on 25 September, 1944, aged 27.
Sergeant Osmund William St. Clair Alleyne, Wireless Operator/Gunner, from Dominica, killed in action on 5 August, 1943.
Pilot Officer Victor Emmanuel Tucker from Jamaica, he was shot down 4 May 1941 and crashed into the Channel, aged 25.
These are just a handful of stories of the people who were lost in two World Wars. Their stories are important: we need to tell them, especially to our children, and we need to ensure that they become part of mainstream British history.
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM
John Ellis continues his painstaking research to demonstrate the presence of black sailors at the Battle of Trafalgar, a presence that has been written out of British history.
Naval service records are yielding a remarkable number of references to ‘black’ sailors and you can find John’s two latest discoveries here:
And anything that gives me a reason to include J M W Turner’s painting of ‘The Fighting Temeraire’ (John Ephraim served on the Temeraire) is especially welcome!
The Equiano Society has been instrumental in getting a plaque placed at 37 Tottenham Street, London W1. Equiano lived here while working on his ‘Interesting Narrative’.
In normal times the Historycal Roots team would have been out in force for the unveiling but, due to Covid-19 restrictions we were unable to attend.
The Mayor of Camden did the honours:
You can find out more about the work of the Equiano Society here: https://equiano.uk/the-equiano-society/
Photos: courtesy of The Equiano Society (2020)
The 21st October 2020 is the 215th anniversary of the Battle of Trafalgar. John Ellis has done a brilliant article for us that you can find here: http://historycalroots.com/black-sailors-in-the-royal-navy-during-the-napoleonic-wars. I urge you to read it.
Anyone who has visited central London cannot fail to have noticed the iconic part that the Battle of Trafalgar plays in the British national story – an enormous public space is named after it and, at its centre, the victorious Admiral, Nelson, stands atop a 51.7 metre column, master of all he surveys. Any visitor would have to be eagle-eyed (or particularly knowledgeable) to spot the Black presence – but it is there in Trafalgar Square, just as it was there at the battle itself.
It is exceptionally difficult to identify named Black sailors who were involved in the battle itself as there is scant biographical information, other than names and places of birth, for any of the Black Trafalgar veterans, or indeed the Black veterans of any major Royal Navy engagement of the Napoleonic Wars. However John’s meticulous research has identified Black sailors who served in the Royal Navy in the years leading up to Trafalgar and some who served after it. Combined with pictorial evidence of the battle and the presence of an obviously Black sailor on the bronze reliefs on the plinth of Nelson’s column itself, the Black presence at this pivotal moment in British history cannot be gainsaid by anyone willing to open their eyes to the evidence.
John has also pieced together for us the biographies of:
Based on extensive original research, these four stories (and the material in John’s associated article) give a great insight into the wide diversity of men who could be found serving in the Royal Navy in the latter part of the 18th and early 19th centuries.
If that were not enough and by way of an introduction, John has also provided short biographies of three further sailors. He invited us to take our pick but, in all honesty, all the stories deserve to be heard.
The people in the painting are identified on the frame and “wearing a red hat, is the veteran black sailor John Deman (c.1774-1847), who served with Nelson in the West Indies.” [Deman is also spelt as Dayman in the records].
John Dayman (sic Deman) was born in St Kitts, West Indies, circa 1784. On enlisting in the Royal Navy in 1804 he gave his previous occupation as “Sea” suggesting prior service in the merchant marine. His last ship was HMS Swift. Between 1804 and 1806 the Swift was stationed in the Caribbean, (The West Indies), and it may be that John Dayman enlisted locally. On 5th February 1807 he was admitted to Greenwich Hospital as an in-pensioner having lost his eye-sight. On admittance it was noted that he was not married, was 5/5” tall and “a black.” In 1845 he was one of a number of Royal Navy pensioners depicted meeting Army pensioners in The United Service by Andrew Morton. The biography provided by Morton was: “…wearing a red hat, is the veteran black sailor John Deman (c.1774-1847), who served with Nelson in the West Indies.” (Nelson was indeed in the Caribbean during the period Deman served there – pursuing the French fleet that he would later defeat at Trafalgar – although “served with” was the artist stretching the claim to fame slightly). He died on the 3rd December 1847 at Greenwich Hospital.
To round off the story we sent off for a copy of John’s death certificate hoping this would show us the cause of death. It did but unfortunately the entry was indecipherable.
Ralph Hinston was born in New York, USA c.1746. His date of birth and subsequent service in the Royal Navy indicates that he was almost certainly a Black Loyalist during the American War of Independence.
Hinston commenced his service with the Royal Navy when he enlisted as an Ordinary Seaman on HMS Conqueror in October 1778 whilst it was on the North American Station during the American War of Independence. In 1779 he saw action with the Conqueror at the Battles of Grenada and Martinique, and his records subsequently indicated that he was wounded in the head during one of the engagements. Recovering from the wound, Hinston was to serve over twenty-three years as an Able Seaman in the Royal Navy (significant service in brackets):
HMS Suffolk 1780-1781 (the actions of 15th and 18th March 1781, and then convoy escort to Plymouth). HMS Anson 1781-1782 (Battle of the Saintes). HMS Thalia 1782-1783 (Coppering at Portsmouth). HMS Camilla 1783-1787 (Two deployments to Jamaica). HMS Cumberland 1788 (Guard ship at Plymouth). HMS Pylades 1790. HMS Serpent 1790-1792. In 1790, whilst serving on HMS Serpent, he married Jane Blower, a widow, at St Andrew Anglican Church in Plymouth, Devon. HMS Blond 1792. HMS Alligator 1793-1794 (Capture of St Pierre and Miquelon 1793. Captured La Liberte near Jamaica 1794). HMS Europa 1794-1795. HMS Carnatic 1795-1796 (Plymouth). HMS Colossus 1796. HMS Russell 1796-1799 (Portsmouth. The Battle of Camperdown 1797. Ireland). Jane Hinston appears to have died sometime between 1790 and 1798, because Ralph re-married Elizabeth Bradley, a widow, at St Andrew Anglican Church in Plymouth in October 1798. HMS Ramillies 1799-1801 (Operations in Quiberon Bay). During his service on the Ramillies in 1799 an allotment from his wages were paid to his wife Elizabeth in Plymouth. HMS Formidable 1801-1802 (Jamaica).
