Within the last five years, the forgotten role of Black service personnel in the First and Second World Wars has been investigated by authors such as Stephen Bourne, Mark Johnson and Linda Hervieux.[1] Collectively their research has demonstrated that men and women of African descent served in the Army, Navy and Royal Air Force as well as on the Homefront during both global conflicts. Building upon their works we have released stories on the Merchant Marine, the West Indian Pilots and Ground Crew as well as WAAF Lilian Bader, to demonstrate the local presence of Black service personnel in Hull and East Yorkshire during World War One and Two. However, while most of these stories are overwhelmingly positive, it has been possible for us to highlight the sacrifices made by people of African descent during war with stories such as the death of Adolphus Meheux. To add further layers to this theme, we have found the graves of four Black servicemen who were linked to East Yorkshire.
Footnotes
[1] Stephen Bourne, Black Poppies: Britain’s Black Community and the Great War (Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2014) and Stephen Bourne, The Motherland Calls: Britain’s Black Servicemen & Women 1939-45 (Gloucestershire: The History Press, 2012); Mark Johnson, Caribbean Volunteers at War: The forgotten story of the RAF’s ‘Tuskegee Airmen’ (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2014); Linda Hervieux, Forgotten: The Untold Story of D-Day’s Black Heroes (Gloucestershire: Amberley, 2015). [2] Wartime Recollections: Brenda Gray (nee Downs) http://www.angelfire.com/de3/fileycasualties/Brenda_Gray.htm [accessed 02/04/2017] [3] With thanks to Stephen Bourne for bringing Vivian Florent to our attention and for his support. For more information on Vivian Florent see Stephen Bourne, The Motherland Calls, p. 125-126.
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This black and white photograph was taken in February 1937 as members of Lew Leslie’s Blackbird Theatre group laid a wreath at the William Wilberforce Monument in the centre of Hull.
The African American troupe had completed successful performances in the West End of London before they travelled to Hull and dazzled locals in the Palace Theatre. Among the group were Tim Moore and composer J. Rosamond Johnson (click HERE to listen to the well-known song ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing') which he composed and wrote with his brother James Weldon Johnson as well as other talented singers, comedians and dancers. If you know more about this photograph or would like to submit an image for display on our website, please do not hesitate to contact us HERE. You can view other project images in our Picture Gallery HERE. *Thanks to Vanessa Salter and Hull Museums for supplying us with this image.
Hull, November 12, 1792. The bearer hereof, Mr. GUSTAVUS VASSA, an African, is recommended to us by the Rev. Dr. Peckard, Dean of Peterborough, and by many other very respectable characters, as an intelligent and upright man; and as we have no doubt but the accounts we have received are grounded on the best authority, we recommend him to the assistance of the friends of humanity in this town, in promoting subscriptions to an interesting Narrative of his Life. John Sykes, Mayor, R. A. Harrison, Esq Thomas Clarke, Vicar, Jos. R. Pease, Esq William Hornby, Esq of Gainsborough. While this letter of recommendation demonstrates that Equiano had the support of prominent men in the locality, it does not prove that he visited Hull or East Yorkshire in the winter of 1792. Unlike other letters of the same nature, there is no personal testimony about Equiano or any confirmation within the text that these men had personally met the abolitionist. In addition, as of yet no evidence of Equiano’s presence has been found in local newspapers, or in the surviving memoirs of prominent local men. Thus, whether he visited the region remains a mystery.
If you have information which demonstrates that Equiano did come to Hull, please click the contact us button below. This portrait photograph below was taken at the studios of Sunley and Toogood, 10 Caroline Place, Hull. It highlights the small, yet often forgotten, Black population that had resided in Hull since the Tudor era. The clothing suggests that this was a poorer resident, but it is interesting that he was photographed so far from the dock area, where so many Black seafarers lived while ashore. At sea, most of Hull’s early Black population worked as seafarers rated as cooks or donkeymen (stokers) but being on shore provided them with an opportunity to purchase photographs to send to loved ones living locally or further afield. It is possible to date the photograph because the company only operated at the address for a short period of time. The image is from the collection of Dr Nicholas Evans at the University of Hull. Dr Evans added: “The photograph is the earliest of a member of Hull’s black community and we would love to know who this image is of.” Please press the contact us button below if you have more information about this image.
