It is interesting when the research of two historians leads them to the same man. A case in point is Cecil Yard, a World War One soldier from Barbados.
Almost a decade ago, Bill Hern set himself the task of visiting the Commonwealth War Graves of all the First World War soldiers buried on Barbados. It involved more than one visit to the island – tough work, but someone had to do it! The results of his toil in the sun, fuelled by the occasional rum punch or Banks beer, no doubt, can be found on the pages of this site. One man he researched was Cecil Yard who died on the island on 13th November 1918. Bill’s research into the story of Cecil Yard can be found here:
John Ellis found the story of Cecil Yard on the internet while trawling through digitised newspaper reports on Findmypast. No sunny trips to the Caribbean for him (although at times the UK weather in 2026 while John was doing his research was remarkably akin to Barbados)! The results of John’s research can be seen here:
By piecing these two articles together we get a more rounded understanding of Cecil’s life. No doubt there is more to find. Sometimes we are contacted by descendents of people we feature, it would be fascinating to find out more about the life of Cecil Yard.
Regular contributors Audrey Dewjee and John Ellis have been busy.
John continues his assiduous search of digitised newspaper archives for snippets of Black British history. Much of what he finds is fragmentary but each fragment adds another piece to the jigsaw. His task is a never-ending one as, of course, the digitisation process continues apace with thousands of new newspaper pages added to the archives at findmypast.co.uk every month. His latest snippets are here. As you will discover, they range widely geographically and across time:
John has other discoveries in the pipeline, sometimes I can barely keep up!
Audrey, meanwhile, has brought her long-term research into the life of Joseph Almaze to a conclusion, for now. Historical research can rarely be said to be ‘finished’, new material is constantly emerging (see above) and sometimes a ‘conclusion’ turns out to have been merely a ‘provisional draft’ of history. If you have never heard of Joseph Almaze (I hadn’t) I venture to suggest that you and I should have done. His was one of many Black voices raised in Britain against slavery and was one of those who signed a letter to Granville Sharpe on 15th December 1787, thanking him for all that he had done to help the cause of abolition. Audrey’s fascinating article about this 18th-century Black Londoner is here:
Mona Baptiste, passenger No.7 on the historic voyage of the Empire Windrush from the Caribbean to England in 1948, was born on 21st June 1926. We celebrate the centenary of her birth with a short film that tells how she came to be on board the Windrush and what became of her after the ship docked at Tilbury. Of the many passengers on board the ship, Mona was arguably the most talented and would go on to be one of the most successful.
It was a remarkable life. She was a remarkable woman and you can watch the film and learn more about her by clicking on the image below:
We are grateful to Dr. Milton Brown, Chris Morgan and the team at KirkleeslocalTV.com for making this tribute possible.
John Ellis shares a cutting from the South London Press, dated 19th September 1913 (NB: the article contains an extremely offensive racist term):
COLOUR PREJUDICE
The Board proceeded to the appointment of a medical officer for the Christchurch district at a salary of £120 per ann., with extra fees for midwifery.
The Dispensaries Visiting Committee only submitted one name to the Board – that of Dr. Horace J Gater, of Lyndhurst Road, Peckham; and recommended that the gentleman should be appointed. It was understood that there was only one other candidate for the position.
Councillor Roe thought it singular seeing that the post was extensively advertised, that there were only two applicants for the position. He considered that the Board should have interviewed both candidates.
Mr Brown explained that it was not deemed advisable to bring the second candidate before the Board.
Mr Roe: You haven’t brought the second man here because of his colour. I don’t care what the colour of his skin is. I believe in looking upon all men as brothers.
Dr Capes said the officer would have to attend poor people, who were much more fastidious than well-to-do people. They would probably decline to be attended by what was known as a man of colour. Some years ago a well-qualified nurse came from Jamaica to earn her livelihood in Camberwell, but people objected to her colour and she was starved, owing to their boycott. In plain English the second candidate was a nigger, and men of colour were not suitable for a position of this kind.
Replying to Mr Roe, Dr Capes said the qualifications of the coloured gentlemen were exceedingly good. One objection to him was that he declined to give up an appointment he held at Marylebone.
Dr Gater was then unanimously appointed to the position.[1]The South London Press, 19th September 1913, Findmypast
The fact that Sarah Woodbine was not Jamaican and never claimed to be, is neither here nor there, the British press has been known to be very imprecise about where a Black person came from. ‘Jamaica’ has often been used as a general catch-all label covering a multitude of foreign parts. Sarah was actually born in Buenos Aires of Jamaican heritage.
Sarah Woodbine could certainly be described as ‘well-qualified’ as she had finished top of the class in the nursing exams she took whilst working as a probationer nurse at Croydon from 1894 to 1897.
