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Here at Historycal Roots we take a pretty broad view of what counts as ‘history’, if something happened earlier than yesterday then perhaps it could be classed as ‘historical’? And, although much of the history you read in books is about ‘great’ men (and perhaps, occasionally, great women), we believe that the actions of more ‘ordinary’ people help to shape events at least as much. So, is it OK to celebrate the life of a pioneering Black footballer? Absolutely!

Friday 28^th September marks the anniversary of the passing of one such footballer, Albert Johanneson. Many people think Albert was the first ever Black footballer to ply his trade in English professional football, he was far from that. However, he was arguably the very first high profile Black player of the modern age – if the advent of ‘Match of the Day’ can be said to mark the birth of modern football. As such he faced challenges not experienced by any of his predecessors.

Albert joined Leeds United on 5^th April 1961, signing from Germiston Colliers in South Africa. He was a shy young man who, because of the evil impact of apartheid, lacked confidence about his place in a white dominated society.

He made his debut at Elland Road in a 2-2 draw with Swansea on 8^th April 1961and went on to play a total of 197 games (plus three appearances as a substitute) for the club, scoring 67 goals – a prolific return for a winger. He was the first Black player to play in a European match for an English club and, on 1^st May 1965, he famously became the first Black player to appear in an FA Cup Final.

Albert suffered horrendous racism in his native South Africa and, when he moved to England, he continued to be racially abused by fans and opposition players. Monkey chants and the throwing of bananas were common place. We won’t ever know how all of this affected his confidence as a man or his performance as a footballer. We do know that both his parents were alcoholics and at some stage Albert sadly followed suit. This had inevitable negative consequences on his finances, marriage and his family.

Despite treatment, Albert died in relative poverty in 1995. His funeral was attended by his old teammates who remembered him with fondness and respect as did the many thousands of football fans who had been thrilled by his goals and skilful wing play.

George Best, who famously wrestled with demons of his own, once commented: ‘Albert was quite a brave man to actually go on the pitch in the first place wasn’t he? And he went out and did it. He had a lot of skill. A nice man as well – which is, I suppose, the more important thing, isn’t it? More important than anything.’

Through his courage, Albert Johanneson transcended the mere game of football and achieved more than many of us from far more privileged backgrounds can ever hope to claim.

Rest In Peace, Albert.

You will be able to read more about Albert and many other pioneering Black footballers in a book we are working on, keep your eyes open for it.

Whilst not quite ‘forgotten history’, Sarah Bonetta Forbes-Davies’ remarkable story is not as widely known as it deserves to be. Here, Bill Hern of Historycal Roots, re-tells her story and describes his visit to her final resting place, metaphorically and literally opening the gates to remind us of a sadly neglected figure.

Although not as well-known as Dido Elizabeth Belle (subject of the film ‘Belle’) who died in 1804, the story of the life of Sarah Bonetta Forbes-Davies has gained greater exposure in recent years. There is no doubt that Sarah is a significant figure in Black British History and yet she lies in an unmarked grave on the island of Madeira.

I visit Sarah’s grave each year in the beautiful British Cemetery in Funchal:

On each visit I feel a sadness that it does not even have a headstone. If it were not for a marker planted in the ground over her burial plot we would have no way of recognising where Sarah was laid to rest.

I understand that Sarah’s husband erected a granite monument more than 8 feet high in Ijon in Western Lagos but whether, 138 years later, that memorial still stands I do not know.

This year I was heartened to see that others must remember Sarah too. A figure had been placed on her grave. But surely one of the most prominent Black women in Victorian Britain warrants at the very least a headstone?

For those of you that aren’t conversant with Sarah’s amazing life here is a short summary:

Sarah was born in Oke-Odan, West Africa in 1843. She was the equivalent to a Princess and her birth name was Aina. She was orphaned when only 5 years old after enemies ransacked her village killing her parents and taking her into slavery.

