As Maria Grace’s and Lucy Marin’s posts have shown, Georgian England was far from a monochromatic tapestry.
People from a variety of backgrounds could be found in different walks of life.
Among them, several Black Britons stand out – remarkable people who left their mark on the world around them, on the social and cultural life of the era, and on society as a whole.
Ignatius Sancho was one of them. If you haven’t read Lucy’s post, you can find out more about him here.
Thanks to medievalpoc.tumblr.com, a fabulous resource, we are allowed to meet several other remarkable people:
Ira Aldridge, George Bridgetower, Olaudah Equiano (Source: medievalpoc.tumblr.com)
From left to right:
Ira Frederick Aldridge (1807 – 1867) Born in New York, he emigrated to England and became a distinguished Shakespearian. (Painting by James Northcote, 1826: Ira Frederick Aldridge as Othello – the first time that the play was performed with a black actor in the leading role). [1]
George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower (c.1780 – 1860). A virtuoso violinist and child prodigy, George Bridgetower is best remembered for his association with Beethoven, who composed the Kreutzer Sonata for him. George Bridgetower made his début in Paris in April 1789, aged 9-10. Soon afterwards, his father took him to England, where he was greatly admired at court according to Mrs Papendiek, assistant keeper of the Queen’s wardrobe. In December 1789, he performed at the Assembly Rooms in Bath before an audience of over 550 people, and afterwards there was enthusiastic praise in the Bath Morning Post for ‘…a more crowded and splendid concert than has ever been known in this place.’ From the age of 11, George Bridgetower was first violinist in the Prince of Wales’ (later George IV) private orchestra. [1] [3]
Olaudah Equiano (c.1745 – 1797) Writer and pioneer of the abolitionist cause. Along with Granville Sharp, one of the first British campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade, Equiano publicised the Zong massacre – the mass killing of more than 130 enslaved Africans by the crew of the British slave ship Zong in November 1781, followed by the owners making a claim to their insurers for the loss of their “cargo.” The insurers refused to pay, and when the case came to court, the jury found for the slavers, but at the appeal hearing the decision was overturned by a panel of judges led by Lord Chief Justice, the Earl of Mansfield. Olaudah Equiano lectured in numerous cities against the slave trade and published his memoir, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789), which went through nine editions in his lifetime, and by 1792 had been published in Russia, Germany, Holland and the United States. [2] [9].
Plaque, Picton House (detail). Photo: Ken Bailey. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Cesar Picton (c.1755 – 1836). Born in Senegal and enslaved in his childhood, Cesar Picton became a successful businessman and owner of a wharf and a malt house. By 1807, the year of the Abolition Act, he was able to retire and live as a gentleman. [3]
George Africanus (1763 – 1834) Born in Sierra Leone, George Africanus was brought to England as a slave at the age of three. He served an apprenticeship as a brass founder, then became Nottingham’s first recorded black entrepreneur and went on to own land and several businesses. [3]
Joseph Antonio Emidy (c.1775 – 1835) Born in West Africa and enslaved as a child by Portuguese traders, then pressed into service on a British ship, he eventually settled in Cornwall and earned a living as a violinist and teacher. He married a local tradesman’s daughter and moved to Truro, where he continued to perform, teach and compose music, eventually becoming Leader of the Truro Philharmonic Orchestra and the most influential musical figure in early 19th century Cornwall. [3]
A little glimpse at notable figures in France and beyond:
Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Thomas Alexandre Dumas, Abram Petrovich Gannibal (Source: medievalpoc.tumblr.com)
From left to right:
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745 – 1799) Born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, he was the son of a wealthy planter and his wife’s African slave. His father took him to France when he was young, and he was educated there. He became a champion fencer, classical composer, virtuoso violinist, and conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris. During the French Revolution, he served as a colonel of the Légion St. Georges, the first all-black regiment in Europe. [4]
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas (1762 – 1806) was a French general in Revolutionary France, and the father of the prolific writer Alexandre Dumas (best known as the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo). Thomas Alexandre Dumas was the first person of colour in the French military to become brigadier general, the first to become divisional general, and the first to become general-in-chief of a French army. [5]
Abram Petrovich Gannibal (c.1696 – 1781) Kidnapped as a child, Gannibal was taken to Russia and presented as a gift to Peter the Great, where he was freed, adopted and raised in the Emperor’s household as his godson. He became a major general, military engineer, and a prominent member of the imperial court. He had 11 children, most of whom became members of the Russian nobility. He was a great-grandfather of the author and poet Alexandr Pushkin. [6]
Sadly, records of the time tell us a great deal less about women of colour. They feature in European art, but more often than not we know nothing about them.
