It was 2015 when the individual members of the Historycal Roots’ team first got involved in the search to identify black soldiers who served in World War One (in fact Historycal Roots didn’t exist as an entity before 2016). The project we worked on was specifically aimed at identifying black servicemen who were commemorated in the UK. One of our successes was to find the exact location of the grave of Lionel Turpin. It was an unmarked plot when we visited but, finally, in 2019 a stone was placed to mark his final resting place.
One of the first things we did back in 2015 was see what had been written about the subject and two books, both relatively recently published at the time, very quickly became our starting point. ‘Black Poppies’ by Stephen Bourne had been published in 2014 and ‘Black Tommies’ by Ray Costello was published in 2015. Two of us travelled to Manchester to hear Ray speak and we were thrilled to chat with him afterwards, the first of several very pleasant and fruitful meetings.
Both books had the sense of new ground being broken; how different they would look now, not least because of the ongoing efforts of John Ellis published on this site. One of John’s latest discoveries would have fitted perfectly into the scope of that 2015 project, Private Valleron Redman served as a member of the Royal Fusiliers and is buried at Compton Chamberlayne cemetery in Wiltshire.
Like nineteen members of the British West Indies Regiment who are buried in Commonwealth War Graves at Seaford in Sussex, Private Redman never saw active service. It was the harsh and unfamiliar climate that he succumbed to rather than enemy action – he died of pneumonia in February 1916. Read his story here: http://historycalroots.com/private-valleton-redman/.
We have published a number of other of John’s ‘finds’ recently, their stories demonstrate the diversity of those who served both in terms of their origins and the roles they performed, you can find them here:
Antonia da Costa http://historycalroots.com/antonio-da-costa-a-sapper-from-trinidad-at-the-somme/
Francis Gittens http://historycalroots.com/francis-owen-gittens-a-soldier-from-trinidad-at-the-somme/; and
Roy van Twest http://historycalroots.com/a-cingalese-machine-gunner-at-the-somme-sergeant-roy-van-twest/
As long as there are untold stories, John will research them!