She was being held by King Ghezo of Dahomey when a Royal Navy Captain, Frederick E Forbes, visited Dahomey on a mission to dissuade the King from continuing to deal in slavery. Captain Forbes allegedly persuaded King Ghezo to give the now 8-year old Aina to Queen Victoria. Other versions of this story claim that King Ghezo offered the girl as a gift to Queen Victoria. Whatever the truth, the little girl joined Captain Forbes on his ship, HMS Bonetta, to make the journey back to England.

Captain Forbes named the girl Sarah Bonetta Forbes after his ship and his own surname. On arrival in England Sarah was taken to see Queen Victoria. She enchanted the Queen just as she captivated many people over her short life. The Queen treated Sarah as a goddaughter.

Sarah was hugely intelligent and musically gifted. She was educated in Africa (Sierra Leone) and England.

In 1862, when still only 18 years old, Sarah married Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a wealthy Nigerian merchant, 13 years her senior. The wedding was a lavish affair at the Church of St Nicholas in Brighton.

As an indication of the status Sarah had reached with the Royal family she had attended, only one month prior to her own marriage, the wedding of Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Alice. This was a private affair taking place only months after the death of Victoria’s beloved husband Prince Albert, yet Sarah was invited and attended.

Shortly after her marriage Sarah became pregnant. She gave birth to a daughter in 1863. After seeking permission from Queen Victoria, the proud parents named the child Victoria Matilda. Victoria went on to become a goddaughter of Queen Victoria.

The family then moved to Lagos, Nigeria and two further children Arthur (1871) and Stella (1873) were born.

Sarah never enjoyed perfect health and while in Lagos she was diagnosed with Tuberculosis (TB). For poor people TB meant almost certain death but people of Sarah’s standing and wealth were advised to go to a country with a more favourable climate in order to recover. Her doctor recommended she go to the island of Madeira in the Atlantic Ocean. Sadly, the remedy was not a success and Sarah passed away on 15 August 1880.

Such was the affection in which Sarah was held, news of her death was quickly relayed to Queen Victoria who recounted seeing how distraught Victoria Davies was upon hearing of her mother’s death.

Victoria Davies would go on to marry a Nigerian physician Dr John Randle who was himself an important but much under-rated figure in Black British History and definitely a candidate for a further article on Historycal Roots.

 

We can thoroughly recommend the ‘Black Salt’ exhibition at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool.

We had the pleasure of visiting it recently with Ray Costello who gave us a guided tour round the exhibits. As Ray curated the exhibition, we really couldn’t have asked for a more knowledgeable guide. In the picture below, Ray is seen standing next to a photo of his great grandfather, Albert James, a sailor from Bermuda who settled in Liverpool in the 1850s and married a local girl in 1873.

The exhibition presents the contribution Black British seafarers have made to some of the most significant maritime events of the past 500 years and the many thought-provoking exhibits and personal stories offer a unique insight into the overlooked history of Britain’s Black sailors.

One of the last exhibits, featuring Belinda Bennett, brings us bang to date as, in 2016, she became the first Black female captain working in the cruise industry.

If you can’t get to Liverpool (the exhibition is on at least until September) then Ray’s book ‘Black Salt – Seafarers of African Descent on British Ships’ is an excellent alternative.

Before going any further we should explain that ‘Why Are West Indians Here?’ is the name of a Birmingham-based project (WAWI) who have been doing good work for a number of years. You can visit their site here: https://www.whyarewestindians.co.uk/node/1

Bill Hern attended the Walter Tull remembrance event recently, an event that WAWI were instrumental in organising.

Actually, the question posed by the name of the project is one that we’ve been considering ourselves in the context of Windrush 70. The answer, of course, is that there is no single answer, people have been coming to the UK from the Caribbean for a whole host of reasons and for a very long time.

There is a lot of focus on the arrival of the Empire Windush in June 1948 and it has come to symbolise the start of a period of mass migtration that continued at least until the 1960s. But ‘symbolise’ is an important word in that sentence. The Windrush shouldn’t prevent us remembering people who came to the UK long before 1948.

Lionel Turpin, to name just one, came to England from British Guiana in time to enlist and serve in France during World War One. He lies in an unmarked grave in Leamington. His son, Randolph was to become a boxing world champion.

