2021 Calendar; African Lives in Northern England
Although this calendar was not published directly by ourselves, the Society has supported it and is glad to offer its website to host further information and resources about the individuals and places featured in it. Follow this link for an article in the Journal, one of Newcastle's local newspapers, on 26 December 2020 about it.
Introduction to the Calendar
This calendar showcases the long history of African lives in Northern England, from Roman soldiers on Hadrian’s Wall to actors in the twenty-first century. We have aimed to share the highlights, such as the people believed to be the first black editor and the first black J.P. in Britain, and the first black professional footballer in the world. Others include the enslaved woman who escaped across the Atlantic and settled in North Shields, the ANC fighter who settled in Tynemouth, and famous visitors such as Martin Luther King.
Main sources and references
The informal group compiling the calendar drew on a number of sources for their information. The main ones were;
- John Charlton, Hidden Chains: The Slavery Business and North East England, Tyne Bridge Publishing, 2008. This was the fruit of The Remembering Slavery Archive Mapping and Research Project, led by the Literary and Philosophical Society in Newcastle and assisted by local history groups. It uncovered a large amount of archival material in the region’s institutions, exposing many links between the North East and the slave trade. The guide to the project, published in 2007, and an illustrated booklet, are both available online. The e-newsletters of the group of volunteers working on this project (North East Slavery and Abolition Group, NESAG) contain a wealth of further information, and are available online from Tyne and Wear Archives.
- Sean Creighton, The Involvement of People of African Heritage in the North East, available online, draws on the material from the Remembering Slavery project, and adds much more. It is an updated version of Sean's article in North East History, vol 39 (2008), pp. 11-24,one of a number of articles in that volume relating to slavery and the slave trade. A pdf of this volume can be downloaded from the North East Labour History website.
- Peter Fryer, Staying Power, The History of Black People in Britain (second edition), Pluto Press, 2018
- David Olusoga, Black and British – A forgotten history, Book linked to the TV series, BBC/ Pan Macmillan 2016
- Nigel Todd, Black-on-Tyne – the Black Presence on Tyneside in the 1860s, North East Labour History Society 1987. The background material collected for this is in a dossier of the same name, put together as a teaching resource at the same time. Follow this link for the collage on the front cover and the introduction. For further information, please e-mail Nigel Todd. The items included are all in the Newcastle City Library Local Studies Collection, with the exception of the Black Diamond boxer who is in the Shipley Art Gallery.
Another useful reference book is David Renton, Colour Blind? Race and Migration in North East England, University of Sunderland Press, 2007.
In addition, Historic England and the National Trust have both recently brought out reports linking England's built environment with colonialism and the transatlantic slave trade, downloadable from their websites. They are;
- The Transatlantic Slave Economy and England’s Built Environment: A Research Audit, Historic England, 2020, available for downloading in full.
- Interim Report on the Connections between Colonialism and Properties now in the Care of the National Trust, Including Links with Historic Slavery, National Trust 2020, downloadable here
Individuals and places
Each individual and place featured in the Calendar has a sub-page of its own (or will have when this work-in-progress is finished). They are listed below in alphabetical order, not in order of the months in which they appear. These pages include quotations from some of the sources above (especially Creighton and Todd) and further information, references and links where these are available. Click on each sub-heading below to be taken to the relevant page (where there is no link, that page has not yet been finalised);
- Aballava (Burgh by Sands, January)
- Aldridge, Ira (actor, October)
- Coleridge-Taylor, George (Nationbuilders, December)
Photo taken by Yutaka Nagata, United Nations photo library, in United Nations and Sierra Leone, by Ade Daramy with permission from the author.
- Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel (Musicians, November)
Picture, United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs division via Wikimedia Commons
- Constantine, Learie (Sports People, July)
Picture Credit; Wikimedia Commons, from National Library of Australia - https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-162155046.
He has a very full biography in Wikipedia, and an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. There is a blue plaque to him at 101 Lexham Gardens, Kensington, London, where he lived from 1949-1954
- Craft, Ellen and William
- Cummings, Ismael and Ivor (medicine, September)
Picture Credit; Windrush ship, Royal Navy official photographer - This is photograph FL 9448 from the collections of the Imperial War Museums, downloaded from Wikipedia Commons
- Durham, Jimmy (Africans in Uniform, May)
- Edwards, Celestine (Writers and Publishers, June)
Sunderland University has provided a recording of the virtual unveiling of the blue plaque to Celestine Edwards, which took place on 15 October. There is also a podcast, material written by journalism students at the unversity, and related resources. There is a biography of him in Wikipedia.
Picture reproduced by permission of National Archives; newspaper cutting, Sunderland Echo, 30 Sept, 1891, p. 3, sourced from Local History Library@ETR
Back page, picture of plaque reproduced by permission of Sunderland City Council
- Equiano, Olaudah (Writers and Publishers, June)
- Fifefield, William (working class residents, February)
- Fisk Jubilee Singers (Entertainers, August)
- Kent, John (Africans in Uniform, May)
- King, Martin Luther (Orators, April)
Picture credit; Beverley Prevatt Goldstein
- Macham, Mary Ann (Working class residents, February)
- Omorogbe, Osa (Actors, October)
Picture credit David Faulkner
- O'Neal, Charles (Nationbuilders, December)
Picture Credit; Barbadosstamps.co.uk, Barbados Postal Service
- Psyche (Untold stories, March)
Picture; Yale Centre for British Art, via Wikimedia Commons. An article concerning the bust, and other eighteenth-century sculptures of Black figures, was published online by the Centre in November 2015.
- Paul Robeson (Musicians, November)
Picture Credit; Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division, Farm Security Administration - Office of War Information Photograph Collection, via Wikimedia Commons
- Sibeko, Archie (nation-builder, December)
Picture credit: with permission from Steve Brock. Sibeko was also known as Zola Zembe and Zola Ntembe. His autobiography, Freedom in our Lifetime, co-authored by his wife Joyce (Leeson) was published by Unison, Northern Region in 1996 with sales proceeds to a schools project in Tyume valley, Eastern Cape, with which Archie and Joyce were associated. Two copies were presented to the Lit and Phil in Newcastle, and are available on loan.
- Tyne Concert Hall
picture credit, Don O'Meara
- Victor (tombstone, January).
Picture credit: Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums
See Africans on Hadrian’s Wall World Heritage Site, a blog by Bill Griffiths and Alex Croom, on the Arbeia section of Tyne and Wear Museums and Archives website.
- Wellesley-Cole, Robert (medicine, September)
He has a Wikipedia page. Picture credit: Wikipedia Commons, from an anonymous photographer
- West Indian Cricket Team 1923 (Sports People, July)
Picture credit: Team picture reproduced by permission of Alamy. They also have a Wikipedia entry
- Wharton, Arthur (Sports People, July)
Picture credit: reproduced with permission from Sean Campbell, Arthur Wharton Foundation