Families on the Windrush

By the Historycal Roots team (August 2022)

We hope that we are playing our part in debunking the many myths that surround the passengers who were on board the Empire Windrush in June 1948, but the sheer diversity that the passenger list reveals is only gradually being uncovered. Bill Hern has set himself the monumental task of researching all 1027 named passengers and we draw on some of his work in this article.

There were many family groups on the ship, what follows offers just a few examples that barely scratch the surface of the full story.

The Johnson family (passengers number 184-186)

Twenty four year-old Eileen Isabell Johnson, who boarded the Windrush at Kingston, was passenger number 184. The passenger list shows that she was travelling with her two children, Terence, age 4 on the passenger list (he was actually 3), and Maureen, age 3 on the passenger list although she was actually 5. Eileen is to be congratulated on her choice of a black teddy bear for her daughter Maureen! Her husband, Willis McKenzie Johnson, was also on board (passenger number 706). Willis had served with the RAF during the War, service number 723933. Serving members of the armed forces are not normally named on passenger lists and so the fact Willis’s name is shown indicates he was now an  ex-servicemen. 

Eileen Derry was born in Caerphilly, Wales, in early 1924. Willis was born in Jamaica on 16^th February 1920. They must have met while he was serving in the RAF and they married in Weston Super Mare in 1946. Having had two mixed heritage children there is little doubt that Eileen would have been on the receiving end of harsh words and treatment but, as we will see, her mother stood by her.

When the War ended Eileen, Maureen and Terry had sailed for Jamaica from Southampton on the SS Almanzora, Willis had probably returned earlier. She said she was going to Jamaica permanently and she was heading for 79, North Street, Kingston. However, things didn’t work out in Jamaica and the family came back to England on the Windrush.  

Eileen was one of those who spoke to newspaper reporters when she arrived at Tilbury. The Daily Mirror reported her disillusion with Jamaica (‘disillusion island’). Willis had found it very hard to get work and

‘when Eileen arrived [in Jamaica] she found her husband unemployed. Their savings almost disappeared. At last Mr Johnson, war time plumber in the RAF, got a job for 25s [shillings] a week. ‘For seven months we scraped and struggled. We decided to save up every farthing, sacrificing as much as we could to get to England.’ Eileen’s husband is wondering what reception he will receive in her village where he spent most of his wartime leaves.’

Perhaps Eileen’s mother had travelled from Nailsea (near Bristol) to Tilbury to meet the family as she is quoted as saying ‘some of the villagers turned their heads when they met him in the street. I hope they will be nice to him now. He was always a perfect gentleman.’ In any event, it seems the Mirror must have sent a reporter to Somerset as Mr Shepherd, the village plumber, is quoted as saying ‘I have no objection to coloured men. If there is the work to do, Mr Johnson can certainly have a try out with me.’ Another villager was quoted as saying ‘we’ll do our best to make the couple happy.’

Was Willis made welcome? We cannot know, but here is an example of some of the attitudes couples like the Johnsons would have faced.

One article (allegedly quoting the Daily Telegraph) stated

‘One of the chief reasons for the blacks pouring into Britain is their desire to mate with white women of this country.’ [It continued] ‘As long as they can obtain white women, the blacks usually do not bother about having a legal marriage.’ [And of course,]‘The National Assistance Board also pays the children’s allowance to the blacks for the coffee coloured monstrosities they father….Thus material rewards are given to enable semi-savages to mate with the women of one of the leading civilized nations of the world.’

That these attitudes existed is shocking enough, that a supposedly reputable newspaper felt able to print such stuff is even more so. Whether a country can really be considered ‘one of the leading civilized nations of the world’ when attitudes such as this prevail is very much a moot point.^[1]Nor was this an isolated example. We have previously discussed the repugnant views of James Wentworth Day https://www.historycalroots.com/woke-history-is-there-such-a-thing/. During a TV discussion … Continue reading

Fortunately we have moved on, although not quite as much as we might wish. A recent survey of attitudes to race found that 89% of people claimed that they would be happy for their child to marry someone from another ethnic group. Of course that still leaves 11% who wouldn’t.  

