The fantastic Hull Daily Mail Flashback series has published several pictures which document people of African descent in Hull and East Yorkshire over the decades. We are delighted that we can celebrate the people who are featured and include their presence in our project.

Some of the photographs we have come across contain people who have engaged with our project such as the picture below showing David Gambe playing in the Beverley Blue Brass Band with John Jessop, Alan Whittle, Mike Palframan, Pete Barnecutt and Marian Grimes at a parade in 1987. [1]

David Gambe is one of the 30 contributors to our Contemporary Voices series of oral histories.

• Hear about David’s journey from Rhodesia to England via a trade union scholarship, and about how he eventually settled in Hull with a near 30-year career in social work.

Another recent feature has been Clive Sullivan and other friends of Tom Wilson’s at the former Hull City and Goole Town defender’s testimonial fund dinner in 1978. [2]

• Read our feature on Clive’s professional career and a fascinating account of how he met his wife Ros (in her own words).

​The photo below shows Hull City’s Alex Dyer with Tom Wilson presenting a trophy to Peter Coulson, the captain of the Croxby School football team for winning the Beverley and Haltemprice B league for under 11’s. Sadly, this picture is undated, but it is believed to have been taken when Dyer played for Hull City in the 1980s. [3]
 
Hull City AFC was founded in 1904 but it was not until 1986 that Black footballers became part of the squad.

• Read our feature for more about The Tigers' Black footballers which began with Ray Daniel and included Dyer himself in 1987.

​There are other pictures which have featured in the flashback series that we would love to know more about, such as the image below which shows Peter Brough and his dummy Archie meeting ‘war orphans’ in January 1954 at the Regal Cinema, Hull.

If you are one of the children or know someone in this photograph, please contact us. We are looking to produce a story on children orphaned during the First and Second World War soon so any information you are willing to share would be greatly appreciated. [4]

​With thanks to Dr Nicholas Evans for bringing these images to our attention.

​Our calls for information have led to the rediscovery of some unexpected treasures which have been found in the personal archives of several people.

During the exhibition period, one of our City of Culture volunteers showed us a poster (pictured below) which had been hanging on her wall for years. It shows Messrs Wolfenden and Melbourne’s "Gala, Tea Party and Ball" at the Zoological Gardens in Hull on 22 July 1861, which featured performances from many artists.

​The poster shows that the day of entertainment included the Alabama Minstrels - a "troupe of real blacks" advertised to perform "negro melodies, dances and conundrums." Further research shows that people of African descent were part of this minstrels group and were not white men in the 'blackface' makeup that had become reasonably popular in this period. [1]

The Alabama Minstrels again returned to Hull the following year. They performed at the Queen’s Theatre, Paragon Street on 19 December 1862. [2] If this poster had not been shown to us, it is likely that the presence of these entertainers in the city would have lost.

More recently, our thanks go to Mike Wilson (a local history enthusiast from Bridlington), for sending us the article below about the Brandesburton Pygmies which featured in the small local magazine, Around the Wolds, in the early 1990s. He came across this after hearing about our request for relevant material and sent it to us so we could add the article to our Pygmies archive (read more about the Brandesburton Pygmies here).

We would also like to thank Ian Broad and Audrey Dewjee who supplied us with a wonderful image (below) of children from the Bailey and Biggs families following our Children’s Homes blog. This photograph was taken c.1924 at a Board of Guardians children's home in Linnaeus Street, Hull. It shows Miss Trevisani (a foster mother) with an unknown baby on her lap, then, from left to right standing up, Frank Bailey; Tommy Biggs; Maggie Biggs; Lilian Bailey and Jim Bailey. ​

You never know where you will find something that would be useful to our project. After a casual glance through old local history book Life in Old Hull by Mike Ullyat, we found a gentleman (possibly a circus performer) at Hull Fair in 1911. [3] This image was originally supplied by Ted Dodsworth. We would love to know more about the gentleman in the photograph so if you have any further information please submit it to us via the website here.