John Hamilton Mortimer
Portrait thought to be of Tan Che Qua, resident of London between 1769 and about 1772
England (c. 1769)
Ozias Humphrey
Portrait of Baron Nagell’s Running Footman (name unknown or lost)
Netherlands (c. 1788-95)
Pastel on paper; 725 x 610 mm
This three-quarter length portrait in pastel shows the running footman of Baron Anne Willem Carel van Nagell van Ampsen (1756–1851), Dutch Ambassador to London from 1788 to 1795. A running footman could be expected to serve as a messenger and to accompany his employer’s coach. His role was, then, emphatically public, announcing the presence of his employer to the world. Baron Nagell was known for his especially flamboyantly dressed servants and the livery worn by this figure reflects the red, white and blue of the Dutch flag. A contemporary reference to his first court appearance in London in March 1788 noted that ‘he makes a splendid appearance with his footmen in scarlet and silver and a gay page or Running footman was vastly well Received’.
This portrait is unusual in that it focuses so intently on the features of an unaccompanied, individual servant, rendered life-scale. It sits within a tradition of strongly characterised portraits of especially favoured or long-serving servants, generally commissioned by their employers.
read more at Tate.org
Caroline Pennock has compiled a thread on Native/Indigenous Americans in Tudor England here. I’m delighted to say I’m learning quite a lot from them! A few highlights:
1800s Week!
Billy Waters, Mariner And Street Performer/ Beggar
Billy Waters, Mariner And Street Performer/ Beggar
David Wilkie
1815
Romanticism
This painting is of Billy Waters, an actor and musician who lived in London in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. It is believed to have been painted by the artist Sir David Wilkie in 1815. Billy Waters was one of at least 10,000 people of African origin who lived in London in the early 19th century. Like many former slaves he had fought for the British in the American Revolutionary War. It was during this period that he lost his leg. Waters was a popular and well-known figure, playing his fiddle and entertaining children outside London’s West End theatres. He was elected ‘King of the Beggars’ just before his death in 1823. He was one of several African personalities featured in the publication Life in London (1821). In this painting, Waters is portrayed as dignified and proud. Although in public he often acted the clown, this painting suggests a more serious and powerful side to him.
https://www.wikiart.org/en/david-wilkie/billy-waters-mariner-and-street-performer-beggar-1815
Chinese and East Asian presence in London, 1785
1785: The Times (London) has an account of a serious fight between “Chinese Tartars” and “Lascars”(Indian seamen) in Stepney, London. They fought with “swords, long knives, and other offensive weapons”.
The Chinese seem to have had the advantage of numbers, as when one was badly injured his enraged friends “collected a large reinforcement from Cock-Hill, Limehouse, Blackwall etc" The Indians were staying at a house in Stepney, and "great numbers” of the Chinese “took up their abode in the Green Dragon, in the neighbourhood.”
Report in The Times, 17 October 1785, p.3
Submitted by anonymous
Tweet via BluePlaquesGuy
[portrait by Taras Shevchenko. (Ira Aldridge, Shakespearean Actor) 1858]
By Glenda Armand Illustrated by Floyd Cooper
Ira Aldridge dreamed of being on stage one day performing the great works of William Shakespeare. He spent every chance he got at the local theaters, memorizing each actor’s lines for all of Shakespeare’s plays. Ira just knew he could be a great Shakespearean actor if only given the chance. But in the early 1800s, only white actors were allowed to perform Shakespeare. Ira’s only option was to perform musical numbers at the all-black theater in New York city. Despite being discouraged by his teacher and father, Ira determinedly pursued his dream and set off to England, the land of Shakespeare. There, Ira honed his acting skills and eventually performed at the acclaimed Theatre Royal Haymarket. Through perseverance and determination, Ira became one of the most celebrated Shakespearean actors throughout Europe.
Ira’s Shakespeare Dream at Lee & Low books: https://www.leeandlow.com/books/2885
[Ira Aldridge; portrait by William Mulready c. 1840]
MedievalPoC posts about Ira Aldridge, Shakespearean Actor in Victorian London
principia-coh submitted:
The analysis reveals what some of the very first Londoners looked like and where they came from.
The first results are from four people: two had origins from outside Europe, another was from continental Europe and one was a native Briton.