Ralph Hinston (“a black”) was admitted on a pension to Greenwich Hospital in 1803. He was 5/1” tall (the average height was 5/6”) and had been born in New York. The reason for his admittance was a wound to the head received whilst serving on the Conqueror. His last ship was the Formidable. His wife’s name was Elizabeth. It was noted that he had served in the Royal Navy for a total of 23 years 3 months and 3 days.
Ralph Hinston died in Greenwich Hospital on the 21st of December 1803. He was interred in the Greenwich Royal Naval Hospital Old Burial Ground two days later.
Sources:
His surname was also rendered as Hinson and Hingston. TNA ADM 27/6. ADM 73/11/236. ADM 73/36 Part 2. ADM 73/66. The website findmypast.co.uk has two marriages in Plymouth for a Ralph Hingston. Burial: Anglican burial, in Greenwich, Kent: Ralph Hinson of Greenwich Hospital. Burial 23rd December 1803. TNA/RG/4/1671. Whilst the Royal Navy recorded which ship Ralph Hinston served in and when, the service of that ship when he served on it has been identified by threedecks.org/index.php
George Kennear. c1759-1820
George Kennear was born in Bombay, India c.1759. He was admitted to Greenwich Hospital on a pension in August 1813, when it was noted that he was “a black” and approximately 5/5” tall. There is some doubt to his year of birth, but it was between 1749 and 1767. (Age was frequently difficult to determine).
Kennear claimed service on HMS Superb (1778-1783) and HMS Coventry (1775-1784), however, this service was rejected – probably because the dates of service were contradictory. His service was allowed to count towards his pension for: HMS Nancy 1795-1796 (as an Ordinary Seaman). HMS Goliath 1796-1799 (as an Ordinary Seaman at the Second Battle of Cape Vincent). HMS Elephant 1799-1805 (as an Ordinary Seaman in Portsmouth, at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 and later in Jamaica and Chatham). HMS Ramillies 1805-1808 (as an Able Seaman in Chatham, at the capture of the French Privateer La Josephine in 1805 and off the Leeward Islands). HMS Defence 1808-1811 (as an Able Seaman). HMS Tartarus 1809-1813 (as an Able Seaman in the Baltic 1810-1811).
When admitted to Greenwich, Kennear was suffering from an injury to his left leg. It was noted that he was un-married, resided in Paddington and had served over 17 years in the Royal Navy. George Kennear died in Greenwich Hospital on the 18th of January 1820.
Sources: TNA ADM 6/275. ADM 73/14/61. ADM 73/40. ADM 73/56. ADM 73/66.
By Audrey Dewjee
Note: Three members of the Bridgetower family were named Frederick Joseph. I have labelled them (1), (2) and (3), in order to try and prevent confusion between them.
An article published in the New York Times on 4 August, 2020, highlighted the meticulous in-depth research done by William A. Hart about virtuoso violinist George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower. In the last few years there has been considerable interest in George Bridgetower resulting in several published articles and even a book, but no-one has dug up significant new information about him in the way Bill Hart has done. You can read his article in the Musical Times, September 2017, and download it free of charge on this link: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/319710845_New_Light_on_George_Bridgtower
I urge you to do so.
In his article, Bill Hart tells the story of how a talented and accomplished African (known as John Frederick de Augustus and later as Bridgetower) who was fluent in half a dozen European languages, handsome and charming, brought his 10 year old son George, a virtuoso violinist, to London to seek their fortunes. Like many showmen and performers (Ira Aldridge, Pablo Fanque, etc.) Bridgetower senior invented a royal ancestry for himself and his son.
George had a brilliant career, becoming a protégé of the Prince of Wales and a friend of Beethoven, who composed a sonata especially for him. Accompanied by Beethoven on the piano, Bridgetower’s masterly performance at the premiere of this work created a sensation. Shortly afterwards, as the result of a quarrel between them, Beethoven re-dedicated this most difficult of all violin sonatas to another famous violinist, Rodolphe Kreutzer, who never performed it and said it was unplayable!
My interest in George Bridgetower goes back to 1980 when Ziggi Alexander and I included his portrait and basic details about him in the exhibition Roots in Britain. I have kept an eye out for information about him ever since and had managed to discover quite a number of the facts in Bill’s article, and a few odd snippets besides – for example that Mrs. and Mr. Bridgtower attended a lecture of the Outinian Society on 25 June 1819. This was three years after their marriage and a month before the birth of their second daughter, Felicia. Given that they were having marital problems this is interesting, as the Outinian lectures focused on how to have a happy marriage.
George’s brother Frederick (1), a cellist, joined him in London in 1805. Using family history sources, I discovered, like Bill Hart, that he went to live in Ireland in May 1807. Frederick (1) continued to perform, taught piano and cello and also composed and published a number of works. He married Elizabeth Guy in Newry, County Down in 1808 and fathered three children – George who died aged six months in February 1810, another son Frederick Joseph (2) born in 1812, and a daughter. Sadly, Frederick senior died in August 1813.
The next record I found of Frederick (2) is in 1833 when he was imprisoned for sixteen months along with seven other men, as a result of a riot following an election in Newry. A protestant house had been attacked by catholics and the protestants responded. Frederick (2) survived his incarceration and on 3 June, 1836 he married Catherine Richardson, the daughter of a printer, at St. Mary’s Church, Newry.
In 1838, when his mother appeared as a witness in a court case following a robbery from St. Mary’s Church, the newspaper reported that Mrs. Elizabeth Bridgetower held the office of Sextoness of the church.
By 1840, when a son, also named Frederick Joseph (3), was born to Frederick (2) and Catherine, the family had moved to Liverpool. A daughter, Jane Guy Bridgetower, was born in 1843 followed by Anna Maria in 1848, another son, John Henry c.1850, then Catherine in 1855.
In 1856 tragedy struck. The newspaper report still upsets me, years after I first read it.
“Catherine Bridgetower, a child of one year and four months old, daughter of Frederick Bridgetower, shoemaker, residing in Albert-court, Saltney-street, was so severely burnt by sitting down on a smoothing iron on the 8th of May last, that she died from the injuries received, on Sunday last.” (Liverpool Mercury, 11 June, 1856.)
More sadness followed. Another son, James, born in 1857, died the following year. A second Catherine was born early in 1859 but, within a few months of her birth, her father died of cancer aged 46.