We don’t know when Eddie Parris came to the UK from his birthplace of Barbados but in 1909 he married a local girl and they lived together in Chepstow. Like Turpin, Eddie served his country during World War One and, also like Lionel, he fathered someone who went on to make a name for themselves in the world of sport (Eddie Parris Junior was Wales’ first Black international footballer).

But, returning to the Windrush, why did the people on board come to the UK and why did so many follow them in the next two decades?

One reason, certainly, was that there were few prospects in the Caribbean. It wasn’t just that Jamaica’s economy had been flattened, literally, by a devastating hurricane in 1944, the whole region was blighted by the dead hand of British imperialism. The young journalist, Peter Fryer, reporting on the arrival of the Windrush for the ‘Daily Worker’, wrote: ‘when I went on board I asked scores of men why they had come to Britain. Practically every one gave the same answer – unemployment and low wages “back home” and the prospect of a good job in Britain.’ [‘The Daily Worker’ 23rd June 1948]

Cy Grant, originally from British Guiana (who served with Bomber Command during the 2nd World War), commented on: ‘the unbroken flatness of the physical landscape, along with a pervading sense of colonial stagnation seemed to impose limits on my future horizons. I had to escape.’ [‘Caribbean Volunteers at War’ by Mark Johnson, page 2]

James Berry, a poet who arrived in October 1948 aboard the SS Orbita, had something similar to say: ‘what I needed was opportunity, in my village there was no opportunity. People were never going to make it.’  [‘Keep on Moving’ by Tony Sewell]

Others were clear they were only staying in UK long enough to earn some money before returning home to the Caribbean (or so they thought). Euton Christian, who had served in the RAF during the war, said of the first wave of migrants: ‘they expected to come here, to find a job, to find a home. And in about four or five years, they earn enough money to go back … they’re not coming here into this cold country to live indefinitely, a short period , get some money, go back home. But it never happened.’ [‘Windrush’ by Mike and Trevor Phillips, page 71]

As Stuart Hall, who came to England in 1951 to study at Oxford as a Rhodes scholar, commented: ‘they began to put down roots very, very quickly, of course. And, you know, the more roots you put down, the harder they are to pull up. You don’t quite know when that tip over point arrives when you are on this side.’ [‘Windrush’ by Mike and Trevor Phillips, page 139]. I know that my own in-laws still spoke fondly of ‘returning home’ when I first met them in 1979, probably some twenty or so years after they came to England – it was just a dream and I think by then, with two children born here, they knew it.

For others perhaps it was just the universal wanderlust felt by young men (and women)  everywhere: ‘one of the reasons for my desire to travel was that I didn’t want to be under my parents’ footsteps’ [Edwin Ho, British Guiana, quoted in ‘Keep on Moving’ by Tony Sewell]. The fact that he had been ‘about to get married and in a heavy night of gambling I lost all our savings of around 35,000 dollars’ may have given his departure aboard the Windrush an added urgency!

Others on board, a group of boxers brought to the UK by a promoter and various musicians, may have traveled because travel between fights or gigs was a natural part of the industry they worked in. In future work we intend to look at the boxers and musicians in more detail to see how their careers progressed and whether they put down roots in the UK.

Hopefully as the Windrush 70 project develops we will learn more of the pioneers’ motivation as well as what happened to them when they arrived – at least two, Allan Wilmot and Alford Gardner, are still alive and kicking (see our earlier post: ‘Two Windrush Pioneers – Still Going Strong After 70 Years’). They certainly seem happy with the decision to come.

 

I wonder how many times in its history Westminster Abbey has hosted live calypso?!

As part of this year’s celebrations leading up to Commonwealth Day Alexander D’Great did a session at the Abbey. He sang two really powerful songs: one about remembering our heroes, the troops from the Caribbean, who fought in World War One; and the second which started off as Lord Kitchener’s famous ‘London is the Place For Me’ but segued into Alexander’s own, undeniably less optimistic, song about the Windrush generation and their experiences following their arrival in the ‘Mother Country’.

