I have commented before that, although the actual events of the past (the raw material of ‘history’) do not and cannot change, our understanding and interpretation of them certainly can. New research uncovers fresh information that broadens and deepens what we ‘know’.
The story of ‘Bertie’ Robinson, who Audrey Dewjee first wrote about in May 2020, is a case in point. A great deal more is now known about ‘Bertie’s’ life – for instance, that his name was actually George!
Bertie, or should we say ‘George’, is now the subject of an exhibition at Harewood House where he lived and worked for many years.
Bertie Robinson: The Footman from St. Vincent will be on display in Harewood House until Friday 22nd October, 2021.
Bertie was originally from the tiny Caribbean island of St Vincent, an island that hit the headlines for the wrong reasons recently. Audrey continues the story…
The 2021 eruption of La Soufrière volcano
At several points in its history, St. Vincent has been at the mercy of eruptions from La Soufrière the island’s tallest volcano. St. Vincent is also in the “hurricane belt”, which means it is battered by violent storms every year from June to November, and is periodically hit by even stronger hurricanes that totally devastate the island.
During the period of Amelia’s letters to Harewood (see my new article), there was a particularly terrible hurricane in 1898 which killed around 300 people and wiped the island bare of animals and vegetation. No wonder Amelia begged for help. There was also a massive eruption of La Soufrière in 1902/3 during which at least 1,680 people died.
In 2021, La Soufrière has erupted again, forcing up to 20,000 people to be evacuated from their homes and covering the island in ash – again resulting in dead animals and damaged crops as well as destroying homes and ruining businesses. A photograph taken in 1905 – a couple of years after the 1902/3 eruption – shows just what happens to the land after such an event.
St Vincent, 1902
And now the 2021 hurricane season is imminent.
For more information about the current situation, see:
Anyone wishing to send a donation to help the relief effort can find details of how and where to donate on the website of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines High Commission. https://www.svghighcom.co.uk/site/Charity.html
A volcanic eruption may only last a few hours or days but the impact on a fragile island economy is devastating and will take many years to recover from.
Peter De Silva was one of the tens of thousands of men who lost their lives on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. Born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Peter had been working as a clerk in the Office of the Governor General before enlisting.
Lewis Aubrey Walcott was born in Barbados but was living in London when he enlisted in the Royal Navy in 1906. He served until 1911 but was called up again at the outbreak of war in 1914.
John Ellis has researched the military careers of these two men who served the ‘Mother Country’ during the First World War and you can read about them here:
As the site has expanded it has become increasingly difficult to find information about individuals you may be interested in. For someone entirely self-taught in the mysterious ways of WordPress, creating an index has been a major technical challenge, but, today, I have made an index page live on the site:
All the main people on all the pages of the site have been indexed. Some of the main posts have been indexed too but, by their nature, posts may be of only temporary interest and so not all posts have been included in the index. The index is a work in progress and, if you have any comments, please feel free to use the ‘contact’ page to offer feedback.
I will get my apologies in first. The internal links should all work today but that might change (!), I will check from time to time to make sure they are still working but, if you come across one that isn’t and you get a ‘page not found’ message, please let me know. The index will take you to the right page for that person but not always to the exact place on the page where their name appears, you may need to scroll a little to find the name.
I hope the index helps you find what you are looking for!
Our knowledge of the rich tapestry of ‘men of colour’ who served in the British Army during World War One gets a little bit richer today with three, yes three, new articles by John Ellis about the service of men who were hitherto lost to history.
Pictures of men who served below the rank of officer between 1914 and 1918 are rare as hen’s teeth, we are lucky that the story of one of them featured in newspapers of the time.
Their stories include a court martial, two who were wounded and someone who was discharged as ‘unfit to serve’ because he was suffering from malnutrition.
