Tag: Harewood House

A storm at Harewood

My initial reason for visiting Harewood House was to see the exhibition about the life of Bertie Robinson that I have written about elsewhere, but I was lucky enough to get a ticket for a black history walk around the house and grounds.

My tour guides were none other than Pablo Fanque and his charming wife Susannah. This was quite something as Pablo died in 1871 and Susannah pre-deceased him in 1848. Pablo (actually Joe Williams, founder of Heritage Corner) and Susannah (Vanessa Mudd) took us on a whirlwind tour of black history that encompassed Egypt, the three west African trading empires of Ghana, Songhai and Mali and much more besides, before returning us to York and Harewood.

 

 

When I was working I used to feel that if I learnt one thing on any course I attended it had not been a complete waste of time. This walk certainly passed the ‘one thing’ test with plenty of room to spare.

I will focus here on one story that was new to me (apologies to those who are familiar with it). It concerns ‘ivory bangle lady‘. whose remains were discovered during an excavation in York in 1901. She gains her name from one of the bangles she was wearing. One of her bangles was made of jet, a stone that can be found in Yorkshire, but the bangle fashioned from ivory clearly had a more exotic origin.

It was evident that she was a wealthy woman from the jewelry and other items buried with her. It also seems likely that when she died (in her twenties) in the second half of the 4th century AD she was a Christian as a message carved in bone was found in her grave: “Hail, sister, may you live in God”.

A reconstruction of the face of ‘ivory bangle lady’

Scientific advances since 1901 mean that far more is now known about her. She has been identified as of mixed heritage with at least one parent from north Africa. Applying the same scientific techniques to the remains of others in the same burial ground suggests that maybe 10% of the population of Roman York were of similar heritage. Perhaps you were aware of that but, for me, it was a revelation.

There are several interesting articles on the internet about this remarkable lady, this is just one of them: https://www.yorkshiremuseum.org.uk/collections/collections-highlights/ivory-bangle-lady/

Returning to Pablo Fanque (real name William Darby), I had heard his story before but it was good to hear again about his remarkable life. The fact that he was born in Norwich in 1810 surprised me when I first heard about it but since then I have become more and more aware that the black presence was not restricted to major cities like London, Liverpool and Bristol but could be found in the countryside too. The evidence for this wider black presence can be seen not just in references in newspapers but in paintings and illustrations that date at least as far back as 1658 and may feature in a future post.

Pablo Fanque was a circus impresario and the walk took its name from a great storm that engulfed Pablo’s circus during a show at Harewood. The dramatic description of the storm reminded me of an event I attended recently where we were caught in a flimsy gazebo during a downpour of epic proportions.

Sadly, Susannah died when she was hit by falling beams when a gallery collapsed in the building where the circus was performing but Pablo soldiered on.

My one disappointment?Anyone familiar with the Beatles song Being for the Benefit of Mr Kite might reasonably have expected to see a bear, sadly no bears were in evidence! Apart from that, top marks to Joe and Vanessa for an entertaining and informative walk.

If you are in the Leeds area it would be well worth going on a future Heritage Corner walk and you can find out more here: https://heritagecornerleeds.com/

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!

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.