Category: 20th Century

1917: From First World War to culture war

The film ‘1917’ was released in cinemas in January 2020 to generally good reviews. It scored highly on specialist film review sites like Rotten Tomatoes (it scored 89% on the ‘tomatometer’ based on 461 reviews and 88% based on over 25,000 audience ratings) and IMdB (where it scored 8.3/10 based on 529,000 reviews). The Rotten Tomatoes summary had this to say:

‘Hard-hitting, immersive, and an impressive technical achievement, 1917 captures the trench warfare of World War I with raw, startling immediacy.’

The ‘top review’ on IMdB said:

Don’t listen to the critics saying this movie is boring. This movie is one of the most tense and exciting movies I’ve seen in years. Amazing cinematography and overall amazing experience of a movie.

By way of comparison, ‘No Time to Die’, the latest film in the James Bond franchise, scored 83% on the tomatometer and 7.4 /10 on IMdB.

What has this to do with Historycal Roots you may ask? Is this now a film review site?

To answer the second question – no, it isn’t. But there were those who attempted to enlist the film into their spurious ‘culture war’ against ‘woke history’.

One of those who spoke out against the film was actor, Laurence Fox. He expressed himself unsettled by the ‘oddness of casting’  when a Sikh character appeared in the film and that this ‘broke his immersion in the film.’ He went on ‘there is something institutionally racist about forcing diversity on people in that way.’ He made these remarks on the high profile TV programme, Question Time, at a time, surely no coincidence this, when he was attempting to launch a career in politics.

When challenged, Fox admitted ‘I’m not a historian I don’t know’ (making him well suited to a career in politics some might say), which does rather beg the question why he made the comments in the first place (jumping on a passing bandwagon seems the most obvious explanation for his ill-informed remarks).

Sikh historian Peter Singh suggested that Fox should ‘check his facts’, adding: ‘Laurence Fox is incorrect with his facts as Sikhs did fight with British forces, not just with their own regiments.’

One way Fox could educate himself would be to take a look at the Historycal Roots website and in particular at articles by John Ellis’ (over a dozen of them) and Bill Hern, about black and Asian soldiers in World War One.

This post was prompted by another soldier ‘discovered’ by John. James Eversley did not make it to France but John has identified plenty of others who did. As John says ‘it seems to me that there were plenty of bullets and shrapnel flying about in WW1 and it does not seem to have been particularly discerning about the ethnicity, nationality and social class of the squaddie it hit. They all shed the same blood in the same mud.’

James Eversley

No.5130 Private James Thomas Fitz-Evan Eversley was born at Port-of-Spain, Trinidad in August 1889. He was the son of Thomas Fitz-Evan and Elizabeth (nee’ Regis) Eversley, of Concord Village, Saddle Main Road, San Juan, Trinidad. Educated at St. Mary’s College, Trinidad, he travelled to Britain with the volunteers of the ‘Second Merchant’s Contingent’ in December 1915 (Private Valleton Redman was in the same contingent); subsequently enlisting at Mansion House, London, in the 4/4th Battalion, City of London Regiment, (Royal Fusiliers). He died of sickness at Brompton Hospital, London, in June 1916, and was buried with full military honours at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cemetery, Kensal Green (Mary Seacole is buried in the same cemetery). Whilst his grave does not have an individual marker, he is commemorated on the Screen Wall bearing the names of casualties of both world wars.

Sources: Trinidad 1919 Year Book. (West India Committee, 1919). Trinidad-1919-Year-Book-extract.pdf (westindiacommittee.org) caribbeanrollofhonour-ww1-ww2.yolasite.com/army-ww1.php#E Lives Of The First World War 1914-1918. Findmypast.co.uk Soldiers Died in the Great War database © Naval and Military Press Ltd 2010. www.cwgc.org

For Private Valleton Redman see: https://www.historycalroots.com/private-valleton-redman/

Two new pages

We bring a very productive year to a close (34 new pages by my reckoning) with two new pages on very different subjects. Before introducing them, I must thank our contributors for their efforts. John Ellis is responsible for a lot of this year’s new content. John’s remarkable work is casting new light on the black presence in the British Army and Royal Navy in the 19th century and also in the trenches during World War One.  But others, Audrey Dewjee and Bill Hern, have played their part too. Audrey can take particular pride in her work on the story of Bertie Robinson, the black servant at Harewood House who featured in a major exhibition there. Bill and I helped with an exhibition too, it celebrated some of the London Borough of Newham’s pioneering black footballers – it’s surprising how much black history you can work into a talk about football!