One by one, Frederick Joseph (2) and Catherine’s daughters eventually married. Jane Guy to Thomas Bainbridge in 1868; Anna (Annie) Maria to William Thomas Wood in 1870; Catherine to James Gurney (Manager of the George Inn, Garston) in 1872. It seems John Henry didn’t marry. He was admitted to the Whittingham Lunatic Asylum on 24 February 1874 and remained there until his death, aged 49, on 26 November 1899.
It is reasonable to suppose that the descendants of the brothers George and Frederick (1) Bridgetower lost touch with each other, given that George’s surviving daughter Felicia lived in Italy with her two sons and wealthy husband, while Frederick’s son, Frederick Joseph (2) and family lived in Liverpool in much less affluent circumstances.
It appears that Felicia either really believed her grandfather’s claims that he was an African prince or that she used the story to elevate her status in Italy. As Bill Hart points out, she had a pamphlet published in 1864 in which she traced her lineage back to King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, and somehow “proved” that she and her sons, Alessandro and Carlo Mazarra, were descendants of Abyssinian royalty.
Meanwhile, in 1863 King Tewodros of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia), in an effort to get a reply to his request to buy arms from Britain, had imprisoned a number of British missionaries. Various diplomatic efforts were made to get them released and, when these failed, the British government decided in July 1867 to mount a huge expedition to rescue them.
As usual, this “British” army was not composed only of white men. It was drawn from the Bengal and Bombay Armies and was therefore made up of both British regiments serving in India and locally-recruited Indian soldiers. The force consisted of 13,000 soldiers, 26,000 camp followers, and over 40,000 animals including horses, mules, camels, and 44 elephants specially trained to haul the heavy guns.
Meticulous plans were made beforehand in order to be certain that this force would be able to cross the difficult mountainous terrain and be well-maintained with supplies throughout its mission. It eventually set sail from Bombay on 27 December. Tewodros had thought that it was impossible for the army to reach him in his mountain fortress at Magdala, but he was wrong. On 10 April 1868, the British army attacked and triumphed. After the battle, Tewodros committed suicide before the British could capture him. Huge numbers of Ethiopian treasures were looted and brought back to Britain, along with Tewodros’s seven-year-old son, Prince Alemayehu – but that’s another story.
Prior to this, in September 1867, Lord Stanley, the British Foreign Secretary had received an extraordinary letter from Felicia’s elder son, Alessandro Mazzara, putting forward his claim to the throne of Abyssinia. His claim was backed by the Italian authorities because they wanted to have influence in Abyssinia, as did the Roman Catholic Church. The receipt of this letter was widely reported in the British press.
Can you imagine the effect this must have had on Frederick Joseph (3) in Liverpool? If Alessandro had a valid claim to the throne, he knew he had a better one through male primogeniture, as he was descended through the male line via Frederick Joseph (2), and Alessandro only through the female line via Felicia. In February 1868, he wrote a letter to the Liverpool Mercury outlining his superior claim to the throne. The paper printed what it termed the “extraordinary epistle” without further comment, but in a reply to a correspondent later in the year opined, “If Frederick Joseph Bridgetower is, as our correspondent asserts, entitled to the throne of Abyssinia, he had better go and take it. We are sure that the British Government will never be so foolish as to support his pretensions.”
Frederick (3) didn’t give up. If a notice in the Cheshire Observer of 26 September 1868 is to be believed, he went to Ethiopia to pursue his claim. A notice in the paper reported:
“DEATHS: In Abyssinia, aged 28 years, Frederick Joseph Bridgetower, nephew of Sir George Bridgetower, formerly of Carlton House, London.”
However, that wasn’t the end of him! On 4 May 1870, in Southampton Magistrates’ Court, proceedings were taken against one Frederick Joseph Bridgetower, a printer of Simnel Street. He had been wandering around town, wearing a gilt crown and shouting in the street that he was the King of Abyssinia. He was imprisoned for one week with hard labour for being drunk and disorderly. Was this the real Frederick Joseph (3), or an imposter pretending to be him?
He must have been terribly disappointed, having had his hopes raised so unexpectedly and then dashed to pieces. Seven years later, aged 37, Frederick Joseph Bridgetower (3), occupation Musician, emigrated to the United States. He arrived in New York on 15 August, 1877, aboard the very aptly named SS Ethiopia.
Annie Maria Bridgetower and William Thomas Wood celebrated their Silver Wedding in May, 1895. Their son, Joseph Bridgetower Wood emigrated to Canada where he married Anna Louisa Wachholz in British Columbia in 1913. He returned to Britain to fight in the First World War and survived, dying in Vancouver in 1953.
At some point, many years ago, a family tree was available online which included a tiny photo of “Great Grandma Wood” [Annie Maria Bridgetower (born 1848)]. The photo has now disappeared, but I managed to copy it when I saw it.
As Bill Hart says, there must be a large number of Frederick Joseph (1)’s descendants still living today, as all his granddaughters had children. Whether George has any descendants through his daughter Felicia and her two sons is another question. If he does, I imagine they are still in Italy.
I often wondered if present-day Bridgetower descendants were aware of their illustrious and colourful forbears, and it is evident from recent tweets by Hyder Gareth Jawád that at least some of them are. No doubt further information about this fascinating family will be forthcoming in the future.
Postscript to this story:
Hyder Gareth Jawad is indeed aware of Bridgetower family history. He has posted a recently colourised photo of his great-great-great grandmother and four of her daughters on his Twitter account. Hyder has kindly given Historycal Roots permission to include the full photograph in our article.
Further reading
The New York Times article about George Bridgetower, which includes another image of him:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/04/arts/music/george-bridgetower-violin.html
For more information about the 1868 British Expedition to Abyssinia see:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Expedition_to_Abyssinia
https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/abyssinia
By Audrey Dewjee
V-J Day on Saturday 15 August 2020 marked the 75th Anniversary of the ending of the Second World War.
On V-E Day, 8 May 1945, when people celebrated the end of the war in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the war in the Far East was still raging. While most of Europe went wild with joy at the ending of so much death and suffering, those who had loved ones fighting in the deadly jungles of Burma or who were prisoners of war of the Japanese were still full of fear for their safety and well-being.
