20th Century

Daphne Steele honoured

Photo courtesy of AGNAP (the Association of Guyanese Nurses and Associated Professionals

We were so pleased to see that Daphne Steele has now been commemorated with a Blue Plaque in Ilkley, West Yorkshire. Daphne is credited as having been the first Black matron in the NHS (from 1964). The new plaque commemorating her contribution is at what was formerly St Winifred’s maternity home where she was based for a number of years.

Daphne was one of several members of the Steele family who came to England from British Guiana (now Guyana) in the early 1950s. She arrived in 1951 and was soon followed by the best known of her siblings, her sister, Carmen, now known as Carmen Monroe, the actress. My own father-in-law was another Steele who made the journey, he was met by Carmen when he arrived in London in 1952 and spent many years working in the Post Office, a less glamourous contribution to Britain’s post-war regeneration but important nonetheless. The Steeles are just one example of the countless families who helped rebuild Britain after the devastation of World War Two.

Daphne trained at St James’ hospital in Balham and it was our privilege to be present when a Nubian Jak plaque was unveiled there in 2018:

https://www.historycalroots.com/daphne-steele-first-black-matron-in-the-nhs/

After two years in south London she then trained as a midwife before going on to work for the NHS in Oxfordshire and Manchester (as well as a stint in America) before settling in Yorkshire.

The unveiling ceremony was featured on the BBC news website and you can read more about Daphne here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bradford-west-yorkshire-68380732

One fact about Daphne you won’t find in any of the articles about her online is that, according to my sister-in-law, she baked a mean scone!

Amanda Ira Aldridge and Avril Coleridge-Taylor: Getting the Tempo Right

Life is full of surprises and we certainly were not expecting Stephen Bourne, a published author with a number of books to his credit, to ask us out of the blue to publish his latest book. When he said he wanted to tell the story of Amanda Ira Aldridge and Avril Coleridge-Taylor we really could not refuse. Both these ladies, the mixed heritage daughters of famous fathers, have long been of interest to us.

Stephen’s informative and nicely illustrated book is now available to buy (just click on the cover):

For a long time recordings of the work of these two composers were hard to find but that is changing, gradually.

There are two short pieces by Avril on ‘Beyond Twilight’, a CD of music for piano and cello by a number of female composers, and her ‘Sussex Landscape’ is included on a CD that features some her father’s best music (his Violin Concerto is a particular favourite).

Music by Amanda (aka Montague Ring) is harder to come by but the American pianist, Rochelle Sennet, has included some piano pieces by her on two recent releases:

This music is all available on Spotify for those of you who have access to that service.

We do hope you will have the chance to listen to their music while reading about these ground-breaking women in Stephen’s book.

You can find more about Stephen’s work here: http://www.stephenbourne.co.uk/

Roots entwined

Audrey Dewjee’s latest contribution to Historycal Roots is of particular interest to us and we hope you will find it enlightening too. Audrey has chosen the title ‘Roots entwined’ for the article and in it she explores the history of inter-racial marriage in her home county of Yorkshire.

The earliest mixed marriage she mentions in the article took place in Deptford, London, in 1613, but, as she puts it, ‘Yorkshire eventually caught up.’ She goes on to mention the marriage of John Quashee and Rebecca Crosby at Thornton by Pocklington on 12^s. November 1732.

St Michael’s church, Pocklington, the site of John and Rebecca’s wedding?

Audrey goes on to cite 18^th, 19^th and 20^th century examples. One of her 19^th century Yorkshire marriages features John Perry, a Black man born in Annapolis in Nova Scotia in about 1819, who married in Ripon in 1844 and ended his days in Sydney, Australia, having been transported to the penal colony. As an illustration of how ‘entwined’ these stories can become, John Perry has featured in an earlier Historycal Roots article by John Ellis which Audrey references.

Of course, similar stories can be found in virtually any part of the country and there must be people who are puzzled by the results they get back from a DNA test. As Audrey says ‘colour fades quickly if [mixed heritage] children and grandchildren have White partners … and gradually the memory of a Black ancestor fades,’ something my wife and I are only too aware of as we watch our grandson growing up.

