Category: Equiano

Joanna who? Read on!

A series of events are happening to celebrate the life and times of Olaudah Equiano (known in his lifetime as Gustavus Vassa). As a prelude to the events at the American International Church in Tottenham Court Road (which is on the site of Equiano’s final resting place), a small group visited the grave of Joanna Bromley at Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington.

Joanna is significant as she was Equiano’s 2nd daughter. Joanna’s sister, Anna Maria, died at the age of 3 so Joanna was the only one of Equiano’s offspring to live to adulthood.  She married Henry Bromley who was a Minister in the Anglican church, at St James’ church, Clerkenwell, in 1821. she was 26. Joanna had been left a tidy sum in Equiano’s will (on her 21st birthday she came into a sum equivalent to £160,000 today) and so the likelihood is that she married for love rather than out of financial necessity.

Following the wedding, the couple moved to Appledore in Devon where Henry was a Minister. They stayed in Devon for five or six years before Henry’s work took him to Clavering in Essex. This was to be their home until 1845. Bromley resigned his post as Minister in 1845 citing his wife’s health which was ‘suffering from the injurious influence of the situation.’ Quite what the ‘situation’ was has never been established, leading to some speculation that Joanna could have been subjected to some sort of racism. The couple moved to London where Henry Bromley became secretary of the Provident Society for the Widows of Dissenting Ministers. Later he took up a Ministry in Harwich which is where he was at the time of the 1851 census. At this time Joanna was living a few miles away in the town of Stowmarket (she had a young female servant living in her household so was clearly not in financial difficulty).

Later Joanna moved back to London where she died on 10th March 1857 at the age of 61. Henry Bromley was not present at the time. As she and Henry never had children, Equiano’s blood line died with her.

Joanna died in London at the age of 61 and, as she and Henry Bromley never had children, Equiano’s blood line died with her.

Her grave was only re-discovered a few years ago and Arthur Torrington, who was our guide for the visit, described how the plot was completely overgrown and the monument broken and lying on the ground. It has been partially restored but more work is needed to return it to its original condition and make it into a more fitting memorial.

It was a pleasure to meet Jonathan Miller and Arthur Torrington at the American International Church on Tottenham Court Road recently. This is where we now know Gustavus Vassa (Olaudah Equiano)[1] was buried in 1797. Jonathan is archivist at the church and is as excited as we are about the discovery.

We discussed how we can work together to bring Equiano’s links with the church to greater public attention. This fits well with the church’s own desire to make the history of the church more visible to the local community and the many visitors who pass along Tottenham Court Road every day.

The church already has an impressive outreach programme, running a regular soup kitchen and also an overnight shelter for some of London’s homeless people, as well as hosting a multiplicity of food stalls that were doing a roaring trade when we visited. A visible commemoration of Equiano would add another dimension to the church’s appeal.

Jonathan produced some fascinating material from the archive. There has been some uncertainty about the physical appearance of the church in Equiano’s day as it has been through a number of incarnations over the past two and a half centuries. Jonathan was able to clear this up, producing this image:

Jonathan also showed us an image of the Minister, Torial Joss, at the time of Equiano’s attendance:

Whether Joss was able to officiate at Equiano’s funeral on 6th April 1797 must be in some doubt as he himself was buried on 22nd April, just sixteen days later.

We had a discussion of how Equiano might have been buried. The burial register shows that a handful of people (Joss was one of them) were buried in a ‘family grave in chapel’ . One person, David West Esq, had recently been buried in a ‘vault in chapel’, a few others were buried in a family grave outside the church but the vast majority appear, because there is no other entry in the register, to have been buried in a ‘common grave in grounds’. As Jonathan pointed out, ideas about how people were buried were rather different from today and it seems that burial in a common grave was very much the norm.

We discussed the possibility of obtaining funding for a number of events next year and the hope is that a major event can be hosted at the church itself next April – very much something to look forward to!

[1] Gustavus Vassa was the name given to Equiano by one of his owners, it was the name that Equiano himself used during his time in London, sometimes adding the soubriquet ‘the African’. On this site we are more inclined to use his African name, Olaudah Equiano.