War in the Far East actually began in 1937 when Japan invaded China. Because Japan was an island nation it was without many of the resources it needed to wage war, such as oil, tin, rubber and bauxite. According to Wikipedia, Japan entered World War 2 “primarily to obtain raw materials, especially oil, from European (particularly Dutch) possessions in South East Asia which were weakly defended because of the war in Europe. Their plans involved an attack on Burma partly because of Burma’s own natural resources (which included some oil from fields around Yenangyaung, but also minerals such as cobalt and large surpluses of rice), but also to protect the flank of their main attack against Malaya and Singapore and provide a buffer zone to protect the territories they intended to occupy.”
Wikipedia continues, “An additional factor was the Burma Road completed in 1938, which linked Lashio, at the end of a railway from the port of Rangoon, with the Chinese province of Yunnan. This newly completed link was being used to move aid and munitions to the Chinese Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek which had been fighting the Japanese for several years. The Japanese naturally wished to cut this link.”
On 7 December 1941, the Japanese simultaneously attacked Malaya, the Philippines, Borneo and the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Far East then became another theatre of World War 2. The United States entered the war and China became one of the Allies.
The Crown Colonist, November 1942, praising “China – Our Ally.”
(© IWM IND 2332)
British “possessions” in the region were systematically attacked – Hong Kong on 18 December and Singapore in the following February. The invasions were successful and the Japanese quickly occupied these territories. British forces retreated or were captured, and before long the Japanese were threatening India, the “Jewel in the Crown” of the British Empire.
The Fourteenth Army under Lieutenant General William Slim was set the task of ridding North East India and Burma of the Japanese.
The fighting in Burma was some of the most brutal in the war, probably the most brutal. The terrain was certainly the most difficult that any soldiers in the British army ever had to overcome in any theatre of World War 2, and their Japanese adversaries, who believed in fighting to the death, had never yet been defeated in any of their campaigns.
Against these tremendous odds General Slim’s troops, assisted by Eastern Air Command, halted the enemy’s triumphant advance into India and then inflicted on him the greatest land defeat that the Imperial Army of Japan ever suffered.
I am not a military historian, so I cannot adequately detail the Burma campaign. I have listed a selection of book titles at the end of this article as well as links to various websites which have further information. My aim in this article is to honour those who achieved this magnificent result and to rescue from oblivion details of some of these soldiers and where they came from.
Men from the ends of the earth
Often referred to as the “Forgotten Army”, the Fourteenth was an incredibly multi-cultural, multi-racial force. As Dr. Robert Lyman, speaking on VJ Day 75: The Nation Remembers (BBC 1, 15 August, 2020) pointed out, its 606,000 men came from 20 countries and spoke 40 different languages. Only 10% of the troops were white British. The majority, 87% of the men, were from India and the remaining 3% came from East and West Africa.
The Fourteenth Army was made up of 13 Divisions – two British Divisions consisting of British personnel from the “mother country”; eight Indian Divisions consisting of about 70% Indian and Gurkha troops and 30% British; the 11th Division from East Africa and the 81st and 82nd Divisions from West Africa, all of which had British officers and a high proportion of British NCOs.
The 11th East African Division
The 11th East African Division was composed of troops from Kenya, Uganda, Nyasaland (now Malawi) Tanganyika (now Tanzania), Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and from the former Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo). The Division set sail for India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in October 1943 and in the beginning of 1944 they were sent in to the Arakan in Burma.
The 81st West African Division
The 81st Division was made up of troops from the Gold Coast (now Ghana), the Gambia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, some of whom had already been fighting the Italians in East Africa. It was sent to India in August 1943. One brigade was sent to help form the legendary Chindits, special operations units under Brigadier Wingate which carried out operations deep behind enemy lines. The rest were sent into the Arakan.
The 82nd West African Division
In 2013, Griff Rhys-Jones presented a wonderfully informative programme about the 82nd West African Division on BBC TV, which is still available on YouTube and I urge you to watch it. Griff’s father was a doctor with the Gold Coast Regiment which, along with the Nigerian Regiment, became part of the 82nd Division that arrived in India in January 1944. The video retraces the route the soldiers took while fighting their way into the Arakan in 1944 and it includes many interviews with African veterans. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mPCDFHD3Fk
There is more information on the 82nd West African Division on this link: https://www.burmastar.org.uk/stories/82nd-west-african-division/
Some men in the African divisions remained in Burma for a year after the war ended, “mopping up” pockets of Japanese soldiers who refused to surrender.
The Indian Divisions
Many medals were awarded during the Burma Campaign. The following images are of three of the Indian soldiers who were awarded the Victoria Cross – the highest British award for gallantry. Gian Singh and Bhandari Ram survived the war; Naik Fazal Din’s VC was awarded posthumously.
It is unsurprising that there were so many Indian Divisions in the Fourteenth Army, given India’s proximity to the location of the fighting. It must be remembered that, at the time, these soldiers came from the old, undivided India, which is now separated into the three countries of Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. The men in these divisions came from many different Indian communities and regions and followed many different faiths and religions. Today, perhaps, people remember that Gurkhas and maybe Sikhs, and perhaps even that Muslims fought in World War 2, but the ethnic mix of the Indian army was much wider than that.
Before going to Burma, many of these divisions had already been fighting in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. To give but one example – the 5th Indian Division had already fought the Italians and Germans in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Egypt, Cyprus, Syria, Iraq and in the First Battle of El Alamein in the Western Desert of North Africa, before being shipped back to India to fight against the Japanese. The Division fought in Burma from December 1943 until the victory in 1945, taking part in fighting in Arakan and in the battles of Imphal and Kohima.
The British Divisions
Even in the two British Divisions there were men from diverse ethnic backgrounds. Sergeant Benjamin Macrae, the son of a Londoner and an African who had fought in the First World War, was awarded the Military Medal for his bravery in battle. Benjamin’s oral history about his service in the 2nd Infantry Division is available from the archives of the Imperial War Museum. https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/80010403
York-born Charles Henry Cheong, known as Harry, had tried to join up early in the war, but he wasn’t accepted until after China became one of the Allies in 1941. Captain Harry Cheong’s bravery was subsequently “mentioned in dispatches.” When he tried to find employment after war ended, he found that his surname prevented him getting positions. He therefore changed his name in 1945 to Dewar and went on to have a successful teaching career, eventually becoming a headmaster. These are just two examples – no doubt there were others.