Geographically, Camberwell is not that far from Sarah Woodbine’s known stamping ground. She worked in Croydon from 1894 until she moved to work at Hither Green in 1897. Her time at Hither Green was brief because the hospital there only officially opened on 12th July 1897 and in November 1898 she found employment at Eastville, Bristol.
Hither Green is barely five miles from Camberwell, sufficiently close for any story concerning her to be known to the men considering the vacancy at Christchurch (most probably Streatham, itself less than four miles from Camberwell). So, the geography is plausible. The timing fits too if we accept that the distance from 1913 to 1897 counts as ‘some years ago.’
There is no evidence (yet) concerning the circumstance of Sarah Woodbine’s departure from Hither Green, so the suggestion that she was the subject of a boycott by patients can only be speculative.
If the ‘Jamaican nurse’ referred to was not Sarah Woodbine, then it raises the intriguing question of who was she? But, having initially been sceptical, we are now leaning towards the view that the report does indeed refer to Sarah and is indicative of the sort of extreme prejudice she may have encountered.
On the 20th January 1916 the War Diary of the 1st Battalion of the British West Indies Regiment reported that:
39 Officers and 1,559 other ranks entrained at Seaford, Sussex to proceed overseas
Charles Milton Walker was among them:
Born in British Guiana (now Guyana) on 23rd May 1896, Milton (as he was known by his family) was nineteen years old. He was not the youngest of the men leaving Seaford that day but he was among the youngest. He came from a military background, his father had served in the West India Regiment for almost a decade, which may help explain why Milton had been so keen to enlist (his service number, 272, indicates that he had been among the first to join up).
None of the men leaving Seaford, as far as we know, has left any written record of their feelings as they set off for service overseas, but it is easy to imagine the mixture of excitement and trepidation they must have felt on the train journey across southern England to Plymouth where a ship, HMT Marathon, was waiting to take them on the next stage of their journey. They may also have felt relief at leaving the training camp at Seaford where seventeen of their comrades had died, including one, Reginald Fitzherbert Laing, who died the day before they set off.
The train carrying the men, paused at Exeter before making its way to Plymouth. The following day the men were on their way, bound for Alexandria and service in Egypt. What happened next is told in:
You can read the story of Charles Milton Walker and his brothers, Leonard and Clarence, in this book by his daughter, Maria Downer:
Just click on the cover if you wish to buy the book!
Over a few short months from September 1915 to January 1916, around two thousand Black soldiers from various British colonies in the Caribbean area passed through the small Sussex town of Seaford. They were members of the 1st and 2nd Battalions of the newly formed British West Indies Regiment, a Regiment whose very existence had been fiercely opposed by the War Office where the prevailing view was that Black men had no place in the British Army. They were being trained in readiness to play their part in the battles that were raging a few short miles away across the English Channel, but only a handful saw active service in France.
Nineteen of them died in Seaford and are buried in Commonwealth War Graves in a cemetery there. It has frequently been asserted that, housed in poorly constructed huts and unaccustomed to the English weather, the men who died in Seaford succumbed to pneumonia. In fact, pneumonia was the principle cause of death of only seven of them. The death certificates of these nineteen men tell a more complicated story, one that this new book reveals for the first time.
In addition to tracing their journey to Seaford and describing their time there, this book tells the stories of men who left Seaford on 20th January 1916 to set sail, not for France as they had hoped and expected, but for Alexandria. The War Office opposed the idea of Black men, who they believed to be inherently inferior, being allowed to take shots at White men, even if they were German. In the warped racial hierarchy of the time it was considered more acceptable to deploy the men of the BWIR in Egypt where they would be faced by Arab and Turkish forces, men who were almost equally inferior, and definitely not White.
Initially denied a combat role, men of the BWIR played a big part in the successful campaign in the Middle East, a campaign that saw Allied forces advance out of Egypt, into Israel and on to the capture of Jerusalem. Some men were also deployed in separate campaigns in East Africa (present day Kenya and Tanzania) and Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq).
They served with distinction and drew praise from their commanding officers. But they also encountered racism, in particular when the War ended and they were sent to Italy to await demobilisation and return to their homes in the colonies.
A BWIR Corporal receiving the Military Medal
Men in the BWIR were awarded a range of medals: five Distinguished Service Orders, nineteen Military Crosses, eleven Military Crosses with Bar, and forty-nine mentions in dispatches. The Imperial War Museum identify the man on the left as Lance Corporal Leekham but this is probably incorrect, the man’s true identity is not known. Several of the men who received medals or were mentioned in dispatches are known to have trained at Seaford.
In total, around 15,600 men served in the BWIR from its formation in 1915 to its disbandment in 1919. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission website identifies 1,499 men from the Regiment who died (the Imperial War Museum offers a slightly lower number). Most, as the book shows, died as a result of illness or disease contracted on active service – malaria was a particular killer. Few of those who returned to their homes in the Caribbean were unscathed by the experience, as existing pension records show.