Audrey’s article is here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/roots-entwined-inter-racial-families-in-yorkshire/

A handsome new book about the Empire Windrush

In recent years our knowledge of who was on the Empire Windrush when she docked at Tilbury in June 1948 has developed considerably. Bill Hern has played a big part in this and some of the fruits of his latest research can be found in a new book produced by the Windrush Foundation. It is beautifully illustrated – I was going to describe it as a great ‘coffee table’ book, but such books are usually used as rarely opened adornments, this book is so much more than that. The words tell the stories of over eighty of the Windrush passengers, most of which have never previously been told. If you still believe the passengers on the Windrush were all Jamaican men coming to the UK in search of work, this book will set you straight!

My understanding is that the book is only available through the Windrush Foundation, it can be downloaded as a free e-book / pdf via this link:

http://www.windrushfoundation.com

West Indian airmen at Hunmanby Moor in World War Two

It is with real pleasure that we welcome Audrey Dewjee back to the pages of Historycal Roots. Her latest article describes something of the experiences of the 4,000 RAF West Indian airmen who were stationed at Hunmanby Moor in Yorkshire during the Second World War. The subject has been very close to Audrey’s heart for a long time and her article has been a real labour of love which we are delighted to lay before you. Veterans Alford Gardner and Gilbert Clarke (pictured) were among those present at the unveiling of a commemorative plaque in the nearby town of Filey in 2023. You can read Audrey’s article here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/west-indian-airmen-at-raf-hunmanby-moor-filey/

Thomas Smith: A ‘man of colour’ in the Royal Air Force in 1918

You have to be careful about claiming to have identified the ‘first’ of anything in the past, there is always the chance someone will find an earlier example – wise words that historian Ray Costello shared over a convivial lunch in Liverpool some years ago.

John Ellis is far too canny to fall into that trap but he has identified Flight Sergeant Thomas Smith, a ‘man of colour’ from Barnstaple in Devon, as a founding member of the Royal Air Force when it was formed on 1^st April 1918. As a ‘founding member’ you can’t get much more ‘first’ than that, although it is possible, of course, that there were other Black men who joined on the same day.

Perhaps others stories will emerge but, for now, we celebrate Flight Sergeant Thomas Smith. Thomas, who had a Black father, a White mother and an American grandfather, got into the RAF in spite of the provisions of the Royal Air Force (Constitution) Act of 1917 which restricted entry to men of ‘pure European descent’. Thomas was able to get round this manifestation of the institutional racism of the time because he was already serving as a Petty Officer in the Royal Navy Air Service and was able to transfer across into the newly formed RAF.

Thomas came from a humble background. His father, Moses, was a ‘hawker’ (a street trader) and his mother, Elizabeth, the daughter of a mussel gatherer, was also a fish hawker prior to her marriage to Moses. Moses, who undoubtedly faced racism, was no stranger to the Barnstable constabulary and was in the local gaol on more than one occasion. But he was also an eloquent man, well able to speak up for himself. He was also known to box at the local fair and there were occasions when he used his pugilistic skills to defend himself as the need arose.

Thomas had more than one brush with the law himself. In May 1911 he took revenge for an assault on his father by attacking both the father and sister of the culprit. He was serving in the Royal Navy at the time and his Commanding Officer spoke up for him, describing him as ‘a very good character’ and ‘a very good man’.

When war broke out in 1914 Thomas Smith was serving on the battlecruiser HMS Indefatigable and he saw active service in the Dardanelles and North Atlantic. The Indefatigable was sunk at the Battle of Jutland in May 1916 with the loss of almost the entire crew of around 1,000. Fortunately Thomas, following promotion to the rank of Petty Officer, had been transferred to another ship in December 1915 – a lucky escape.

You can learn much more about Thomas Smith, including his ground-breaking time in the RAF, in John Ellis’s latest article for Historycal Roots. It really is a remarkable story:

https://www.historycalroots.com/flight-sergeant-thomas-smith-a-founding-member-of-the-royal-air-force/

A Windrush welcome in a Balham church

By Bill Hern

There is no doubt that many of the West Indian passengers who disembarked from the Empire Windrush on 22^nd June 1948 suffered challenges and hardships in the ‘Mother Country’ but there were also a great many acts of kindness that should not be forgotten. None more so than that shown by a church in Balham on the first Sunday after the ship’s arrival in Tilbury.

