By Audrey Dewjee
In autumn 1978, shortly after I began researching British Black History, I paid a visit to Harewood House, the stately home built by the Lascelles family (Earls of Harewood) near Leeds in Yorkshire. Knowing that the family had owned a plantation in Barbados, and that they had connections with the East India Company, I wanted to find out if any servants of African or Asian ancestry had been employed at Harewood House during the 18th or early 19th centuries.
Harewood is often referred to as “The Treasure House of Yorkshire”. The wealth that financed its building came from an immense West India fortune created by Henry Lascelles (1690-1753) whose net assets at death probably totalled over £50 million in today’s money. As historian Simon D. Smith explains, “Henry earned his fortune primarily through unscrupulous exploitation of his positions as Barbadian customs collector (1715-33) and government-appointed contractor to supply troops stationed in the Caribbean with provisions during the Wars of Jenkins’ Ear (1739-42) and Austrian Succession (1742-48). He also used his skills as a merchant to establish a London commission house, importing sugar for sale to the city’s refiners. Profits from these activities were invested in English land, London securities, and loans to West India planters.” [1] Henry participated in the slave trade, setting up a syndicate investing £41,200 (approx. £4.5 million) in slaving between 1736 and 1744 and bought a plantation in Barbados, although this was sold off a few years after his death. In 1742, Henry Lascelles became a director of the East India Company. A very astute businessman, Henry became one of the richest men in England. He killed himself in 1753 by slashing the veins in his arms.[2]
Henry’s eldest son, Daniel, inherited the London business house while his second son, Edwin, was educated to be an aristocrat (Cambridge University, followed by a “Grand Tour” of Europe) and settled on the land bought by Henry at Harewood.
Construction of the house began in 1759 and was completed in 1771. It was designed by John Carr and Robert Adam, lavishly decorated and filled with the finest Chippendale furniture, works of art by grand masters, exquisite china, enormous fine carpets and hundreds of leather bound books. Edwin’s younger brother, another Henry, became a captain for the East India Company. In command of a ship named York, he made three voyages to Canton in China. It is unknown whether he brought back the spectacular Chinese wallpaper and other exotic Eastern treasures which eventually further enhanced Harewood House.
One of the main activities of the London business house (known as Lascelles and Maxwell) was to provide loans and mortgages to West Indian planters. When financial problems began to hit West Indian sugar producers in the second half of the 18th century, Edwin Lascelles “suddenly acquired an immense portfolio of West Indian property as planters began defaulting on loans and surrendering plantations to their creditors.” In just 14 years between 1773 and 1787, he took possession of more than 27,000 acres and 2,947 enslaved workers, worth £293,000 (about £28.3 million). This total included 22 working plantations on the islands of Barbados, Grenada, Jamaica, and Tobago.
Edward Lascelles inherited Harewood House and the family fortune from his cousin Edwin, who died childless in 1795. In 1812 he was created Viscount Lascelles, Earl of Harewood, and thus a gentry family from Northallerton in Yorkshire entered the higher ranks of Britain’s aristocracy.
“After 1788, the owners of Harewood steadily reduced their interests in the Caribbean. By the time of Emancipation (1833), however, the Lascelles family still owned six estates in Barbados and Jamaica, consisting of 3,264 acres and 1,277 slaves. Under the terms of the Parliamentary scheme to compensate planters for freed slaves, the 2nd Earl of Harewood received £23,309 in 1835-6 (approximately £1.9 million).”[3]
At the time I visited Harewood, a watercolour of a Barbados plantation great-house was on display, and on the wall of one of the outbuildings – perhaps in the stables – there was a timeline of family history including the fact that Henry Lascelles had been customs collector in Barbados, and that the family had been plantation owners. On my visit, I thought I might discover a painting of some long-dead grandee which included an African or Asian servant in the corner or the background that might indicate their former employment in the house. On this I was to be disappointed.[4]
At closing time, just as I was leaving, I saw an elderly house-guide sitting by the door. I asked him if he knew whether there had ever been any Black servants at Harewood and I was amazed at his reply. “Oh aye! – I remember Bertie Robinson. He was a footman here when I were young.” I asked if he could remember anything about Bertie. “In an evening he used to walk down to the village pub carrying a silver topped cane and he was in love with the cook at the vicarage – but she died.”