Portrait of a young woman. Unknown artist (Source: medievalpoc.tumblr.com)
This beautiful young lady for instance.
We only know that her portrait was painted in the 1800s and the artist was Swiss. Previously attributed to Jean Etienne Liotard, the piece is simply presented as a ‘Portrait of a young woman.’ A handsome and elegantly attired young woman, with a hint of a smile at the corner of her lips.
But what was her name?
Was she a close acquaintance of the artist’s?
Where did she live?
Did she marry?
Was she happy?
Portrait of a Woman in a Blue Turban, Eugène Delacroix (Source: medievalpoc.tumblr.com)
What about this lady, whom Eugène Delacroix had painted in 1827?
All we are told about her portrait is what we can already see for ourselves: that it is a ‘Portrait of a Woman in a Blue Turban.’
Will we ever learn anything else?
We know a great deal more about this iconic double portrait (previously attributed to Zoffany, and now to David Martin):
Dido Elizabeth Belle and Lady Elizabeth Murray by David Martin (Source: Wikimedia Commons)
A niece of Lord Mansfield’s (the Lord Chief Justice who ruled against the owners of the Zong), Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761 – 1804) grew up in her uncle’s household along with her cousin, Lady Elizabeth Murray, the other young lady in this portrait. Dido lived with her uncle and aunt for most of her life, and evidence suggests that she was held in affection and esteem within the family. She was well educated and often helped her uncle by taking dictation of his letters, and there is reason to believe that if she did not sit down for dinner with Lord and Lady Mansfield’s guests when her uncle and aunt were entertaining, the arrangement was meant to spare her feelings, not just to accommodate the visitors and their prejudices.
It was the late 1700s, so it comes as no surprise that prejudice abounded. Some recorded reactions to Dido make for staggering reading. We can only imagine her feelings when some were astonished to find that she could recite poetry or that she grew up to have her uncle’s confidence and esteem. [8]
Much was written about the double portrait of the cousins and the way they were shown as near-equals; about Dido’s playful pose and her elegant and visibly expensive attire. But art historians have noted that her portrayal still harks back to the visual culture of the period, to the paintings, the engravings and the multitude of ceramic objects that depicted people of colour in feathered turbans bringing tea, coffee, or plates of fruit. [11] [12].
What of the real Miss Lambes of Jane Austen’s England?
What did they make of the Lady Denhams and the Miss Bingleys of their world? Of the ill-will, the prejudices and the patronising condescension of ladies who were less accomplished and substantially less wealthy?
What did they make of presumptuous suitors who assessed them as nothing more than exotic commodities that came with a well-padded purse?
How many of these young ladies saw such suitors for what they were?
How many found themselves cheated of their inheritance and their independence, and tied for life to unworthy men?
How many found genuine affection? And once they had found it, was true happiness possible for them only in their homes, away from society’s jaundiced eye and from its bigotry and prejudice?
More to the point, how is it possible that, more than two hundred years on, prejudice still abounds?
How long until nothing matters more than hearts and minds and what we do in the world?
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Sources:
Featured Image by DarkWorkX from Pixabay
[1] https://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/69983011101/best-of-2013-people-of-color-in-england
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olaudah_Equiano
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chevalier_de_Saint-Georges
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas-Alexandre_Dumas
[6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abram_Petrovich_Gannibal
[7] https://medievalpoc.tumblr.com/post/53279719036/unknown-formerly-att-johann-zoffany-dido
[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dido_Elizabeth_Belle
[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zong_massacre
[11] http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/s/silver-service-slavery-the-black-presence-in-the-white-home/
[12] https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/women-in-history/dido-belle/
24 comments
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What a wonderful post. Thanks for including the art.
Author
The portraits are so beautiful, aren’t they?
Thanks for reading, Denise!
Thank you for this Joana. I’ve always been selective about history ie I love Roman, Medieval, Renaissance, Regency and Ancient Egyptian but other stuff not so much. So I never really thought about any of this but it’s definitely sad that such prejudice still exists in this supposedly enlightened age!