The Fourteenth’s courage, skill and tenacity on the ground was facilitated and sustained by air support which not only fought the Japanese but, crucially, dropped essential supplies of food, medicines and ammunition, which could not have reached the men in any other way because of the density of the jungle. Small planes, using improvised airstrips, also evacuated some of the most severely wounded to base hospitals in India.
The Fourteenth Army succeeded in its mission. It won major battles against much larger forces in Arakan and the two epic battles of Imphal and Kohima, and it drove the Japanese invaders out of Burma.
John Masters in his book The Road Past Mandalay paid this fitting tribute to the “forgotten” army:
“Below the generals, below the staff….and above them all, were the soldiers. The theatre, and this campaign, gathered to itself like a whirlpool, men from the ends of the earth. There were English, Irish, Welsh and Scots, and in the RAF Newfoundlanders, Australians, Canadians, New Zealanders and South Africans. There were Chinese; there were tall slender Negroes from East Africa, and darker, more heavily built Negroes from West Africa, with the tribal slits slashed deeply into their cheeks – an infantry division of each. There were Chins, Kachins, Karens, and Burmans, mostly light brown, small-boned men in worn jungle green, doubly heroic because the Japanese held possession of their homes, often of their families too; and, until about now, how could they be sure which side was going to win?….Lastly, and in by far the greatest numbers, there were the men of the Indian Army, the largest volunteer army the world has ever known. There were men from every caste and race – Sikhs, Dogras, Pathans, Madrassis, Mahrattas, Rajputs, Assamese, Kumaonis, Punjabis, Garhwalis, Naga head-hunters – and, from Nepal, the Gurkhas in all their tribes and sub-tribes, of Limbu and Rai, Thakur and Chhetri, Magar and Gurung. These men wore turbans, and steel helmets, and slouch hats, and berets, and tank helmets and khaki shakos inherited from the eighteenth century. There were companies that averaged five feet one inch in height and companies that averaged six feet three inches. There were men as purple black as the West Africans, and men as pale and gold-wheat of skin as a lightly sun-tanned blonde. They worshipped God according to the rites of the Mahayana and Hinayana, of Sunni and of Shiah, of Rome and Canterbury and Geneva, of the Vedas and the sages and Mahabharatas, of the ten Gurus, of the secret shrines of the jungle. There were vegetarians and meat-eaters and fish-eaters, and men who had four wives, men who shared one wife with four brothers, and men who openly practised sodomy. There were men who had never seen snow and men who seldom saw anything else. And Brahmins and Untouchables, both with rifle and tommy gun. No one who saw the XIVth Army in action, above all, no one who saw its dead on the field of battle, the black and the white and the brown and the yellow lying together in their indistinguishable blood on the rich soil of Burma, can ever doubt that there is a brotherhood of man; or fail to cry:
What is Man, that he can give so much for war, so little for peace?”
WHEN YOU GO HOME, TELL THEM OF US AND SAY
FOR YOUR TOMORROW WE GAVE OUR TODAY
(Epitaph on the Kohima 2nd Division War Memorial)
Further information
Films:
A wonderful short film of interviews with African veterans of the war in Burma: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWIHOIZVZtE
Film of the Victory Parade which took place in London on 8 June, 1946. Veterans of the 11th East Africa, 81st West Africa and 82nd West Africa Divisions are featured in it: https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-victory-parade-1946-online
Books:
Fighting for Britain: African Soldiers in the Second World War, David Killingray with Martin Plaut, Boydell & Brewer, 2017: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fighting-Britain-African-Soldiers-Second/dp/1847010474
Fighting with the Fourteenth Army in Burma, James Luto, Pen & Sword, 2013:https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fighting-Fourteenth-Army-Burma-Summaries/dp/1783030313
Burma ’44: The Battle That Turned Britain’s War in the East, James Holland, Corgi, 2017: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Burma-44-Battle-Turned-Britains/dp/B083WMY2R9/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2555B4XE8GAHZ&dchild=1&keywords=burma+44+james+holland&qid=1600354766&sprefix=burma+%2744%2Caps%2C182&sr=8-1
Japan’s Last Bid for Victory, Robert Lyman, Pen and Sword, 2011: https://www.pen-and-sword.co.uk/Japans-Last-Bid-for-Victory-Paperback/p/18662 [A paperback reissue of this book is due for publication on 30 October, 2020.]
14th Army at War, George Forty, Littlehampton Book Service, 1982: https://www.amazon.co.uk/14th-Army-War-George-Forty/dp/0711011613/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=14th+army+at+war&qid=1600355136&s=audible&sr=1-1
Articles:
https://memorialgates.org/history/ww2/campaigns/burma-india.html
https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/far-east-campaign
https://www.burmastar.org.uk/stories/how-admin-troops-backed-up-the-fighting-men/
The Battles of Imphal and Kohima: https://www.nam.ac.uk/explore/battle-imphal
Burmese veterans: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-44582731
Nagaland’s unknown World War II heroes: https://rediscoveryproject.com/2017/06/16/nagaland-world-war-ii/
I wonder how many remember a series of monologues shown on the BBC in 2019? ‘Soon Gone: A Windrush Chronicle’ followed the stories of succeeding generations of a family of the Windrush generation. The first story featured Eunice, who, speaking directly to camera, describes what it was like when she first arrived as a passenger on the Empire Windrush in 1948. Set in 1949, a year after her arrival, the synopsis for this first episode describes her experience: ‘the year has not been easy: her aspirations and confidence have been battered by the reality of employment and living conditions in London.’
Subsequent episodes feature different characters from succeeding generations including marriages both within the growing black community and also with the white community. By the time we get to the eighth monologue Michaela takes up the story. Michaela self identifies as black but in appearance she is white. She remembers fondly her great grandmother Eunice and, holding up a photo of Eunice, says ‘most people don’t even realise that we are family.’ The monologues were fictional but they vividly illustrated the experiences of the Windrush generation, the aspirations, the hopes, the disappointments, the compromises and the struggles. Of course there are many real life examples that mirror the fictional ones portrayed.