The Church of Ascension in Malwood Road, Balham in London is situated only a few hundred yards from the Clapham South Deep Shelter where on 27^th June 1948 over one hundred West Indian men (they were all men) were about to spend their first Sunday in England after arriving in the country five days earlier.

Reverend Bryn Thomas, the Vicar of the Church of Ascension, awoke that morning thinking about the West Indians temporarily housed in the Deep Shelter far beneath the trains running on the Northern Line. Most of the occupants of the Deep Shelter would have been regular churchgoers in the Caribbean but, over 4,000 miles from home and their local churches, they were faced with what appeared likely to be a pretty miserable day. The weather forecast was for coolish temperatures with the occasional shower. In the England of the 1940s everything closed on a Sunday and of course there was no television and certainly no Sunday football. All that lay in store for the men was a day walking and chatting on Clapham Common and perhaps taking shelter from the showers in the huge marquee that had been specially erected on the Common.

Reverend Thomas had the idea of inviting the men to a party at the Church that evening. He made the short walk to the Shelter and announced that all were welcome.

It seems that Reverend Thomas made this offer before he had secured the support of the congregation as he only announced his plan at the morning service. This created a flurry of activity.

When it was realised that there was insufficient crockery a churchwarden came to the rescue by procuring a bathchair to wheel to nearby St Luke’s Church where he was able to borrow seventy cups and saucers. With the rattling of crockery no doubt disturbing the peaceful Sunday afternoon he trundled back to the Church of Ascension without any reported breakages.

Women members of the church rallied to the cause and baked two hundred cakes in a single afternoon as well as making and cutting a similar number of sandwiches. This amazing achievement is made all the more remarkable and commendable as this was during a period of rationing and, as a Church representative Mr. W H Garland told The Clapham Observer, they had to “scrounge tea and sugar.” No doubt many Church members sacrificed their own allowance in order to entertain their West Indian guests.

It is a sign of the times that newspaper reports assumed the baking and sandwich making was the preserve of the female members of the Church.

Between eighty and one hundred of the men from the Deep Shelter accepted the invitation to the Church.

The event was a tremendous success and was even reported in the national press, the Daily Herald of 28^th June gave it the headline “Threw A Party For Men From Jamaica.” Mr. W H Garland said that the West Indians were “charming people; they were churchmen and keen.”

Final word must go to one of the West Indians who, after the evening service and the ‘party’ said he and his compatriots had been given “the time of our lives.”

By mid-July all the West Indians had found work and left the Deep Shelter, the marquee was taken down and Clapham South returned to normality.

However, the links with the Empire Windrush don’t end there. On 23^rd February 1952 Lloyd Barrington Jackson – passenger number 704 – married Grethel Christine Webster at the Church of Ascension and the officiating Vicar was Reverend Bryn Thomas.

The scene of Lloyd and Grethel’s nuptials

The Church of Ascension (now known simply as Ascension Balham) has remained a place that welcomes everyone. It is a vibrant community Church (see the link below). If anyone is doing a Windrush-related tour they could do a lot worse than stopping off at the Church for coffee and cake and a very warm welcome while they imagine the evening of 27^th June 1948 and that great act of kindness.

http://Ascension Balham

A fine start to 2023

In case you think John Ellis has been resting on his laurels since the start of 2023 I am here to disabuse you of that notion, the apparent hiatus in activity stems from my delays in uploading the material he has sent to me. There are three new pages from him that, between them, illustrate the diversity that has long existed in the British Armed forces.

Perhaps the saddest story of the three is that of Charles Girling who was born in St.Domingo in about 1781. Originally colonised by the Spanish in 1496, the island that came to be known as Hispaniola was to be heavily contested by competing colonial powers, with the English and French vying with the Spanish for influence and control of the area before Toussaint L’Ouverture came on the scene.