I asked what happened to Bertie. “Oh, he put his hand in t’purse and was sent back to Barbados.” I think the assumption was that Bertie had been gambling and run up debts and that was the reason he stole.
This mysterious Bertie caught my imagination and I tried to find out more about him. Several years later, I rang Harewood House Trust and said that I was looking for pictures or information about him. I was referred to a gentleman named Gerald Twinn (an ex-employee who still lived in the village in retirement) who was known to have many photographs of Harewood and the staff who used to work there.
Mr. Twinn invited me to visit. He showed me his fantastic collection of photographs which included not only servants, but also members of the Lascelles family. There was one of his father who had been a coachman, driving members of the family in a beautiful open carriage. Among the collection, there was a photo of Bertie dressed in his footman’s uniform, standing on the famous Harewood Terrace.[5] Mr. Twinn gave me a copy of the photo and permission to use it in any way I liked in the future.
In 2002 our Diasporian Stories Research Group[6] was invited to work with staff at Abbey House Museum to expand their display on Victorian Leeds by looking into the wider context of the British Empire, struggles against slavery, colonial trade and migration. We told them about Bertie. A short while later, Museum Curator, Kitty Ross, got in touch with us to say that in their Christmas card collection, they had discovered a card sent by Bertie in 1905, which included his photo.
More of Bertie’s story gradually emerged out of the mists of time. Terry Suthers, former Director of Harewood House Trust, discovered entries for “Bertie” on the census in both 1901 and 1911. From this we learned that Bertie’s given name was actually George and that he had been born in St. Vincent, not Barbados. His route to working at Harewood thus became even more obscure.
A third photo of Bertie was found at Harewood which shows what a handsome young man he was. No wonder the cook at the vicarage was attracted to him. This photo, taken in London by the Jubilee Photo Company of 1 Buckingham Palace Road, together with a little information about Bertie, was featured in an exhibition at Harewood in 2004.[7]
While working for the Lascelles family, Bertie must have waited on many prominent people – politicians, aristocrats and royalty – not only at Harewood, but also in the Lascelles’ townhouse at 13 Upper Belgrave Street, London, SW1. In 1921 yet another Henry Lascelles (later 6th Earl of Harewood) proposed to Princess Mary – the only daughter of the king – and was accepted. They were married on 28 February, 1922. It is not unreasonable to suppose that Bertie met the princess before or after their marriage.
Why Bertie stole and what happened to him remained a mystery until recently. In 2016 while researching online, I came across a reference to a letter written in 1924 by Constance, Lady Wenlock, (née Lascelles, sister of Henry, 5th Earl) which mentioned a ‘Blackamoor’ at Harewood.[8] My friend, Dr. Joan Kemp, kindly looked at the original and transcribed notes for me. The letter reveals why Bertie, after giving a quarter of a century of honest service to the Lascelles family, suddenly committed such an uncharacteristic act.
Joan explains the background to the letter – “On 6 January, 1924, Lady Wenlock is writing to her daughter. Amongst a lot of other things she mentions that she has been reading The Diary of Lady Anne Clifford, edited by Vita Sackville West, who includes a lengthy introduction. The details of Lady Anne’s household [in the early 17th century] seem to fascinate Lady Wenlock, who comments on the different tables at meals, according to the level of the retainers.” Joan then quotes directly from the letter:
“There is the Laundrymaid’s table which includes the ladies’ maids and there are delightful old world names Penelope, Judith, Prudence, Faith and ‘Grace Robinson a Blackamoor’…..In the kitchen and scullery table is included ‘John Morocko a Blackamoor’. I wonder if the negroes were a married couple?
“Do you remember the ‘Blackamoor’ at Harewood, the West Indian ‘boy’ who has been a sort of extra footman so many years there? He got into trouble last year. He stole a £50 note and was so silly as to take it to cash at a shop close by Upper Belgrave Street. Henry [i.e. the 5th Earl of Harewood] missed the note from a drawer in his writing table and informed the police and stopped it at the bank but the shop hearing about it reported that a black man had brought it for cash. He then confessed and gave back about £20 that he had not yet spent.