The Zayne family (passengers number 266-268 and 918)

Herbert (known as Bert) Lawrence Zayne was passenger number 918 on the Windrush. He was the son of Habeeb Najeeb Zayne and Ida Elsada Thomas. Habeeb was born in Lebanon on 22nd December 1900. Ida and her family were Jamaican.  Bert was born on 12^th December 1928.

Bert’s parents split up while he was still young and, after spending his childhood with Ida, as a teenager he went to live with his father, a wealthy tobacco plantation owner with 200 employees, in Kingston. But Bert was restless and wanted to get out of Jamaica, whether he was seeking adventure or simply a better life he decided to join the RAF and fight in World War Two. He told his father he was enlisting, did so on 16^th March 1944 (to enlist he had added four years to his true age by saying he was 19 rather than 15), and turned up at home in RAF uniform. His father was very angry, not least because this was a very busy time at the tobacco factory and Bert was needed. Bert’s records show his service number as 713295, and his rank as AC2 (Aircraftman Second Class).

Doreen Zayne (nee Blain) was born in Fylde, Lancashire, on 22^nd September 1924. Doreen was white, the daughter of Leslie Stanley Blain and Ivy Blain (nee Simpson). Her family was quite well to do, her father was a chemist, her grandfather was a surgeon, her aunt was headmistress of a private school and Doreen herself had been educated at a boarding school. Her parents were angry about Doreen’s relationship with a black man.

During the War Doreen served in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF, service number 430765) and prior to that had been an assistant in a gown shop. She and Bert met at Elmdon Airport near Birmingham when Bert was with the RAF and Irene with the WAAF. They married on 5 July 1945 at Blackpool Register Office. Bert was shown as resident in Andover at the time of the marriage with a home address in Clarendon, Jamaica. Doreen lived at 43, Peter Street, Blackpool. Bert was still only 16 years old!

The couple returned to Jamaica after the War with two children, Vanessa, born on 28^th July 1945 in Blackpool, and David Lawrence Zayne, born on 25^th February 1946 in Blackpool.  But the years away serving his country had done nothing to improve Bert’s relationship with his father and Bert’s marriage to a white woman and the presence of David and Vanessa, did not help matters. The couple can’t have had a happy time in Jamaica, they had a son called Andre who was born there and contracted an illness that led to him dying from malnourishment aged one month on 18th March 1947. Eventually Bert’s father helped pay the family’s fare to return to England on the Windrush. Doreen travelled in ‘A’ class which entitled her to a cabin, Bert took the cheaper option of travelling ‘C’ class which meant he travelled on the troop deck where conditions were a great deal more communal.

The passenger list shows that they were planning to live in Blackpool – with Doreen’s mother according to newspaper reports^[2]Birmingham Gazette of 22^nd June 1948 which described him as a ‘Jamaican house painter’ and went on to say that Bert hoped to find work there. Several newspapers used photos like the one in this article to illustrate their stories.

When Doreen was interviewed at Tilbury the Daily Mirror of 23^rd June 1948 said she told them that Bert had been able to find very little work in Jamaica and even then was paid only £3 12 shillings a week. The cost of living in Jamaica was high she said – 4 shillings and 6 pence for a pound of bacon and 2 shillings and 8 pence for a tin of soup.  Doreen said she was glad to be back as things were pretty bad in Jamaica. She said they had ‘given up everything to make a new life here.’

Back in England they faced lots of racism (see the article referred to above as an example of the sort of attitudes they would have faced) and Bert had many jobs including working in the mines. 

Although the couple had several more children together they eventually split up and Bert moved to Canada where, in due course, he married a French lady.