Some of the early post-War arrivals were already married, men left their wives at home in the Caribbean and set off for the Mother Country in order to establish a foothold and then bring their wife to join them. Lucilda Harris, passenger number 127 on the Windrush passenger list, was one such wife. Lucilda and her husband would go on to become established as elders in the black community in Brixton. A little over six years later Audley Anderson disembarked at Plymouth from the SS Auriga on 12th October 1954 and made his way to Nottingham where his sister-in-law was already living. Audley’s wife, Myrtle, joined him five months later having also sailed to Plymouth on the Auriga. One of the Anderson’s children, Vivian Alexander Anderson, would go on to be England’s first black football full international.
Others had sweethearts in the Caribbean who came to join them in England. Pearl Mogotsi disembarked from the SS Ariguani at Avonmouth on 14th April 1948 (two months before the Windrush arrived at Tilbury). She was unmarried but that changed when she tied the knot with fellow Trinidadian, Edric Connor at Paddington Register Office on 26th June 1948. Pearl and Edric became important figures in black Britain’s cultural life (Edric, for instance, became the first black actor to perform for the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford when he appeared in a 1958 production of Pericles).
But the majority of new arrivals did not have wives or sweethearts to bring over and had to look beyond their own community where there were few eligible women of colour. A calypsonian, Lord Beginner, addressed the issue directly in ‘Mix Up Matrimony’. Beginner, travelling under his real name of Egbert Moore, was passenger number 762 on the Windrush passenger list. Several of Lord Beginner’s calypsos captured the zeitgeist in memorable style, ‘Cricket Lovely Cricket’, celebrating the West Indies first ever victory over England in a test match at Lords in 1950, is one of his best known. But it is ‘Mix Up Matrimony’ that we feature here:
The song takes a very optimistic, ‘rose tinted spectacles’, view of the situation, in reality mixed couple were usually viewed with hostility, particularly by the white community. One of the black footballers we interviewed for our forthcoming book ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’, Lloyd Maitland, described how his, white, mother scarcely ever left the house because of the hostility she faced in Birmingham, and Lloyd himself was subjected to bullying on account of his colour.
In researching the book we came across a classic illustration of the ‘soon gone’ storyline. We wanted to identify the first black player at each of the 92 English Football League clubs. We thought we had identified Tranmere Rover’s first black player when we found that a Nigerian, Elkanah Onyeali, had played for them in 1960, however, our friend, the Liverpool historian, Ray Costello, alerted us to a black goalkeeper who played for Rovers at least a decade earlier. The goalkeeper in question turned out to be George Payne but, in fact, we discovered an even earlier black player for Tranmere.
The player we identified was Albert Charles Payne who made his debut for Rovers on 31st August 1946. We met Albert’s son, David, who, unlike the fictional Michaela at the start of this article, has never considered himself to be black. But David is a direct descendent of this man:
On 1st November 1853, on the Caribbean island of Barbados, Joseph Stanley Payne (pictured above) was born. As a young man Joseph took to the sea and, as so many seamen did, eventually made Liverpool his home port. It was here that he married a local white girl, Sarah Ann Mansfield, in 1880. On 28th June 1884 Joseph and Sarah had a son, Albert Ernest, who joined the growing ranks of Liverpool’s mixed heritage community.
On 12th February 1920, Albert Ernest married Lilian May Tranter and Tranmere’s first black player, Albert Charles Payne, was born three years later in Liverpool on 11th November 1923.
Albert made only ten appearances in the Football League (more than enough to earn him a place in ‘Football’s Black Pioneers’), but his cousin, George Payne, the man Ray Costello originally drew to our attention, made a total of 467 in goal for Rovers in a career that started in 1947 and ended in 1961. Albert and George were cousins who could both claim the distinguished looking gentleman in the picture as their grandfather.
We don’t have a photo of Albert in his playing days but his cousin George is seen here (back row, third from the left).
You may think that George ‘doesn’t look black’ but, as we have seen, he and Albert had a black grandparent. This illustrates the point that the black contribution to British history is not always readily apparent, all the more reason to explore this hidden history.
‘Football’s Black Pioneers’ can be ordered from the publishers: https://www.conkereditions.co.uk/product/footballs-black-pioneers-subscriber-copies-for-pre-order/, or from Amazon, Waterstones and all good bookshops.
By Audrey Dewjee
From a friend I received an account of the way she celebrated Yorkshire Day on Saturday by sharing a socially distanced Yorkshire Day tea with a neighbour in their gardens. The menu consisted of “Parkin, tea loaf, Wensleydale [cheese] and, of course, Yorkshire Tea!” This set me thinking about the origins of the Day, of the food, of Yorkshire’s wealth and the history of Yorkshire’s “Broad Acres,” which is a lot broader than many people realise.
The origins of Yorkshire Day
According to Wikipedia, “Yorkshire Day is celebrated on 1 August to promote the historic English county of Yorkshire. It was celebrated in 1975, by the Yorkshire Ridings Society, initially in Beverley, as ‘a protest movement against the local government re-organisation of 1974’. The date alludes to the Battle of Minden [in which the 51st (2nd Yorkshire East Riding) Regiment of Foot were involved], and also the anniversary of the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, for which a Yorkshire MP, William Wilberforce, had campaigned.”
Wilberforce was not the only abolitionist who had connections in Yorkshire. Although he was born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, Thomas Clarkson, arguably the greatest of all white British abolitionists, came from a family with its roots in Thirsk. Olaudah Equiano, then known as Gustavus Vassa, the chief black British abolitionist, had many supporters in Yorkshire, including in the cities of Huddersfield, Leeds, York and Hull.
Other heroes in the struggle against slavery and racism included Wilson Armistead, a Quaker businessman from Leeds who, in 1848, published what is probably the first British Black History book, A Tribute for the Negro. His illustrated book included biographical notes, some short and some longer, about the lives of almost 200 people of African descent. In the book he states, “With regard to the intellectual capabilities of the African race, it may be observed, that Africa was once the nursery of science and literature, and it was from thence that they were disseminated among the Greeks and Romans….Solon, Plato, Pythagoras, and others of the master spirits of ancient Greece, performed pilgrimages into Africa in search of knowledge; there they sat at the feet of ebon philosophers to drink in wisdom!” A Tribute for the Negro is available to read on line at https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Tribute_for_the_Negro.html?id=t8ENAAAAQAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false
In more recent times other Yorkshire men and women have joined these heroes in welcoming newcomers with darker skins to the county. [I will shortly be writing an article which includes two from the years just after World War 2 – John Murray-Robinson and Charles Henry Charlesworth.]