“Henry said that he would give him 24 hours to get away out of the country before he informed the police that the note had been found. So he has disappeared. Henry says he could not have believed it if the man had not himself confessed, and thought his folly pitiable, being conspicuous as a black man, to suppose he could take a £50 note like that without being found out. It seems that in all these years there has never been the slightest suspicion of his honesty and in his odd way Henry was fond of the ‘Boy’ and always insisted that he was not to be unfairly ‘put upon’ by the white servants. He had the offer of going back to the West Indies but declared himself perfectly happy and had no wish to go back. Henry had supposed that perhaps he might wish to go back some day to have a wife of his own species. Now it seems that the motive for the theft was that ‘He had got into trouble with a young lady, and there was a baby that he ought to provide for!’ It was not gambling as one would have supposed likeliest.”
Bertie must have been desperate. Why hadn’t he just explained his situation to Lord Harewood and asked for assistance and permission to marry? Someone “in service” was usually accommodated in the same house as the family they worked for. On getting married they would have to leave their job, unless (like a number of the servants in Downton Abbey) they were allowed to live-out and had a cottage provided for them on the estate.
Another letter from Lady Wenlock to her daughter gives a pretty clear indication why Bertie didn’t ask for help – if her views on inter-racial marriage were shared by her brother and his family. Joan’s transcription continues, “On 29 April, 1924, Lady Wenlock wrote that she had been reading Tagore…She comments on Hindus, racial issues, divided families such as Catholic/Protestant, etc. and continues, ‘I find it interesting but it confirms the conviction that the difference between East and West is unbridgeable….I feel very strongly against any intermarrying of different coloured races. The thought of any Negro intermixing is simply disgusting’.”
In the 1920s scientific racism held sway and the eugenics movement held a powerful influence on public thinking. Francis Galton, a cousin of Charles Darwin, had coined the term “eugenics” in 1883 in his book Inquiries into the Human Faculty and Development. His aim was to propose a way to ‘give to the more suitable races…a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable.’ In 1923, people of all classes really believed that white people were superior to people of colour. Like Lady Wenlock, some even thought that people with pale skin were a different “species” to those whose skins were darker.[9]
Lady Wenlock says that Bertie disappeared. What happened to him, and his child? Did he really leave the country, or did he simply move to another part of London or the country where he wouldn’t be found? Did he marry his partner and live happily ever after? We may never know. As George Robinson is a very common name, he will be difficult to track down.
It would be truly wonderful if someone, reading his story, realised that George was their ancestor, and could fill us in with the details of the rest of his life.
[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds/content/articles/2007/02/22/abolition_harewood_house_feature.shtml [accessed 25/05/2020]
[2] https://harewood.org/about/the-foundation-of-harewood/ [accessed 27/05/2020]
[3] http://www.bbc.co.uk/leeds/content/articles/2007/02/22/abolition_harewood_house_feature.shtml [accessed 25/05/2020] For a full account of the Lascelles family’s business dealings see Simon D. Smith, Slavery, Family, and Gentry Capitalism in the British Atlantic: The World of the Lascelles, 1648-1834, Cambridge University Press, 2006.
[4] As far as I can discover, no-one has yet found evidence of Black household servants at Harewood, or at the Lascelles’ London town-house, in the 18th or early 19th centuries.
[5] https://harewood.org/explore/gardens-and-grounds/the-terrace/
[6] Diasporian Stories Research Group was founded c.1994 when history teacher, Allison Edwards, inspired a group of interested individuals to join together to start researching Black History in Leeds and the surrounding area.
[7] Below Stairs: Harewood’s Hidden Collections was on display from 17 March – 14 November 2004.
[8] In the papers of the Forbes Adam/Thompson/Lawley (Barons Wenlock) Family of Escrick – Hull University Archives, Hull History Centre, U DDFA3/6/1/14.
[9] For a history of how power has shaped the idea of race and information about the current upsurge of scientific racism, see Superior: The Return of Race Science by Angela Saini, 4th Estate, 2019.