Bert was very patriotic, he was very proud of his War service and wore his medals with pride. He died very suddenly of a heart attack on 29^th July 1999. He is buried in Sarnia, Lambton County, Ontario. The Canadian Legion paid for his gravestone which proudly shows him as RAF Leading Aircraftman Service Number 713295. It also shows his year of birth as 1925, so he literally took the secret of his true age to the grave with him. 

Doreen never remarried and never forgot Bert. She took in lots of foster children, often African as they were hard to place. She died in Bolton (Lancashire) in 2004.

The Munro family (passengers number 213- 216)

We don’t have a photo of the Munro family but they illustrate the wide range of people who were on the Windrush, they were white.

Thirty year old Edith Constance Munro was passenger number 213 and her three children Maureen (age 10), Sandra (5) and Keith (3) were travelling with her. Edith was born in Devonport and all three children had been born in Plymouth.

Edith (nee Earl) married Ronald William Munro (born Sussex on 14^th December 1913) in Devonport on 1^st July 1936.

Edith and the three children had left Southampton for Jamaica the previous year, on 23rd January 1947, to join Ronald who was serving with the 2^nd Battalion of the Gloucester Regiment. The Western Morning News of 23^rd January 1947 said it was the first time Edith had been abroad and she would be escaping the housing and rationing problems in Britain. There were 711 members of the ‘Glosters’ serving in Jamaica and 34 wives as well as Edith were going to join their husbands there on the SS Carthage.

For the return journey on the Windrush Edith gave her address in England as Gloster Regiment, c/o War Office, London W1. Ronald is not named on the passenger list but, as a serving member of the Army, you would not expect him to be. He may have been on board or he may have travelled back to England separately with his regiment.

Ronald later fought at the Battle of the Imjin River in Korea in 1951 when the Glosters were at their most heroic – 2 men won Victoria Crosses. Ronald was interviewed at length for the Weekly Dispatch (London) of 6^th May 1951. He described the battle as ‘a pretty shaky do.’ As Regimental Sergeant Major, Ronald collected a citation on behalf of the Regiment in Korea in May 1951. He was made colour sergeant for the Gloucestershire Regiment in 1953.

The ‘Windrush Munros’ are all now deceased, Maureen (married name Parker) was the last to die, in Cheltenham on 2^nd February 2007.

The Stewart family (passengers number 238-242)

Dorinda was the youngest member of the Stewart family on board the Windrush, indeed at only eighteen months old she was one of the youngest passengers on the ship. In a BBC documentary, ‘Real lives Reunited’ (2014), Dorinda asked fellow passenger, Sam King, whether he remembered seeing her. ‘No’ he replied, ‘but I certainly heard you!’ In the same programme, another passenger, Alford Gardner (now 96), said he remembered seeing Dorinda’s mother on board, and when she asked Alford how he knew it was her mother, he said that ‘she was the only one in costume’ (the reason for this comment will become evident). 

Dorinda was travelling with her parents who were already much-travelled and who’s globe-trotting would continue after the Windrush docked at Tilbury. Her father, Vincent Ernest William Stewart was born in Kingston, Jamaica on 16^th September 1913. The Stewart family originated in Ireland and had been in the Caribbean since the mid-19^th century when Vincent’s Great Grandfather, Reverend Samuel Henry Stewart, moved there.

Vincent was an only child and was brought up in the Kingston boarding house which was run, and eventually owned, by his mother Muriel Von Reizenstein Sophia Stewart nee ffrench-Mullen. Vincent’s Grandfather Reverend Ernest Montgomery Stewart was born in Jamaica, as was his father Frederick William Lamont Stewart. Frederick was one of thirteen children and did not receive any higher education. He was described as a banana planter on Vincent’s birth certificate.

When Vincent’s parents separated, he continued to live with his mother.  He attended Miss Beckwith’s school in Kingston and then the Diocesan College in Mandeville from 1924. He left Jamaica in 1929 to attend the sixth form at Denston College in Staffordshire and then went to Imperial College, London, to study Civil Engineering. He was awarded a BSc in 1934. 