John Ellis’s latest discovery is the story of a black Royal Navy sailor called John Johnson. His marriage certificate, dating from 1846, cites  his father’s occupation or profession as ‘negro slave’ – a very unusual entry on an English certificate. The marriage ended in tragic circumstances. John doesn’t speculate as to the underlying cause of the argument that led to the death of Mary Johnson but I can’t help but wonder whether racism played a part. Read the article and make up your own mind:

https://www.historycalroots.com/john-johnson-of-guadeloupe-and-greenwich/ 

The second new page features Horace Halliburton, a man of the Windrush generation (although, in fact, he arrived on these shores before the Windrush). Horace played a leading role in the Causeway Green riots of 1949, as a peacemaker. You may not know about the Causeway Green riots and it’s very unlikely you will have heard of Horace. I started researching him hoping to discover an unsung hero and, to an extent, I did, but his life story turned out to be much more complicated than I expected. You can read about Horace here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/horace-william-halliburton/

Best wishes for 2022 to all who read this.

‘Woke history’ – is there such a thing?

If history consists of facts, then the role of historians is to present the facts. But there are so many facts that historians must choose which ones to present (or omit) and, in making their choice, they create a narrative. The nature of the story they tell is of necessity influenced by their interests.

The question in the title of this post is prompted by John Ellis’s latest contribution to Historycal Roots where he comments that he is playing his part in  ‘showing that the presence of such men [of colour] was more widespread than critics of attempts to recognise  their  contribution would have people believe.’ John is one of a number of historians (he cites Stephen Bourne and Ray Costello as two examples) who are seeking to redress the balance by researching hitherto untold stories of the black contribution to British history.

There is little doubt, as John suggests, that not everyone is happy with this approach and the epithet ‘woke’ would be tossed in their direction as a criticism. I don’t doubt that ‘woke’ can be defined in a variety of ways. One definition I have seen is that woke is ‘a concept that symbolises awareness of social issues and movement against injustice, inequality and prejudice.’  Personally, if I was ‘accused’ of peddling ‘woke history’, I would be happy to accept the ‘charge’. 

I recently had the pleasure of eavesdropping on a presentation that David Olusoga gave to a group of black educators (he was on zoom and I happened to be in the room when a legitimate participant was listening – these things happen!). I am always impressed when I hear David speak and I was intrigued by his discussion of the abuse he is subjected to on social media. Clearly this must be an unpleasant experience but he said he regards it as a sign of success – people are hearing a different version of history to the one they are used to and they don’t like it. The message that British history is not and never has been exclusively white is getting across. David said he was confident that the arguments would be won and that, in the future, people would wonder what the fuss had been about.

This reminded me of a short film I saw at the BFI (British Film Institute) on London’s Southbank when I popped in for an hour or two to shelter from the rain. The film, dating from 1958, featured interviews with a range of people discussing the then vexed topic of mixed marriage. Some of the views expressed were predictably repulsive but the last contributor, Lord Stanhope, opined that in fifty years’ time people would wonder what all the fuss had been about and that mixed marriages would be seen as entirely normal. Perhaps I am unduly influenced by living in London, but my perception is that Lord Stanhope has been proved correct while the repugnant views  (extreme even by the standards of the time) expressed in the film by James Wentworth-Day, have pretty much returned to the primeval sludge where they belong.  Although the film can be viewed free if you visit the BFI it seems you have to pay to view it online:

https://player.bfi.org.uk/rentals/film/watch-mixed-marriages-1958-online

You will need a strong stomach if you choose to watch it.