The service of these men has been largely ignored by the history books and it is time that omission was rectified. This book seeks to play a part in that.
We are sad to share news of the passing of Ena Collymore-Woodstock at the age of 108. The news was reported by the Gleaner on 3rd December. The article included a brief summary of this notable lady’s many achievements:
Today is a day for quiet reflection as we honour the sacrifices of all members of the armed forces who have died in the line of duty in all conflicts and wars since those who laid down their lives in the First World War. This is the day in 1918 when the guns fell silent on the Western Front after more than four years of fighting.
But if today is about ‘remembering’, then it should not only be about the Western Front, the 1914-18 war was indeed a World War and few places were untouched by it.
I followed a link on the BBC website this morning to an article entitled ‘What role did the British Empire play in the war?’ I thought this ‘Bitesize’ article would be illuminating. It was, but perhaps not in the way I had hoped.
I learnt that ‘British colonies sent over two and a half million men to fight for Britain during the war.’ They came from ‘India’ (which the article adds, at that time included Pakistan and Bangladesh) and ‘colonies as far away as Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Rhodesia (which is now Zimbabwe) also sent thousands of soldiers.’ ‘Bitesize’ history indeed.
Perhaps it is unfair to expect the full story from a self proclaimed ‘bitesize’ piece, but that shouldn’t stop us from filling in some of the gaps. Britain’s colonies in the area of the the Caribbean sent around 15,600 men to serve in the British West Indies Regiment (BWIR), a small number in the grand scheme of things but that doesn’t mean their contribution should be forgotten.
There is a book by Dominiek Dendooven which covers the presence of the BWIR on the Western Front and there will soon be a book covering the contribution of the 1st and 2nd battalions of the BWIR (we are spending today proof reading it!). These men, around two thousand of them, trained at a camp at Seaford in Sussex and then went on to serve in campaigns in Egypt and Palestine and also in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and in East Africa, a few also served in Flanders. They served with distinction but many never returned to their homes and are commemorated from Dar-es-Salaam to Basra and many places in between. Their stories have never previously been told.
We have new articles this month from regular contributors, John Ellis and Audrey Dewjee. The fact we are in Black History Month is purely coincidental, at Historycal Roots, every month is Black History Month!
John tells us of three more Black soldiers in World War One.
Lance-Corporal Joseph AW Peterson, Hampshire Regiment, service No.17350
I know that John was irritated by criticism of the film 1917 when it was released in 2019. It garnered high praise for its technical brilliance (seemingly shot in one continuous take although, in fact, there were some barely noticeable edits), and for its unvarnished depiction of the horror of war. One reviewer said:
This film is overwhelming. I have nothing further to add, other than the compelling need for eternal remembrance to those who sacrificed their lives in any way, we can not fathom.
But there were those who criticised the ‘unrealistic’ inclusion of Black and Asian soldiers which allegedly arose from a need to appear ‘woke’:
All movie producers these days are under pressure to kneel before the “Woke” generation and showcase minorities, even if it couldn’t have happened.
When I asked Google A1 about this I got the following response:
The 2019 film ‘1917’ features black soldiers, but their presence with integrated British infantry units was largely an artistic choice to reflect that the war was a global conflict, rather than an accurate depiction of military integration at the time While black soldiers did serve in the war, they were typically in separate units or labor corps, with a few exceptions like Walter Tull, a black officer in the Middlesex Regiment.
Sadly more and more people will get their ‘history’ filtered by AI rather than from the whole series of articles that John has written on the subject. AI can be helpful, of course, but clearly there are huge risks if we come to rely on it.
Not content with that, John has also written about Private C Calvert, who served in the Middlesex Regiment in WW1. We would not know of Private Calvert were it not for a very brief item that appeared in the Daily Mirror on 1st September 1915:
Audrey takes us further back into British history, to the proclamation issued by the Lord Mayor of London on 14th September 1731:
‘for the future no Negroes or other Blacks be suffered to be bound apprentices at any of the Companies of this City’.
As you will read, the Aldermen of the City of London were clearly having second thoughts about granting the Freedom of the City of London just one week earlier to John Satia. Originally from Barbados, Satia had been brought to England as a servant and subsequently served an apprenticeship. Completing the apprenticeship ‘entitled’ him to the Freedom of the City, which was duly granted on 14th September 1731.
Keen that London shouldn’t have it all its own way, Audrey introduces us to John Moore who gained the Freedom of York even earlier, on 29th September 1687. As freemen these men would have been entitled to vote in General Elections and may well have done so.
Born in British Guiana (now Guyana) on 23rd May 1896, Milton (as he was known by his family) was nineteen years old. He was not the youngest of the men leaving Seaford that day but he was among the youngest. He came from a military background, his father had served in the West India Regiment for almost a decade, which may help explain why Milton had been so keen to enlist (his service number, 272, indicates that he had been among the first to join up).