On 3^rd July 1934 Vincent, a student, left Avonmouth destined for Kingston, Jamaica, for the University summer vacation. He returned to England on 8^th October 1934, this time declaring himself as an engineer.

The name of Dorinda’s mother on the passenger list, Elizabeth Stewart, gives no clue as to her ethnicity. Elizabeth was Burmese (date of birth 16^th October 1907) and her birth name was Ma Saw Tin. Her first name, Elizabeth, bears witness to the fact that she came from a third-generation Christian family. She would have been the only woman on the Windrush in Burmese dress which accounts for Alford Gardner’s comment. 

After graduation, Vincent worked as a civil engineer in Corby and then in 1937 he found a job with the Public Works Department in Burma (then a British colony) where he built the roads and bridges that would later be used by Allied troops during the Second World War. When the Japanese invaded Burma in 1942 Vincent and Elizabeth escaped to India on foot. Elizabeth’s daughter, Veronica (Vreni), from her first marriage to a Swiss national, stayed behind in Burma with her grandparents. She became part of the Stewart family after the end of the Japanese occupation of Burma. 

After recovery from his long walk to India as a refugee, Vincent worked with the Admiralty in Ceylon. Vincent and Elizabeth married in Madras in 1943 and they had a son, Massy, in 1945 and daughter Dorinda in 1946. Vincent returned to Burma in 1945 with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Royal Indian, Engineers. Vincent was awarded an MBE in the King’s Birthday Honours list in 1947, the citation gives Vincent’s role as Executive Engineer, Public Works Department, Federated Shan States. He had played a prominent role in the reconstruction of Rangoon and had clearly served with distinction.

On 4^th November 1947 the family arrived in London from Rangoon, Burma. This was a fleeting visit because on 11^th December 1947 they departed London for Kingston. This would have been a chance to introduce family and friends to Elizabeth, Vreni, Massy and Dorinda. They journeyed back across the Atlantic in June 1948 on the Windrush but, again, their stay in London was a short one – the family sailed from Liverpool to Bombay on 26^th June 1948. In Bombay, they trans shipped to Karachi in the newly independent Pakistan where Vincent had found a job with the Burmah Oil Company.

In 1951 Vincent received the medals he had earned for his service to the Indian forces during the 1939-45 war.

Subsequent passenger lists include an arrival in Liverpool from Karachi (1951), a departure from Southampton for Bombay (1952), an outbound voyage from London to Bombay (1954), a flight (for Vincent) from Trinidad (1959) and from there on to Jamaica and a ship to New York.  

Massy married Margaret Sharpe in Wolverhampton in 1972. Dorinda married Peter Richard Hulton in 1969. Vreni also made a happy marriage and all three are blessed with children and grandchildren. Dorinda lectured in Drama at Exeter University for many years. Massy worked for Rolls Royce and Veronica became a Primary School Teacher.

Vincent died in Guildford on 12^th February 2010. The notice of his death indicated that Elizabeth had pre-deceased him (‘Together again with Mum forever’), she had died in 1992. Both are buried in St John’s churchyard near Guildford where they had made their home.

Polish families

The presence of 66 Polish people on board perhaps requires some explanation.

When Poland was invaded by Germany at the start of the War many Poles fled. Some went to England and there were even cases of members of the Polish Air Force ‘borrowing’ planes and flying to England before the Germans arrived. Four hundred Polish airmen fought in the Battle of Britain and, overall, Poles were the second most numerous nationality in the RAF during the War while, in percentage terms, they suffered heavier losses than any other nationality.^[3]‘Mixing It’ by Wendy Webster, page 255, published by Oxford University Press

When the War ended, as part of the carve-up of Europe agreed between Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union at the Yalta conference, Poland was, effectively, simply handed over to the Soviet Union. Poles who had thought they were fighting to liberate their country from fascism found their country delivered into a different sort of tyranny and, understandably, felt betrayed. Unwilling to return to their homeland where they were likely to be greeted as traitors by Stalin (with all the consequences that would follow), they were obliged to put down roots in the UK or, in some cases, in the USA or Canada. Meanwhile many of their families had been scattered across the globe, seeking refuge wherever they could find it.