As promised last week, we can now, courtesy of John Ellis, introduce you to Walter Albert Moore. Some people may still cling to the notion that black soldiers did not serve in front line roles during World War One, Walter’s story provides yet more evidence that nothing could be further from the truth. He served in the Gallipoli campaign (1915-16) and then in Flanders at the Battle of the Somme (1916). Did he survive? Read John’s article to find out!
Before you do though, John’s article prompted me to look at the War Diary of Walter’s battalion for the period he was serving in France during the Battle of the Somme.
We get used to thinking about the shocking carnage of the first day of the battle (around 19,000 British troops lost their lives on that day alone) and on the days that followed. But what we tend to lose sight of is the drip, drip, drip war of attrition in the periods between one ‘big push’ and the next. War diaries will rarely mention the names of rank and file soldiers like Walter whether they were black or white but they do give an impression of what life (and death) was like in the trenches. Here is a short selection of extracts from the War Diary of Walter’s battalion. The diary starts with an account of a night raid on enemy lines:
“4th July, 12.45 am: Party consisted of 70 men and 6 officers which were split up into two parties. Raid was a failure and the officers put down the cause to a certain German listening post. Only the right party got anywhere near the trenches which however they did not penetrate. Casualties in the raiding party were light but there were a good many in the trenches caused by the German artillery retaliation which lasted half an hour. Casualties A Company NIL, B Company OR [other ranks] 1 killed 2 wounded.
A and B companies relieved by C and D companies at almost midnight and returned to huts at COUPIGNY. C Company 200 wounded D Company NIL.”
The troops seem to have then spent a few days out of the front line but there was still business to attend to:
“8th July: temporary commission and appointment of RH McLean, RNVR, Drake Battalion, terminated due to medical unfitness.”
Then they were back in the trenches:
“13th July Lieutenant Commander H B POLLOCK wounded by shrapnel, OR 300 wounded.”
On 18th July, during another respite from the front line, a Field Court Martial was convened and “LS W SMITH was found guilty on three [unspecified] charges and reduced to AB.”
After what seems to have been a quiet period (21st July – “situation quiet throughout”), when a lot of effort went into improving the trenches, the war of attrition continued:
“10th August: Enemy active with LTMs rifle grenades in particular . Two killed.
11th August: Enemy very active in sector with LTMs rifle grenades in particular. One killed three wounded.
12th August: Btn [Battalion] relieved by Hood Btn – Relief complete about 12 midnight. One killed, one wounded.”
The relieved troops marched to Aix Noulette Woods where they spent the next few days ‘in huts’ presumably beyond the reach of German artillery. But they were soon back in the front line.
War diaries are not an easy read in more ways than one
“20th August: A bombardment of gas release started in the ANGRES SECTOR at 10.30 pm which lasted til about 11.45 pm. Some of the enemy retaliation with field guns and trench mortars were [‘was’ has been deleted, grammatical standards must be maintained after all] directed at our Front and Relief lines. Damage slight. Three wounded.
21st August: One wounded.”
And so it continued, the diary reports one killed (22nd August), 23rd August (two wounded), 24th August (two wounded) and, after a brief respite, one killed, one wounded (27th August).
It seems that when you weren’t in the front line being shot at you were behind the lines waiting for your turn to be shot at.
Walter Moore, a black soldier from Trinidad, was part of all this.
Several books have been written about black soldiers in the British Army during World War One, ‘Black Tommies’ by Ray Costello and ‘Black Poppies’ by Stephen Bourne spring immediately to mind, no doubt there have been others. But you can’t help feeling that those books only showed the tip of an iceberg. John Ellis has now turned his attention to the period of the First World War and is uncovering the stories of many more black soldiers.
This picture and headline (‘Coloured men’s response to the new appeal for recruits’) in the ‘Daily Mirror’ of 1st June 1915, caught John’s eye:
Eight Black recruits for the Royal Artillery in 1915 (1)
John writes: “World War One saw thousands of ‘men of colour’ serving in the regiments and corps of the British Army, the Royal Navy and the forces of the Empire. Many of the men were drawn from Britain’s Black population. The men in the photo above volunteered for service in a Territorial regiment of the Royal Artillery in the North of England in 1915.