Author
So sad, and such slow progress for, as you say, a supposedly enlightened age… Thanks for reading, Glynis.
Fascinating to read about Alexander Dumas’ father, Joana.
I loved the portraits of the unnamed young ladies. Their untold stories beckon to the imagination of an author…
Author
I thought so too, Monica. I had never read anything before about Thomas Alexandre Dumas and his military career. So fascinating! And the ladies are such a mystery. That really does beckon to the imagination, doesn’t it?
Wonderful post, Joana. It’s sad that one has to “dig” to find information about non-Caucasians in Europe during this era.
Author
So sad, Debbie! But one good thing is that information seems more accessible now than it was even a few decades ago. And I think there are many more sources too.
All the best and thanks for reading!
The stories people are posting on this site are wonderful. Surely they’ve got to make a TV drama about black people in Regency Britain soon? God knows there’s plenty of material. Of course only a few were very wealthy and socially secure like Nathaniel Wells; it was a time of dreadful inequality and most blacks, like most whites, led harsh and precarious lives. You glimpse some of it when you search in the newspapers of the day. I would definitely like to know more about the American Miss Charlotte Dunne, who was in The Times police report in May 1829.
She was a black woman who claimed to have been seduced by Sir Arthur Gore, a member of the Irish aristocracy, and taken by him to Bermuda as his mistress. She said he’d promised to remember her in his will and when he died and no legacy was forthcoming she showed up in London and applied to his brother, Admiral Sir John Gore. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. She kept coming to Sir John’s house until one day when she turned up “the moment the Admiral saw her he ran upstairs to avoid her, upon which she caught him by the leg, and but for the interference of the servants would have dragged him all over the house, if he refused to do her justice. ” Poor Admiral Gore! and him a naval hero and related to the Earls of Arran. I actually don’t know how this ended for Charlotte but I really want to.
And there are plenty of people equally interesting – like Bill Richmond, the Virginia-born prizefighter who was idolised by “the Fancy”. (He and his great friend Tom Cribb, another legendary prizefighter, were actually hired to walk in George IV’s coronation procession because George was frightened the mob might go for him – George knew he wasn’t popular with the London crowds and they were.) There’s William Davidson, a Jamaican executed for his part in the Cato Street Conspiracy and fellow Jamaican Robert Wedderburn, fairly unusual in being simultaneously a political radical, Methodist preacher and the illegitimate son of a Scottish laird. (His many-times-great-grandson was the late Labour politician Baron Wedderburn.) There were countless black sailors – at least nine were fighting aboard Nelson’s ‘Victory’ during Trafalgar – while in the Caribbean the mixed-race Captain John Perkins actually defied the odds to make it as far as the rank of naval captain. There’s Henrietta Sala, opera singer and adventuress, grand-daughter of the famously rich Dorothy Thomas – and of course there’s Mrs Thomas herself, the formidable “Queen of Demerara”. What about Philip Thompson, whose wealthy plantation-owning mistress brought him to England as a child from the West Indies as a slave? When she ordered him to be whipped by her butler he knocked the man down, ran off and then sued the pair of them for assault. (Proved against the butler but the mistress got off because friends testified that actually she was just like a mother to all her servants and if anything more tender to the blacks than the whites etc etc.) I really could go on, and I’m sure a competent historian like David Olusoga could cite many more.
There’s no shortage of black actors. Why aren’t Netflix and the like fighting over who will be first to make a series?
Author
Thanks for sharing all this information, Rita! I’ve read about Bill Richmond, Tom Cribb and William Davidson, but not the others.
There really should be a series. So much to choose from, so many amazing life stories to portray!
Until recently my local library service subscribed to The Times newspaper archive online (1786 onwards), which they made freely available to users at home. It was great – very easy to search, so I soon found a fair number of interesting references in it.
But of course in a way I suppose it’s given me a false impression of black life in Regency England as a constant whirl of drama and excitement, whereas in reality most blacks, like most whites, would live quietly and never get their names in the paper! But the stories I found still fascinated me – even though sadly, as with Caroline Dunne, I seem doomed to get a part but seldom the whole thing…
Anyway, library cuts have ended the fun now. I hope in the future perhaps someone more academic will get a grant to do it thoroughly.
Author
What a resource, Rita! Such a pity that it’s been discontinued!