In recognition of the service of Poles to the Allied cause during the War, the UK Government introduced the Polish Resettlement Act in 1947. This allowed Polish men in the UK to be re-united with their families. Almost 32,000 dependents came to Britain as part of this scheme and the group who boarded the Windrush at Tampico in Mexico were part of this process.  

Of the 66 Poles on board only two were male: Piotr Gural who was travelling with his wife, Helena, and their daughter, Antonia; and fifteen year old Tadeuss Walerian who appears to have been travelling alone. A number of women were also travelling alone but it is those who were making the journey with children who particularly interest us here.

We do not know the names of the individuals in the photo but, looking at the passenger list and judging by the ages of the children, we can speculate that the young boy at the front is ten year old Jan Sidorko with his fourteen year old sister, Janina, standing behind him.^[4]In February 1950 Jan crossed  the Atlantic again on another famous ship, the Queen Mary. Even ‘Tourist Class’ on the Queen Mary would have been a step up from the Windrush. Travelling … Continue reading Their mother, Albina, is probably there too. As the only adult male on board we can also deduce that Piotr Gural is the man at the back and that his wife, Antonia and perhaps their eighteen year old daughter, Helena, are in the photo too.   

The Polish passengers had endured traumatic times but were arriving in England with high hopes for a better future. Were those hopes fulfilled?

The Folta family (passengers number 969-971)

The Foltas were another family on the Windrush, mother Kudakia (Ewa) Folta with her two daughters, Emilia (14) and Janina (12). It is possible they too are among those in the photo.

Jane Raca, Janina’s daughter-in-law, told their story to the BBC at the time of the 70^th anniversary of the arrival of the Windrush. She is writing a book which should be an interesting read when it is published (probably in 2023).

‘Janina had been born in Poland and lived an idyllic life on the family farm. Then in the winter of 1940, when she was three, Russian soldiers had hammered on the door of every house in the village and given them half an hour to pack before leaving forever. They were put into cattle trucks similar to those used to transport Jews to Auschwitz and sent over 1,000 miles away to Arkhangelsk in northern Siberia. It took six weeks to get there, and many people died on the journey. When they arrived they had to build their own accommodation: a one-roomed hut. The adults had to do hard labour in order to earn meagre rations. Those who couldn’t work starved. The temperature was sub-zero for half the year, reaching below -20°C in winter. After two years they escaped, travelling 3,000 miles overland to get out of the Soviet Union and into Iran. They nearly died of starvation, eating dogs and tortoises to survive. Janina’s father, Jozef, and her brother, Władek, joined the Allied forces fighting the Nazis. Janina, her mother, Ewa, and sisters Maria and Mila were given refuge in a civilian camp in Mexico.’^[5]https://www.windrushpoles.co.uk/thefoltafamily

​After disembarking at Tilbury Ewa was re-united with her husband and the family were housed in Leominster at one of the many camps set up across the UK to receive the Poles who came to Britain at that time, and from where they eventually made a new life.

It is such a shame that in the period following the Brexit referendum, many Poles experienced abuse from people who clearly had no understanding of the reasons for the large Polish presence in the UK or knowledge of their service during the Second World War.

Jane and Janina’s daughter Teresa appeared on BBC One’s The Repair Shop in 2020, when a team of craftsmen repaired a wooden trunk which had belonged to Janina’s mother, Ewa. Ewa had brought the trunk with her from Mexico when she travelled as a refugee on the Windrush in 1948. It had been kept in Janina’s shed for years. Teresa found it after her mother’s death, and it has now been beautifully restored as a family heirloom.^[6]https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000hbjq

Conclusion

This is just a handful of the stories of the families who travelled on the Windrush, there are a lot more, many of which are currently untold. But even this small sample gives a flavour of the diversity of those who were on board.

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