After his songs he invited the audience to join him in writing a calypso on the spot. It was remarkable how many timid souls got up and left at this point. Those who stayed, mostly families with young children came up with a call and response song with the refrain ‘here we are in Westminster Abbey’. The result was creditable given the very limited time available and it just shows what a versatile medium calypso is.

I would have included a recording of Alex’ performance but unfortunately there was building work going on in another part of the Abbey and the noise of hammering and drilling was a bit intrusive. A pity, but it was obvious that the children (and their grown ups) who participated really enjoyed the experience.

Alex really is tireless in his efforts to promote calypso. You can find examples of his work on YouTube but also in the post just below this one (on the ‘News’ page) where you can see him singing ‘Heroes’.

 

You know what it’s like, Christmas is over for another year and the cold, dark days of January loom ahead like a tunnel with no light at the end. Your credit card is in intensive care and you’ve promised to give it a month-long period of rest and recuperation. Then a book catalogue drops through the letter box. You know you should throw it straight into the box for recycling paper but you can’t / don’t and you find yourself flicking through its pages.

Postscript books specialise in ‘high quality overstocks and out of print books’. I’ve bought books from them before, but not for a while, you have to admire their persistance.

I’m irritated to see that the catalogue includes ‘The World’s War’ by David Olusoga. Irritated because this book shouldn’t be appearing in a pile of ‘remaindered’ titles, every last copy should have been sold, but also because this handsome hardback can now be had for £4.99 and we paid, an already heavily reduced, £10 for our copy two years ago. Resisting the urge to hurl the catalogue into the bin, I identify a dozen or more titles that look really interesting.

But the house isn’t getting any bigger, the walls aren’t magically expanding to accommodate an ever growing trove of books and so I narrow my selection down to just two: ‘Caribbean Volunteers at War’ by David Johnson (£19.99 from Amazon but on offer from Postscript at just £7.99); and ‘Caribbean Roots’ a double CD of poetry, read by the poets themselves, from the British Library archive  (Amazon price: £15.94, Postscript price: £5.99).

I find myself apologising out loud to my credit card but, I explain, even allowing for postage, I am ‘saving’ £20. I know my card understands.

If you would like to join me in my folly, here is a link to Postscript Books eclectic, something for everyone, catalogue: https://www.psbooks.co.uk/?gclid=Cj0KCQiAyZLSBRDpARIsAH66VQKgzN6IVn-59MaEWH9fq9H1D61s2PAYsUNbAQdLnydhWC-r8euwiMMaAln2EALw_wcB

I’m sorry if I am leading you astray!

Following the commemoration event in Windrush Square on Remembrance Sunday ‘Remembered: In Memoriam’ was officially launched in Brixton library:

This is a handsome hardcover volume, described as ‘an anthology of African and Caribbean experience in WW1 & WW2’.

A number of the writers who contributed were present including Nairobi Thompson who hosted the event and did her best to keep co-editor Jak Beula’s excited enthusiasm in check (a difficult job, adroitly done).

Mind you, his enthusiasm was understandable, this is an important publication which, as he proudly pointed out, includes a message of support from Her Majesty The Queen.

In addition to Nairobi, other writers on stage included Professor Gus John, Marika Sherwood, Esther Stanford-Xosei, Dr Onyeka Nubia and Patrick Vernon. Other authors and special guests were in the audience and it was a real pleasure to meet Walter Tull’s great nephew who had traveled down from Scotland specially for the event. If I understood correctly Nairobi is herself a great, great niece of Walter so this was something of a Tull family gathering. Walter’s great nephew is definitely ‘White’ and Nairobi is equally definitely Black, seeing them together was a great visual metaphor for the joys of living in multi cultural Britain.  I was also able to shake the hand of Phil Vasili author of several books about pioneering Black footballers that grace the shelves of Historycal Roots.

The book was on sale at the event but if you want a copy now I think you will probably have to contact the Nubian Jak Community Trust: http://nubianjak.org/  It’s well worth the effort.