Parkin
Those of you who live in the south may not know about the much-loved Yorkshire parkin – a moist, sticky, spicy cake mostly eaten in the autumn and an integral part of Bonfire Night celebrations. Besides butter and eggs, its ingredients include oatmeal as well as self-raising flour, but the essentials which give it its taste and dark appearance are ground ginger, black treacle and soft brown sugar. Some recipes also include golden syrup, nutmeg and mixed spice, or use molasses instead of the black treacle.
As you will see, many of the ingredients could not be grown in Britain. Before sugar was made from sugar beet in the 1920s, Britain imported cane sugar (and its derivatives – molasses and treacle) from various territories in the former British Empire, particularly from around the Caribbean. Ginger was originally grown in South East Asia. In the 16th century plants were successfully transferred to Jamaica from where the ginger was exported to Britain in addition to supplies from India. Enslaved labour produced the sugar and the ginger from which parkin’s recipe developed over the years.
Yorkshire Tea
Traditionally, the tea most admired in Yorkshire has always been a good strong, dark brew (possibly called builder’s tea in other parts of the country). Yorkshire Tea has now become a famous brand name marketed by Taylors of Harrogate. https://www.yorkshiretea.co.uk/about-us
I gave a box to a 101-year-old Asian Muslim relative when he visited London last November. He enjoyed it so much that he now regularly buys Yorkshire Tea, at great expense, in his home-town in Canada. Thinking of him reminds me that 1st August this year was also celebrated as part of Eid al-Adha. Eid Mubarak, Amir! I hope you enjoyed some cups of Yorkshire Tea as part of your celebrations.
Of course, the name of the tea is interesting. As David Olusoga has asked, “Where in Yorkshire do they grow tea?” Listen to him raise the question in discussion with Akala on this podcast: https://soundcloud.com/southbankcentre_book_podcast/akala-and-david-olusoga-striking-the-empire. Tea is now imported from various parts of the old British Empire and it has a chequered history. Perhaps you would like to reflect on its history next time you enjoy a reviving cup.
The first tea to reach Britain came from China and it quickly caught on with the very rich: it was so expensive that it was kept in locked tea caddies. Once it became indispensible to a much greater number of people, Britain had to find a way to pay for it. This was a problem, as China had no desire to buy any British exports and only accepted silver bullion as payment. Two solutions to the problem were found.
The first was to grow massive amounts of opium in India which was then exported as a cash crop to China. In earlier times, opium was used as a very useful medicine, but the new practice of smoking opium for recreational purposes increased demand tremendously and millions of Chinese people became addicted as a result. Chinese emperors issued laws in 1729, 1799, 1814, and 1831 which made opium illegal but still British (and, later, American) traders found ways of getting it into the country via Chinese smugglers. Britain fought two Opium Wars in 1839-1842 and in 1856-1860 to force the Chinese to accept the narcotic. When we consider the problems we now have with drugs in this country, it brings to mind the saying, “Chickens coming home to roost”! As an outcome of the First Opium War, China was forced to cede Hong Kong to Britain, setting in motion more problems for the 21st century.
The second solution was to steal both tea plants and details of the methods needed to grow them successfully, which the Chinese had kept as a closely-guarded secret. This knowledge was then used in the establishment of tea gardens in India, where workers toiled under conditions very similar to those endured by the enslaved. At a later date, tea growing was established in Africa, and now our tea comes from both areas of the former British Empire.
Recently, when a local far-right activist tried to make something out of Yorkshire Tea’s seeming lack of response to the Black Lives Matter movement by tweeting “I’m dead chuffed that Yorkshire Tea has not supported BLM,” Taylors issued a short, sharp response: “Please don’t buy our tea again. We’re taking some time to educate ourselves and plan proper action before we post. We stand against racism.”
Taylors aim to be ethical producers, for example by planting trees in both Kenya and Britain and by treating their workers fairly – and they can claim some success, although there may still be some way to go, according to this report in the Guardian – https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/jun/09/yorkshire-tea-and-pg-tips-respond-to-anti-blm-boycott-with-solidaritea
Wensleydale Cheese
How could Wensleydale and its cheese possibly have a “hidden history” which links it with slavery and empire? Few would believe that beautiful Wensleydale in the heart of the Yorkshire Dales National Park could have any connection with transatlantic enslavement or exploitation in India. However, when research was done for the Hidden History of the Dales exhibition, which was on display at the Dales Countryside Museum in Hawes in 2007 and 2009, many such connections were discovered.
Men left the Yorkshire Dales to settle in the West Indies and India. They worked as sailors and merchants in the slave trade, and as overseers, millwrights and surveyors on plantations. In some cases they owned plantations and enslaved workers. Those Yorkshire people who survived perilous sea journeys, at a time when shipwrecks were frequent, and tropical diseases, which killed many, remitted money to their families back home. Some retired to homes in the Dales. Returnees contributed to the built environment and invested ill-gotten gains in land and in industrial development and growth. They also brought people of African descent to live in the area in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
Dales people who remained in Britain sold their wares to the plantations in America and the West Indies – for example knitted stockings, “bump caps for the negroes,” and agricultural products such as cheese.
Reflecting on all of this history, I trust that in future we will find ways to commemorate Yorkshire Day in a manner that honours the contributions made by the ancestors of all Yorkshire citizens – including those who grew the tea and the ginger or slaved in the cane fields and boiling houses to produce the sugar and treacle – and celebrates those people who fought for freedom, justice and equality and who extended a genuine Yorkshire welcome to settlers from all parts of the world.
[1] Joe Williams is the founder of Leeds Black History Walk https://heritagecornerleeds.wixsite.com/heritage-corner/l
By Audrey Dewjee
It is a privilege and a pleasure for the Historycal Roots team to work with Audrey Dewjee, Audrey has forgotten more about black British history than we will ever know.
News that a bust of Mary Seacole by the sculptor Count Gleichen is to be auctioned on 30th July 2020, reminded Audrey of the story of how the bust came to be made. You can read Audrey’s article on the subject below. It is a story known to very few people and Audrey is the perfect person to tell it as, back in 1984, she co-edited (with Ziggi Alexander) the first modern re-issue of Mary Seacole’s autobiography[1].