I see what you mean about the whirl of drama and excitement and that the day-to-day didn’t make it to the papers. That’s such a pity too, because more often than not it’s the day-to-day that we’d love to learn more about.
I hope you get to discover a bit more about Miss Dunne! It would be so fascinating to learn what became of her, and if she managed to get Admiral Gore to do the right thing after all.
It’s rather long for a comment, but I found a little more about Charlotte Dunne. She was brought before Marylebone magistrates – after her dramatic appearance at the home of Admiral Gore – and there she gave more details of her history.
She said she was from Chesapeake in America and during the 1812 War had been captured by a man she called “the General”. He had brought her to England – aged just 14 – aboard the ship ‘Abundance’, landing at Gosport on 22 June 1813. He had then taken her with him to London. And as they came into Piccadilly he told her “no longer to call him General Arthur Gore but Mr Grant.”
Smells fishy, right?
Summoned to Europe to fight the foreign foe the gallant “Captain Grant” then left Charlotte in the care of a doctor’s wife called Mrs Robertson of no.3, Prospect-place, London Road, paying £9 for her continued maintenance. And strangely, though she was not left as a servant Mrs R quickly treated her like one; by the following November Charlotte was farmed out as nursery-maid to the family of a Mrs Lavers. She remained with the Lavers for 9 years and “she had subsequent places”.
Enter a Mrs Grover, formerly Mrs Robertson, who confirmed the basic story:”The applicant was placed under her care by a gentleman who called himself Captain Grant…”
By this time it’s clear both the magistrate and Admiral thought Charlotte had been tricked by some rogue of an officer who’d amused himself by getting her to call him “General Gore”. Moreover, they’d apparently found him now and offered to take her to see him – but even threatened with jail if she persisted, Charlotte wouldn’t go. She wanted her rights from Admiral Gore and regardless of the consequence she swore she’d confront him again at his home.
The exasperated Admiral gave up. He’d sooner leave town than have her jailed:” I don’t want to punish her; I’m going out of town and shall be beyond her reach.” He begged her one last time to come with him to meet the nameless gentleman who could explain everything convincingly to her but no, said Charlotte, “…why don’t you bring him here?”
Oh, Charlotte. Because the scumbag didn’t want to be sworn in court under his true name and then have it published in The Times. The story ends “and (Charlotte) went away dissatisfied.”
Postscript: I took a gamble and looked for Charlotte in the census returns – and yes, she’s there, in both 1841 and 1851 – lodging in Lambeth, unmarried, working as a charwoman, and born in the United States. She isn’t in the 1861 census but in 1855 there’s a death entry for a “Charlotte Dunn” of Lambeth. So I did get the end of that story, but I wish it had been happier.
A fascinating and edifying post–thank you for the historical detail and the portraits–and some equally informative comments. Thanks, Joana!
Author
Thank *you*, Jan, for stopping by to read the post. I’m hugely indebted to medievalpoc.tumblr.com for the portraits. I don’t think I could have found them otherwise. Rita’s comment was so informative! Thanks again, Rita, for sharing your knowledge with us, and best wishes to you both.
A picture is worth a thousand words… that especially rings true with the lovely pictures you have presented. Lacking too [as stated] are pictures of other black historical figures of the times. I grew up during the days of segregation when black students were taught in one school and white students in another. I also remember when we were all brought together under one roof. When will people learn? In God’s eyes, we all come from Adam and Eve and are considered His children. I pray for the day when we can peacefully come together as brothers and sisters. Blessings dear Joana. Be safe and stay healthy.
Author
Blessings to you too, dear Jeanne, and I hope that fairness and enlightenment will come sooner rather than later. Be safe too and best wishes to you and your loved ones.
Thanks for sharing all this great information about people we so rarely hear about! I find George Bridgetower fascinating.
Author
Thanks for reading and sharing the post, Abigail! George Bridgetower was amazing, wasn’t he? Not only that he was so talented, but I’m in awe of him keeping it together at such a young age and travelling abroad to be introduced to the king and queen of a foreign country and their entire court, play for them, then perform before hundreds of people. And the age of ten or less! Staggering!
Thank you for this truly important post!
Author
Thank *you*, Jen, for visiting and reading!
That was a very interesting read. Thank you for your research. I loved Sumaa’ stories and learned (on my own) about his father when I was in college.
Thank you for sharing all of this fascinating information, Joana! I learned so much!