Charles Girling enlisted in a British regiment, the 20^th Light Dragoons, in 1798 when the regiment was in Jamaica. In 1802 the regiment returned to England and Charles Girling went with them. But by 1805 Charles had been admitted to the notorious Bethlem Royal hospital (‘Bedlam’) afflicted by ‘lunacy’ (a diagnosis that could cover a wide variety of issues) and, having been declared ‘incurable’ in May 1806, he spent his remaining time in institutions until he died in 1807. His story is not a happy one but John has done a remarkable job in tracking Charles’ progress through the several institutions responsible for his care.

https://www.historycalroots.com/from-st-domingo-to-bedlam-trumpeter-charles-girling-of-the-20th-light-dragoons/

The stories of William Perera and the Jacotine brothers, Harold and Eric, date from World War One. All three were born in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and served in the British Army. Harold Jacotine was killed in action in April 1918 but his brother and William Perera both survived the war and returned to Ceylon. Eric Jacotine would later return to England, settle in London, become a taxi driver and raise a large family.

https://www.historycalroots.com/faugh-a-bella-private-william-perera-a-sri-lankan-in-the-royal-irish-fusiliers-during-the-first-world-war/

https://www.historycalroots.com/an-admirable-spirit-private-harold-jacotine-of-the-coldstream-guards/

A remarkable find: Cyril Mellonius on Pathé News

Welcome to our first post of 2023 and, almost inevitably, it features a ‘find’ by John Ellis.

In November 2019 we published an article by John that featured Cyril Mellonius, you can read it here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/a-sri-lankan-in-the-die-hards-private-cyril-lorenz-mellonius-a-somme-veteran-of-the-middlesex-regiment/

Now he has stumbled across some remarkable Pathé News footage on You Tube which shows a group of Ceylonese men (Cyril must surely be among them) marching to enlist in London in January 1916. It is black and white (obviously), silent and grainy (and you have to get past the irritating adverts at the beginning) but it gives us a fascinating glimpse of the men John wrote about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j7JHDAuy94M

A good start to the year!

A black soldier in Edgeware (London) in 1919

John Ellis’s latest post features a soldier who was born in Mauritius, was conscripted into the British Army in February 1918 whilst working in Paris, saw active service with a Dorset regiment in Flanders and was attacked by a racist mob on the streets of London in April 1919. That shorthand introduction to the story of Robert Bissessur raises an intriguing series of questions but I want to focus here on the last part of the story.

The fact that there were ‘race riots’ (i.e. attacks on black people by racist white mobs) in Britain in 1919 is well documented. David Olusoga^[1]Black and British – A Forgotten History is just one of many historians to write about the issue. Olusoga identifies nine cities where violence occurred. The first of the ‘riots’ took place in Glasgow in January, riots followed in South Shields, London (Docklands), Hull, Barry, Newport and Cardiff in south Wales and Liverpool. The riots in Cardiff were arguably the most ferocious (three men died) and those in Liverpool are possibly the best known – a Bermudan sailor, Charles Wootton (or Wootten), was hounded to his death in what Olusoga describes as a lynching. I have never previously seen Edgeware in London mentioned in this context and yet this is where Robert Bissessur and some fellow black soldiers were attacked by a mob.

The incident actually took place in Praed Street which certainly wouldn’t be considered ‘Docklands’ but is quite close to Paddington station and to the Paddington canal basin. Praed Street is little more than a stone’s throw from Cato Street, scene of the 1820 Cato Street conspiracy, on the other side of the Edgeware Road, and only a little north of the site of the infamous Tyburn gallows, so the area is steeped in history. By the 1830s Cato Street was said to be ‘full of the lowest class of Irish’ and when Charles Booth did his poverty survey in the 1890s they were still there.^[2]Conspiracy on Cato Street – A tale of liberty and revolution in Regency London by Vic Catrell It is unlikely much had changed by 1919. So, we can safely assume the area would have been rough and ready by the time Charles and his fellow black soldiers visited.

The story of the riot featured in a number of newspapers, one going so far as to describe what transpired as having the hallmarks of an attempted lynching. John’s article includes an extensive quote from the African Telegraph and Gold Coast Mirror‘s 1^st April 1919 edition but several other newspapers also carried the story.

John has also sent me newspaper cuttings that refer to an incident in Winchester near to the Army camp where white and black soldiers (like Robert Bissessur) were waiting to be demobbed. Clearly racial tension was widespread in 1919, just how widespread probably merits further discussion, for now, we will leave that for another day.

You can read John’s article about Robert Bissessur here:

https://www.historycalroots.com/robert-bissessur-a-man-of-colour-in-the-dorset-regiment-in-the-first-world-war/

References[+]

References
↑1	Black and British – A Forgotten History
↑2	Conspiracy on Cato Street – A tale of liberty and revolution in Regency London by Vic Catrell