As the bust has been in the hands of a private collector for many years, we fervently hope that the auction leads to it being purchased by an institution which will put it on public display. At a time when we are debating the importance of celebrating the contribution of black men and women to British history it would be a travesty if this important artefact were to fall into the hands of a private collector to be squirrelled away from public view or, worse, shipped overseas. There are all too few public images of Mary Seacole available for people to view and it is important that we maximise the visibility of those we have.
In the article that follows Audrey tells the story of the remarkable friendship between Mary Seacole and the man who sculpted the image.
—————————————————————————————–
The sculptor, Count Gleichen, was a nephew of Queen Victoria. He was born Prince Victor of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, but he changed his name to the lesser title after his morganatic marriage in early 1861 to Laura Williamina Seymour, daughter of a British Admiral, as she was only permitted the title of Countess, not Princess.
As an officer of the Royal Navy, Prince Victor served in the Crimean War (1853-1856) and was one of the customers of Mary Seacole’s renowned British Hotel which acted as a sort of gentleman’s club to officers in the British forces. Here they could not only purchase alcoholic drinks and delicious meals but also essentials such as boots and shoes, socks and underwear, saddles, caps and handkerchiefs – in fact “everything from an anchor to a needle” – which the Commissariat (the government department responsible for the supply of food and equipment) was, for many months, unable to provide.
Mary’s friendship with the young prince, who was then in his early twenties, came in useful to him. In her autobiography she describes a couple of instances where her aid was of use:
“Of course the summer [of 1855] introduced its own plagues, and among the worst of these were the flies. I shall never forget those Crimean flies….There was no exterminating them – no thinning them – no escaping from them by night or by day….The officers in the front suffered terribly from them. One of my kindest customers, a lieutenant serving in the Royal Naval Brigade, who was a close relative of the Queen, whose uniform he wore, came to me in great perplexity. He evidently considered the fly nuisance the most trying portion of the campaign, and of far more consequence than the Russian shot and shell. ‘Mami’, he said (he had been in the West Indies, and so called me by the familiar term used by the Creole children), ‘Mami, these flies respect nothing. Not content with eating my prog [food] they set to at night and make a supper of me,’ and his face showed traces of their attacks. ‘Confound them, they’ll kill me, Mami; they’re everywhere, even in the trenches, and you’d suppose they wouldn’t go there from choice. What can you do for me, Mami?’
“Not much; but I rode down to Mr. B—–’s store, at Kadikoi, where I was lucky in being able to procure a piece of muslin, which I pinned up (time was too precious to allow me to use needle and thread) into a mosquito net, with which the prince was delighted. He fell ill later in the summer, when I went up to his quarters and did all I could for him.”
Here Mary Seacole was being rather modest: Prince Victor credited her with saving his life when he was stricken down with cholera.
At the British Hotel, Mary also provided a canteen for other ranks, where she carried out first aid for a variety of conditions including injuries, battle wounds and frostbite. She dispensed her medicines for the treatment of diseases such as dysentery, diarrhoea and cholera which were endemic in the camp and which killed six times more men than did wounds sustained in battle. For officers, Mary provided more individual care – she visited their tents and huts close to the battlefront where she administered her medicines as well as nutritious food to her patients.
Her successful treatment of Prince Victor resulted in even closer friendship which continued after the war, when they were both living in London. By 1871, and now known as Count Gleichen, Prince Victor had retired from the Royal Navy and was practising as a talented sculptor. His bust of Mary Seacole, created that year at the studio in his apartments at St. James’s Palace, was exhibited at the Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy in 1872.
Of special interest is the fact that Gleichen portrayed Mary wearing her Crimean medals. There has been much controversy over claims by Seacole detractors that she had no right to wear these medals because no evidence has been found of her being officially awarded them. The evidence may not have been found, but I do not believe that an officer of the Royal Navy of Gleichen’s rank would have featured the medals so prominently in his sculpture if there was any doubt about her right to wear them.
Incidentally Mary wore her medals without challenge when she attended a high profile review of the army at Aldershot in September 1866. Sheldrake’s Aldershot and Sandhurst Military Gazette reported the presence of the “Crimean celebrity…decorated with her three war medals – the Crimean medal with three clasps, the Legion of Honour and the Turkish medal, that had been presented to her by the different governments for the valuable services rendered by this extraordinary lady to the allied army during this memorable campaign.” The report continued by describing her acknowledgement on the day by the army top brass: “As the troops were formed up to march past, she was recognised by the generals and Sir James [Lieut.-Gen. The Hon. Sir James Yorke Scarlett, K.C.B] rode up to her, and shook her warmly by the hand, remarking that the last time he saw her she was ‘totting’ out brandy to the soldiers in the Crimea…. Gen. Hodge also gave her a warm reception, and particularly requested her to visit the female hospital before she left Aldershot. Sir Wm. Codrington also rode to her and shook her by the hand, and, as well as the other generals, inquired where she had been since the Crimean War…. On her way homewards, Capt. Wolfe also accosted her…and expressed his pleasure at seeing her in Aldershot.”
In fact, Mary and Count Gleichen remained friends for the rest of their lives. The Fortnightly Review, of January, 1892, in an article entitled “The Late Prince Victor of Hohenlohe” [p.313] recorded that, “During the summer of that year [1855], Prince Victor for the second time nearly died of cholera. He was however, brought round by the devoted nursing of the well-known Mother Seacole, the West Indian black woman, who had become much attached to him. Up to the time of her death, not many years ago, the warm hearted old lady used to come and see him, and bring little presents for his children.”
In her will, Mary bequeathed to Count Gleichen “the diamond ring given to my late husband by his Godfather, Viscount Nelson”. She also left her best set of pearl ornaments to his eldest daughter, the Countess Feodora Gleichen, and nineteen guineas each to his other three children.
I trust the bust which illustrates their friendship will remain in this country, to be seen here by all who want to view it.
Details of the auction can be seen here: https://www.dominicwinter.co.uk/Auction/Lot/297-crimean-war-victorian-terracotta-bust-modelled-as-mary-seacole/?lot=357372&so=0&st=297&sto=0&au=748&ef=&et=&ic=False&sd=0&pp=48&pn=1&g=1
[1] The illustrations in this article come from Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands, edited by Ziggi Alexander and Audrey Dewjee, Falling Wall Press, 1984.