All of this is a rather long preamble introducing you to John Ellis’s latest contribution to Historycal Roots which you can read here: https://www.historycalroots.com/a-sri-lankan-in-the-die-hards-private-cyril-lorenz-mellonius-a-somme-veteran-of-the-middlesex-regiment/. Using Cyril Mellonius as its starting point, the article tells the story of the black presence in the Middlesex Regiment at the Battle of the Somme.

Cyril Mellonius

I should also draw your attention to another recent article by John tracing the naval career of John Addoo from Africa to his final resting place in Brockhurst, Hampshire. A career that encompassed the transition from sail to steam: https://www.historycalroots.com/from-sail-to-steam-john-addoo-1795-1855-an-african-in-the-royal-navy/ . It was remiss of me not to mention this article at the time of its publication.

I hope you enjoy reading both of John’s new contributions.

A rich tapestry

This post alerts you to two new pages, both articles by John Ellis, that have been added to our site recently. These two articles illustrate the rich diversity of the black contribution to British history (as does virtually all the content on the site!).

In reverse chronological order, this article https://www.historycalroots.com/admired-very-much-cyril-stuart-1895-1915-an-old-salopian/ tells the story of Cyril Stuart, a young man of mixed heritage who attended one of the best public schools in England. He lost his life in the First World War.

Cyril Stuart in 1914, standing, far left (1)

Jumping back over a century, John reports on a clutch of black soldiers who served in the 18th Hussars regiment, including several who were involved in the thick of the action at the Battle of Waterloo https://www.historycalroots.com/black-soldiers-of-the-18th-hussars-1799-1821/.

John’s painstaking research continues to shine a fresh light on neglected areas of British history.

Doing Bertie proud

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 answer to my question seems to have been about 3,000 judging by the information made available inside the house and viewable online: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vT832jImba4qExHhFfovMtwopd7DmO4QIp_NBFAyi1rSyYy6ERG5y4Uj8c6uPgpnrvRf66e9OgArPLO/pub?start=false&loop=false&delayms=60000&rm=minimal&slide=id.g8c2f059153_0_208

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.

My photos are intended to place the exhibition in their setting in the house, there is far more information in the excellent digital guide that you can view here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/e/2PACX-1vT0g6Bd-FHcP80k8R4CqtkNZ10pfkKxLlE8rlYEGOFhVdI78zajlyO03rbbzmW0ZN2bgEN9mHOajVAQ/pub?start=true&loop=false&delayms=60000&rm=minimal&slide=id.gd794bdbe71_0_0

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!

You thought you knew about the Windrush?

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!

Black soldiers in World War One

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:

Antonia da Costa http://historycalroots.com/antonio-da-costa-a-sapper-from-trinidad-at-the-somme/

Francis Gittens http://historycalroots.com/francis-owen-gittens-a-soldier-from-trinidad-at-the-somme/; and

Roy van Twest http://historycalroots.com/a-cingalese-machine-gunner-at-the-somme-sergeant-roy-van-twest/

As long as there are untold stories, John will research them!

Charles Harold: A St.Vincent seafarer and soldier

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.

You can read Charles Harold’s story here:http://historycalroots.com/charles-harold-of-st-vincent-soldier-and-seafarer/

George ‘Bertie’ Robinson from St.Vincent to Harewood

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.


The digital guide to the House includes a guide to the Bertie Robinson exhibition. https://harewood.org/explore/digitalguide/

Audrey Dewjee updates us on Bertie’s story here:

http://historycalroots.com/george-bertie-robinson-a-black-footman-at-harewood-house/

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:

https://reliefweb.int/report/saint-vincent-and-grenadines/saint-vincent-and-grenadines-and-surrounding-countries-la-0
 

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.
 
 

They came, they served

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:

http://historycalroots.com/our-boy-peter-private-peter-de-silva-missing-in-action-at-the-somme/

http://historycalroots.com/the-backbone-of-the-battalion-lewis-aubrey-walcott-stoker-1st-class-of-the-royal-navy-1906-1919/

An A-Z index

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:

http://historycalroots.com/a-z-index/

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!