The sun shone on Windrush Square on Sunday 12th November for the first Remembrance Sunday since the unveiling of the War Memorial there. Unfortunately there was a cold, biting wind as well but that didn’t put off the crowd that gathered to commemorate those who died in the two world and other wars. There were several speakers, including ex-servicemen who had served in the 2nd World War:

The ceremony had a uniquely ‘Brixton’ flavour with, in addition to the traditional laying of wreaths, speeches and playing of the ‘Last Post’, the ceremony managed to incorporate African drumming, the summoning of ancient spirits and a specially written calypso. Congratulations to calypsonian, Alexander D Great, on getting his fingers to work on such a cold day!

Two thirds of the Historycal Roots team attended:

John Blanke is one of the few Black Tudors we can put a name to and this event, held at the British Library in London, was a celebration of his life. A project, the John Blanke Symposium, led by Michael Ohajuru, had invited people to re-imagine his life from a range of different perspectives.

Although facts are scarce, an image of him survives:

The author and historian, Miranda Kaufman, was there to set out the historical context. Little is known of Blanke’s life, but, from papers held at the National Archives, we know that he was paid 8d per day by Henry VII, and a surviving document records a payment of 20 shillings to “John Blanke the blacke trumpet” as wages for the month of November 1507, with payments of the same amount continuing monthly through the next year. He also successfully petitioned Henry VIII for a wage increase.

There is also a record of him having married and so, as the poet John Agard pointed out later in the evening, there is probably John Blanke DNA still out there in the populace today! In addition to two poems from John, there were contributions from artists (Holly Graham, Adelaide Damoah, Charmaine Watkiss and Ebun Culwin) a sculptor (Fawokan),  another poet (David Nieta) and a rapper (Valentine Ogbunba). We arrived a little late so apologies to anyone we missed.

This was a thoroughly enjoyable evening and an intriguing approach to bringing a little known Black Tudor to life.

The event is being repeated (perhaps with a different group of presenters) on Friday 1st December at the College of Arms (130, Queen Victoria Street, London EC4V 4BT) from 18.30 to 20.30, well worth a visit if you are in the area.

The David Olusoga fan club (otherwise known as the Historycal Roots team) were out in force at the National Portrait Gallery in London recently for his talk ‘Through the Glass Darkly: Black History and Portraiture’. David can be relied on to give an interesting talk and this session, in spite of his admission that he is a historian rather than an art historian, was no exception.

Focusing on the Georgian period, he used a small number of paintings to illustrate his talk about the doubtful status of Black people in that period. He opened with two relatively well known portraits: one of Equiano (although David suggested it may actually be of a young Ignatius Sancho) and one that is definitely of Sancho. Black figures in other paintings of the period are invariably anonymous and peripheral, in the painting to signify the wealth and status of the painting’s main subject. The black figures are often ‘exotically’ (and inappropriately) costumed, shown holding exotic fruits and painted with a pearl earring to enhance the contrast with their Black skin.

Estimates of the number of Black people in the UK (mainly London) during this period vary widely from 3,000 up to 60,000 and the lack of hard evidence about their lives is clearly frustrating for historians. Much of the evidence that does exist comes from adverts placed concerning people who had run away from their masters. They were frequently accused of theft on two counts: they had ‘stolen’ their own body which was owned by their master; and they had stolen the slave collar worn to help identify them if they ran away.  It wasn’t until the famous Somerset case of 1772 that the legal position was clarified to make it clear that, oversimplifying somewhat, a Black man could not be a slave on UK soil.

The question and answer session after the talk was also interesting. Clearly we can’t repeat it all here but, in connection with how Black history is taught in schools, David recalled a school visit he had made as a child to a cotton mill in Lancashire. The entire process of spinning raw cotton into yarn and the subsequent sale and distribution of cloth (a mainstay of the UK economy at the time) was explained in minute detail. but there was no reference to the system of slave labour by which the cotton was produced. David made the point that at some stage omitting to tell a key part of the story is equivalent to a lie. Seen in this light the omission of Black people from history begins to look less like an accident and more like a deliberate strategy.

Afterwards there was a book signing. Although we already have signed copies of his books this didn’t stop us having a chat!