The researchers plan to analyse more of the 20,000 human remains stored at the Museum of London.
According to Caroline McDonald, who is a senior curator at the museum, London was a cosmopolitan city from the moment it was created following the Roman invasion 2,000 years ago.
Image copyright Museum of London, Peter Jackson
Image caption Early London: An artist’s impression of building work at the Roman Fort Wall in 200AD
“The thing to remember with the original Londoners is that they were not born here. Every first generation Londoner was from somewhere else - whether it was somewhere else in Britain, somewhere else on the continent somewhere else in the Mediterranean, somewhere else from Africa,” she said.
——continued at link, via @Iron_Spike.
I've looked through the tags etc, but couldn't find anything. Do you know anything about/of any resources about People of Colour in the occupation of mudlarking (scavenging on the Thames foreshore) in 18th/19th century London? I'd guess that those who weren't white would hold much the same position as those who were as mudlarks, but probably with added racial discrimination from the police, but if you know of any, I'd love to find first-hand accounts/books mentioning their experience. Thanks!
This is a really interesting question!
Most of the information I have around this is going to be about the Black british. Not only is it incredibly likely that Black British people would have been represented among mudlarks to some degree, considering population density, but the fact that you brought up possible legal discrimination adds another dimension to the question at hand.The thing is, mudlarking was perfectly legal as an activity or occupation. However, it wasn’t considered an optimal profession (true mudlarks were usually children, elderly, and/or disabled), and this would have complicated the legal situations of a few Black residents of London who might have already been subject to harassment or kidnapping. In addition, legal cases involving the status of Black British, especially ones who had been working as servants abroad, were being wrangled about in the courts quite vehemently circa 1720-1800, and precedents were being set about their status.
I assume you’ve already checked out Mayhew’s London Labor and the London Poor (1851 vol.2) in which he describes “Of the Dredgers, or River Finders” and interviews someone whose occupation can be described as such, and how this was actually a trade passed on through generations (along with equipment and such for dredging). Interestingly, by the time it was written, there were only about 100 full-time Dredgers in that occupation (as opposed to seasonal or opportunistic mudlarks):
There is then a subsection after this that describes those considered true mudlarks, who according to Mayhew number mostly elderly women, who mostly scavenged along the river mud for chips of wood and other fuel and sold these in poor neighborhoods, rather than actively trawling the waters for items of higher value.
The accounts of the true mudlarks are honestly heartbreaking to read. Most of them are very young children, including one boy who took to mudlarking because, according to him, “his clothes were too poor to look for anything better.” There’s an illustration from a daguerreotype of a mudlark on page 158:
Now, when you bring up the possibility of legal discrimination and police harassment, the truth is significantly more complex than that. Especially during the time you’re looking at for this, because this was being wrangled about in courts as well as in popular culture/society.
Here, I’d recommend Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina’s Black London, especially Chapter Four about Granville Sharpand Lord Mansfield (William Murray). And yes, there’s a connection with Dido Elizabeth Belle here:
There is no extant documentation by Mansfield of his personalfeelings about Dido, his nephew's daughter by a black womannor, aside from the circumstances of her birth, knowledge of theactual events which led to her being virtually adopted by Mansfield. His apparent affection for her was well-documented by visitors to Kenwood, as was her uncertain position in his household.One assumes Dido returned her great-uncle's affection andappreciated his care of her, despite her probably lonely early adultlife. What is lost to us are their views on the larger political, andfor Dido the necessarily personal, issue of knowing that the fatesof thousands of black people rested in his hands.
[Painting of Belle with her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray, formerly attributed to Johann Zoffany, 1778-9]
How far didMansfield connect Dido with the black men who appeared beforehim in the courtroom? Did Dido herself feel a strong connectionto them? Would she have read the newspaper reports on the casesbrought by Sharp and felt any affiliation with those black people on trial, even though they were of a lower class? It is possible,albeit unlikely, that her great-uncle even discussed the cases in herpresence. One wonders how as a judge he distinguished betweenthe theoretical and the particular; whether he looked at Dido asshe wrote his letters and saw a connection between her privilegedand manumitted state and that of the young black men and womentied to masts on the Thames, dragged screaming from their English homes on to ships bound for Jamaica, or running errands inthe streets of London, hoping not to be spied by their formermasters.