Two of the men were named by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, as Ben David and Henry Basker, both Jamaicans.(2) It is not possible to identify either Ben or Henry in the photo, or the names of the other ‘Gunners’. However, a little more is known about Henry Basker.
He was born in Jamaica in 1888 and enlisted in May 1915, when it was noted that he was a seaman by occupation and had a ‘West Indian’ complexion, was 5 ft 5 inches tall, had a chest measurement of 37 inches and good vision.(3) Henry signed up for four years ‘provided His Majesty should so long require your services’ and he swore ‘I will be faithful and bear true Allegiance to His Majesty King George the Fifth.’
His service in the Royal Artillery was brief and he was discharged in Durham in October 1915 after 164 days, ‘his services being no longer required.’ We don’t know why he was discharged, he may well have gone on to serve his country in other ways as he was obviously keen to volunteer. He clearly had a close connection to the North East prior to enlisting because his intended place of residence on discharge was Thrift Street, South Shields, Tynemouth, where his mother, Lucy, lived.”
John and I have both tried to trace ‘Lucy Basker’, so far without success, there is no sign of her in the 1911 census for instance. The presence of black men in South Shields is no surprise, it was a thriving port with a well established black community and it was where Lionel Turpin was living when he enlisted http://historycalroots.com/lionel-fitzherbert-turpin/ . But the presence of Henry’s mother is much more unexpected, if Henry was born in Jamaica in 1888 what was it that brought Lucy to South Shields? We may never know.
The full page from which that item is taken reveals the impact the war was having:
The Daily Mirror, 1st June 1915
The heading ‘Found on the battlefield – do you recognise anyone?’ is heartrending. Especially poignant is the photo at the top left of the page – it has a bullet hole through it. You can’t help but wonder how the young woman in the picture would have felt if she saw it.
This is just a taster, there are more revelations to come from John!
1)Daily Mirror, 1st June 1915. findmypast.co.uk
2)Newcastle Evening Chronicle, 26th July 1915. findmypast.co.uk
3)For Henry Basker see: UK, British Army World War I Pension Records 1914-1920. TNA WO364/172. ancestry.co.uk
We celebrate International Women’s Day 2021 by publishing a new page on our website about Amanda Aldridge. Amanda was born on 10th March and died on the 9th of that month so celebrating her life today is particularly timely.
Although the core of it remains unchanged, Audrey Dewjee has updated her article about Nadia Cattouse, adding some additional material and several new photos.
Nadia was thrilled when Audrey told her how much interest the original article generated (well over 2,500 views, including many from Belize, the land of her birth). She was also pleasantly surprised by the larger than usual number of birthday cards she received last November when she celebrated her 96th birthday!
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.
The Cenotaph in 1925 (IWM Q37996)
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
Jim Bailey
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:
Grave of Selemani Shabani
Private Selemani Shabani of the African Pioneer Corps [East Africa]
Sgt. Pilot Isikeli Doviverata Komaisavai
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 Look Yan (IWM D 15031)
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 Askari Monument, Dar es Salaam
The inscription on the Askari Monument in Nairobi
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.
Karun Krishna Majumdar (IWM CL 1176)
Wing Commander Karun Krishna Majumdar, who flew and survived the war in Europe, only to die fighting in Burma in February, 1945.
Man Mohan Singh
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.
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.
Flight Sergeant James Hyde (he was promoted to Warrant Officer before he died) (IWM CH 11978)
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.
Victor Emmanuel Tucker (IWM CH5312)
Pilot OfficerVictor 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.
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.
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 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 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.
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
Dr. Elwyn Rhys Jones, seated centre left, with men of the 82nd 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.
Naik (Corporal) Gian Singh
Sepoy (Private) Bhandari Ram
Naik Fazal Din
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.
Sergeant Benjamin Macrae
Captain Harry Cheong (later Dewar)
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?”
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.