As the Contemporary Voices part of our project is coming to an end and we are preparing for our first exhibition at the Hull History Centre in September, we have decided to launch a new feature which looks to chart the African presence in Hull and East Yorkshire through images and videos. While some include famous people, such as Desmond Tutu others are of men and women who we have found no further information about. Although for confidentiality reasons we need to be very careful when selecting images for our collection, we would encourage you to look through your family photographs or local newspapers to find pictures showing Black entertainers, sportsmen, politicians or servicemen in the region between 1750 and 2007. Alternatively, if you are of African descent and wish to send us a picture of yourself with a small biography, please do so. As well as photographs and newspaper clippings we are also very interested in copies of any drawings or paintings you may have discovered in Hull and East Yorkshire highlighting the African presence in the region. Once these sources have been showcased in our blog, they will be added to our existing photo and video gallery. Already, located on these pages are a host of images which have featured alongside the many stories that we have published plus my personal favourite a video of a small group of Black boxers at Hull fair in 1902 (to watch this clip, click the image above and go to 2.43-3.30 on the video). Don’t forget to check back tomorrow when we will be releasing the first picture in our fabulous collection. Please click here if you would like to send us your photographs or videos. While every historian loves the experience of being in an archive and handling documents from the past, the digital age has enabled researchers to quickly find an array of information that they may not have been able to otherwise access. Evidence documenting people of African descent who visited, lived and worked in Hull and East Yorkshire can be found all over the world. For example, pictured below is the death certificate of Oswald Z Paris, a 46-year-old Black man who died on 14 February 1928 in Greensboro, Gilford, North Carolina, USA.[1] While shedding light on his death, this document also demonstrates that he was born in Hull around 1882 and his father was J. K. Paris. Unfortunately, further information on his parents has not yet been found. However, at least one of them must have been of African descent. Further evidence located in America demonstrates that he arrived in New York on 4 April 1902. In 1920, he lived at number 1701 Maudle Avenue, Newport, Virginia with his wife Emma B. Paris and was working as a musician.[2] He later went on to be a music teacher in a school.[3] Further records from across the Atlantic demonstrate that Hull born Raymond B. Edwards had emigrated to America in the first half of the twentieth century. The information on his U.S. World War II Draft Registration Card shows that he was born in Hull on 2 January 1892 and by 1942 lived at 2746 Mickle Avenue, the Bronx with his wife.[4] It also documents that he worked for the British Government at their Ministry of War Transport Office in New York. As pictured below, he was described as a 50-year-old man with black hair and a dark brown complexion.[5] We have also identified two Black women that were born in Hull but moved to America for a short time. These were Dorothea Anita Forde and Gwendoline Cecilia Philpot. As people move from one region to another and sometimes emigrated across the seas to create a new life, they are lost in a larger migration story. Thus, this is a national and international call for information to all family historians. If you have an ancestor who visited, lived or worked in Hull or East Yorkshire and was of African descent please get in touch because we would love to document their presence in the region! Also, if you have further information on the people mentioned in this post we would love to hear from you. Footnotes
[1] Ancestry.com. North Carolina, Death Certificates, 1909-1976 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. [2] Ancestry.com. 1920 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010. Images reproduced by FamilySearch. [3] Ancestry.com. North Carolina, Death Certificates, 1909-1976 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2007. [4] The National Archives at St. Louis, Missouri, Draft Registration Cards for Fourth Registration for New York State, 04/27/1942 - 04/27/1942; NAI Number: 2555973, Records of the Selective Service System: 147 [5] Ibid. The relatively recent surge of interest in family history has prompted websites such as Ancestry and Find My Past to digitise a broad range of records to aid research. These websites have been extremely useful in helping us identify and reconstruct the lives of people with African heritage in Hull and East Yorkshire. Recently, we have been using online data from the 1881 census to find potential people of African descent in the region. While information from the census usually, raises more questions than it answers, it is a fantastic starting point as each entry records a person’s full name, birth place, age, occupation and address. Below is a list of names that we have collected from the this census so far. With additional research, it is hoped that we will be able to identify those with African heritage and provide stories about their lives. Unfortunately, it may not be possible to find further information about all of these individuals as often people disappear from the records. However, every person we identify with African heritage is important in demonstrating that that there was a Black presence in Hull and East Yorkshire in the late nineteenth century.
Please contact us if you have any further information about the people featured in this list or you would like advice on how you can help our project by becoming a volunteer researcher in your spare time. Last week, I visited the National Archives in Kew to gather information on the West Indian recruits who trained at Filey and the small contingent of Black American G.I’s based at Cottingham during World War Two. While records relating to the conflict are in abundance and the majority are very well preserved, after trawling through a large number of files kept by the Air Ministry, Colonial and War Offices it became increasing apparent that finding any specific information was going to be very difficult.
We now have a multitude of stories of people of African descent in Hull and East Yorkshire on our project website, and are adding to these stories every week. For example last week we released the story of Lilian Bader written for us by our guest writer Audrey Dewjee. Lilian, pictured below, was born in Liverpool in 1918 the daughter of Barbadian-born Marcus Bailey and moved to Hull when she was about seven years old. Lilian joined the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force) during WWII and went on to marry and have two children. Read Lilian's story HERE. We also released Emmanuel Armah’s oral history last week. Emmanuel's interview is the twenty fifth in our Contemporary Voices series. Listen to Emmanuel's interview, and find out more about our oral history project here.
Yesterday we launched a page on Duse Mohamed Ali, probably the most famous person of African descent to have lived and worked in Hull and tomorrow look out for a new blog post on my research at the National Archives in Kew into the West Indian recruits and American Black G.I’s during World War Two! If you are enjoying reading our stories and listening to our oral histories and are interested in the experiences of Black people in the region and would like to get involved then click on the contact us button below. We have new releases appearing every week, so please pop back to the Africans in Hull & East Yorkshire Project site again! |
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