Black London, p 96-97
Now, if you want a visual point of reference, I must recommend John Thomas Smith’s Vagabondia, which has dozens of illustrations of famous London beggars, including people of color:
All of these resources are free, including the two books I cite here, which are available to download in full at the links.
medievalpoc reblogged
Thank you for running such an informative, comprehensive blog! I'm wondering if you know/have any resources regarding the lives of East-Indian immigrants living in England in the early 1900s? I want to make sure my novel is as accurate as possible but I'm not sure how to go about searching for such specific information... Thanks and best wishes
Well, this kind of resource shouldn’t be very difficult to find, considering the time period you’re asking about is still within living memory. You have a general overview on the Wikipedia page, which estimates the Indian British population at around 70,000 by the year 1900:
[The source for that is The Infidel Within: Muslims in Britain Since 1800 by Humayun Ansari, p. 37. In fact, most of the source links for that page are probably worth a click.]
Now considering that Indian people have been in Britain since well before the time you’re asking about, you would have to decide what kind of narrative you want to write, since this history is too diverse and varied to write it for you. In other words, what you describe as “such specific information” is actually…not, very.
For an overview of information, documents, and accounts of immigrants’ lives you can check out Immigration, Ethnicity and Racism in Britain, 1815-1945 by Panikos Panayi. There is also India Abroad: Diasporic Cultures of Postwar America and England by Sandhya Rajendra Shukla, focusing on the specific experiences of the Indian diaspora.
If you want to write about the lives of people who were indentured servants, try Voices from Indenture: Experiences of Indian Migrants in the British Empire by Marina Carter, or look at the Research Guide for primary documents about indentured laborers at the National Archives.
The British Library offers an exploration of documents on Indian immigrants here, including those involving Ayahs- women caring for the children of British families, who were sometimes abandoned once the children were grown or their services were no longer needed, with no way to return to India.
If you’re looking for something more biographical, there’s the works of Savitri Devi Chowdhary. There is also a lot of information out there about the Lascars, and The Lascar Project offers a downloadable teaching resource (audio, if that’s accessible to you).
For something more accessible and less academic, there’s actually a whole page of historical documents and resources here:
including an interactive timeline on British-Indian History with images and photos:
In this audio extract, Gilli Salvat remembers arriving in England from India shortly after partition in 1948. She and her family were among the first of many settlers who were lured to Britain by the promise of employment. She describes her parents’ tears as the boat leaves India, and the racist attitudes of the English people that she was initially confronted by.
There’s also Suffragette Sophia Duleep Singh, one of many politically active young Indian women c. 1910:
Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of Maharaja Duleep Singh, was a member of the Women’s Social and Political Union. She campaigned for votes for women nationally as well as locally in Richmond and Kingston-upon-Thames. She was often seen selling the newspaper The Suffragette outside Hampton Court Palace where she lived - her father had been close to Queen Victoria, and the family were given the use of the Palace’s apartment rooms. On 18 November 1910, known as ‘Black Friday’, she led a 400-strong demonstration to parliament together with Mrs Pankhurst. As clashes broke out between the police and protestors, over 150 women were physically assaulted.
Sophia was not the only Indian suffragette. An Indian women’s group took part in the 1911 coronation procession of 60,000 suffragettes.
Sophia also belonged to the Women’s Tax Resistance League, whose slogan was ‘No Vote, No Tax’. Her refusal to pay tax led to her prosecution several times and some of her valuable possessions were impounded. A committed campaigner for women’s rights and an active fundraiser, she was often seen selling the newspaper The Suffragette outside Hampton Court Palace.
So, keep in mind that all of this is a beginning, not the end of information about a lot of amazing and accomplished people, many of whom are still alive. This past isn’t distant, so you’re opening the lid to a veritable cornucopia of documents, photographs, and first-person accounts. Good Luck!
This is all awesome info, especially about Sophia Duleep Singh (whose father is equally fascinating).
