Local Black history in personal archives

​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.

Poster for Messrs Wolfenden and Melbourne’s "Gala, Tea Party and Ball" (click image to enlarge).

​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).

The Brandesburton Pygmies feature in Around the Wolds magazine (click image to enlarge).

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. ​

Miss Trevisani and an unknown baby in front of five of the Bailey and Biggs children (L to R: Frank Bailey; Tommy Biggs; Maggie Biggs; Lilian Bailey and Jim Bailey) (click image to enlarge).

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.

Image of circus performers found in Mike Ullyat's book, Life in Old Hull.

Photographs, videos, event memorabilia, magazines and newspapers are all vital to uncovering Black history in Hull and East Yorkshire. Please take a moment to look through your collections and get involved with our project.

If you have any information which you think may be useful to our project, please contact us.

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Footnotes

• [1] Sophie Nield, ‘Popular Theatre, 1895-1940’ in Baz Kershaw (eds), The Cambridge History of British Theatre since 1895, vol. 3 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp.86-110, p. 100
• [2] Hull Packet, 19 December 1862, p. 5
• [3] Mike Ullyat, Life in Old Hull (Dalesman publishing, 1983), p. 53