Here’s another image of British Indian suffragettes:
Photograph of Indian suffragettes on the Women’s Coronation Procession, 17 June 1911. To mark the coronation of King George V, a huge march through London was arranged demanding votes for women in Coronation year. Led by suffragettes dressed as powerful women from the past, the march of 40,000 women was watched by crowds, some on specially erected stands. Indian suffragettes, including Mrs Roy, Mrs Mukerjea and Mrs Bhola Nauth marched in the Empire Pageant section of the procession along with representatives from New Zealand, South Africa and the West Indies. [Source]
This is an great photo, thanks for adding it! You can get prints via the Museum of London website, too!
Bernardine Evaristo’s tale of forbidden love in bustling third-century London is an intoxicating cocktail of poetry, history, and fiction. Feisty, precocious Zuleika, daughter of Sudanese immigrants-made-good and restless teenage bride of a rich Roman businessman, craves passion and excitement. When she begins an affair with the emperor, Septimius Severus, she knows her life will never be the same. Streetwise, seductive, and lyrical, with a lively, affecting heroine, The Emperor’s Babe is a strikingly imaginative historical novel-in-verse.
Hey, thought you might like to know/thought your followers might find interesting: British Channel 4 recently ran a documentary called London's Lost Graveyard: Crossrail Discovery, which included a section on the black population of London in the late 17th/early-18th century.
Here’s a link to it. It looks pretty intriguing, thanks for sharing!
Indian Stage Performers in Victorian London
[anonymous submission]
Re: the recent inquiry by ballisticducks, about PoC who were stage entertainers in Victorian Britain, s/he might want to look at the famous Indian Jugglers? Although these men first arrived during the Regency era, their leader continued onstage until his death in Victorian England in 1851.
‘The exhibition of the Indian Jugglers, at No. 87, Pall-mall, has been attended by nearly all the Families of distinction in town; and is becoming extremely popular. ‘ (Advert in The Times (London, England), 27 July, 1813, p. 2)
The Indian Jugglers performed 3 times daily, and the 1813 admission charge was steep. It cost half-a-crown (2 shillings and sixpence) to see them if you were at the front, or 1 shilling and sixpence if you were at the back. That's like a day’s wage for a labourer. These were not entertainers for the common man. (Jane Austen mentions going to see them in her letter to Cassandra, 9 March 1814.)
The newspaper ad continues:
‘The swallowing of the sword, and the novelty of the other performances, have attracted the public attention beyond any thing that has appeared in the metropolis for many years past.’
This is true. Jane Austen mentions going to see them in her letter to Cassandra, 9 March 1814.
Other subsequent comments in ‘The Times’ reveal that they were from Seringapatam, and their act included sword-swallowing, some kind of trick involving fire, and one of catching a bullet between the teeth. This allegedly led to a fatal accident in Dublin in 1817, when a news report said that a pistol ‘actually loaded with powder and ball was, by mistake, substituted for that prepared in the usual way.’ In a later ad however the chief of the troupe, ‘Mr Ramusamee’ (perhaps Ramaswamy, but professionally known as Ramo Samee), stated this rumour was fake. No-one had ever been killed, either by the sword-swallowing or by the pistol trick.
Amazingly (well it amazed me), until the arrival of this kind of entertainer from India, the OED says the word ‘juggler’ had always meant something like our word ‘conjurer’ – someone who did tricks involving sleight-of-hand, not someone able to toss and catch objects skilfully. It was the ability of the Indian Jugglers in keeping four balls at once flying through the air which triggered the semantic shift. The critic William Hazlitt describes the astonishment their skill produced in his ‘’Table Talk’’ of 1828. (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3020/3020-h/3020-h.htm#link2H_4_0010)
They were such a big hit they toured Europe and were around for at least five years: Ramo Samee for longer. ‘Positively last chance’ adverts trumpeted they would be returning to India c. March 1818, but in fact they may have been leaving for an American tour because one of them, probably Ramo Samee, is mentioned in the Salem Gazette of October 5, 1819. The article said he included “a Series of Evolutions, with four hollow brass Balls, about the size of Oranges; stringing beads with his Mouth, and at the same time, as he balances, turning Rings with his Fingers and Toes; and manly activity in throwing a ball, the size of an eighteen-pound shot, to different parts of his body with the greatest of ease.” (see http://www.aboutfacesentertainment.com/pages/about-juggling.html)
Ramo Samee it seems never went back to Seringapatam at all. He apparently returned to England and continued his career, though increasingly in less select venues; married a local woman and died (unfortunately destitute) in London in 1851.
The artist James Green did a picture of them (http://www.1st-art-gallery.com/J.-Green/The-Indian-Jugglers.html) Though of course it’s very possible that the original troupe was quickly imitated by others.
There’s a good blog entry on their leader Ramaswamy here: http://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2006/05/story-of-ramo-samee-indian-juggler.html
Lastly, has bduck read about ‘Pablo Fanque’, the circus owner mentioned in the Beatles song 'For the Benefit of Mr Kite’? Actually a black Englishman called William Darby, a master equestrian. He’s in wikipedia.
[mod note]
Wow!!! Thank you so much for this list of resources. FYI, the person above doesn’t use tumblr and therefore uses email submissions, which is why they list anonymously. Since this individual submits quite often, please let me know if there is a an attribution you would like to give or a nickname you would like to have added to submissions you’ve authored here. (I have no plans to publish your email, of course!)
Here’s the Wikipedia page on Pablo Fanque/William Darby.
Submitted by anonymous
[anonymous submission]
Back in 2003 Shakespeare scholar Michael Wood in his book ‘In Search of Shakespeare’ (p. 252) mentioned several identifiable POC living in one single London parish:
’…in the small parish of St. Botolph’s outside Aldgate…we find twenty-five black people living in Shakespeare’s lifetime…Among the names are these:
Christopher Capperbert
Suzanna Pearis
Symon Valencia
Cassangoe
Easfanyyo
Robert
Francis…servant to Mr Peter Miller a beare brewer dwelling at the sign of the hartes horne in the liberties of Eastsmithfield…’
Delving into more detail, Oxford University historian Dr M. Kauffman’s forthcoming book ‘Black Tudors’, due in autumn 2016, will examine the lives of over 350 Africans known to have lived in Renaissance Britain. (That doesn’t of course mean ONLY 350 lived there - just that 350 names of people clearly identified as black happen to have survived in historical records which are pretty patchy at best.)
The question is, if today’s POC don’t represent such figures at Renaissance Faires - then who can? Or are these documented black Elizabethans destined to be quietly wiped from the historical record?
Submitted by anonymous
But despite evidence of some 200 Africans living in Tudor England, from Hull to Truro, we do not find it represented in popular presentations of the period, such as Elizabeth, Elizabeth: The Golden Age, The Tudors, The Other Boleyn Girl, Wolf Hall, to name but a few. Strangely enough, a better representation comes from an unexpected source: a 2007 episode of Doctor Who! The Shakespeare Code starred David Tennant as the Doctor, and Freema Agyeman as his companion Martha Jones. Agyeman is half Iranian and half Ghanaian, and this meant the writer, Gareth Roberts, had to consider how this would play out when she time travels to Elizabethan England. When Martha realises she has just arrived in London in 1599, she has the following exchange with the Doctor: MARTHA Oh, but hold on. Am I all right? I’m not gonna get carted off as a slave, am I? THE DOCTOR Why would they do that? MARTHA Not exactly white, in case you haven’t noticed. THE DOCTOR I’m not even human. Just walk about like you own the place. Works for me. Besides, you’d be surprised. Elizabethan England, not so different from your time. At this point, two African women walk past them. In a few moments, this scene makes two important points: 1) There was a black presence in Elizabethan London 2) The Africans in Elizabethan London were not treated as slaves
Read More at MirandaKaufmann.com
As well as highly acclaimed professional musicians like Joseph Emidy and George Bridgetower, there were Black street buskers who entertained London's public. Billy Waters, a fiddler, was one such character and a common sight outside the Adelphi Theatre, in the Strand, in the 1780s. Identifiable by his wooden leg and military-style outfit, he was famously caricatured by the cartoonist George Cruickshank.
Billy Waters may have ended up on the streets of London as one of the Black poor who had fought in the American War of Independence. From workhouse records, it seems that Billy became ill and spent his final days at St Giles's Workhouse where he was elected 'the king of beggars'. A verse from his will reads:
Thus poor Black Billy's made his Will, His Property was small good lack, For till the day death did him kill His house he carried on his back. The Adelphi now may say alas! And to his memory raise a stone: Their gold will be exchanged for brass, Since poor Black Billy's dead and gone.