Article 1: May - June 2001

Mapping Newspaper and Periodical Sources Relating to the Black and Asian Communities in Britain
By Stella Britzolakis, Resident Tutor, University of Warwick

Stella Britzolakis spent several weeks at Colindale, under the auspices of CASBAH (Caribbean Studies and Black and Asian History), an RSLP (Research Support Libraries Programme) project headed by the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London, to identify and map the Newspaper Library's research resources for Caribbean studies and the history of Black and Asian people in Britain:

Many historic titles among the vast collections of the British Library Newspaper Library, such as The Indian Mail, The News of the World, The Universe, Australian and New Zealand Gazette, and The Universal Emigration and Colonization Messenger, promise a potential of recording a Black or Asian presence in Britain, but are in fact targeted either at British citizens planning to emigrate, British emigrants per se, or those in Britain fostering immediate connections with India, Australia, and other countries, rather than indicating any Indian or African activities in Britain. Looking through random copies of The Friend, The British Friend, The Philanthropist, and The Anti-Slavery Advocate, as initial starting points for my research, however, I discovered a number of interesting articles, although many focused predominantly on the USA rather than Britain.

The Antislavery Advocate, though, contained various entries of interest, ranging from expressions of righteous indignation - 'How They Treat a Fugitive Slave in Scarborough', the narrative of a slave escaped from Maryland;[1] to the worried-sounding backlash of anti-slavery - 'Fugitive Slaves on the Tramp in England', Lancashire being the specific location of escaped slaves purportedly using dishonest means to collect money;[2] and the case of Professor W.G. Allen, a 'coloured' man, who with his white wife fled New York and intended to continue his lectures on the 'Origin, History, Literature, and Probable Destiny of the African or Coloured Race', in England.[3]

In its attempt to stir up righteous indignation against the USA, the story of John Glasgow was consistently manipulated throughout consecutive issues of the Antislavery Advocate, with his British citizenship emphasised, under headings like 'Slaveholding Cruelty to British Subjects'.[4] This run of articles was a bid to legitimise the Black man's place in a predominantly White society, by stressing the British national and patriotic sentiment based on law rather than race, colour, or ethnicity, and by attempting to unite and further consolidate this sentiment in the face of a common aggressor or hostile and threatening power (that of the USA). John Glasgow, from Demerera, born of 'free Negro parents' (with his British citizenship clearly emphasised), was at one point living with his wife and tending a small farm just outside Liverpool with their two children in 1830, before he went to sea, and was captured, imprisoned, and sold as a plantation worker in Savannah, Georgia. Instances of more well-known individuals connected with the antislavery movement, whether Black themselves or not, are naturally also given wide and repeated coverage; Harriet Beecher Stowe, the Revd Crowther, and William and Ellen Craft are good examples.

There appears to be a symbiosis of a kind between all the papers sympathetic to the antislavery cause, with the documentation of sources freely acknowledged. In a 'Biography' column from an issue of The British Friend, the life-story of John Minns and his family is narrated, taken from The Antislavery Reporter. John Minns, through various adventures on one of the 'Bahama islands', was saved by, freed, and eventually married a slave named Rosetta. This 'sable benefactress' of his bore him children, two of whom, '(men of colour) had been educated in England, and were persons of considerable talent: they employed their pen in remonstrating against the unjust restrictions to which the free people of colour were then subject'. These 'men of colour', products of an interracial marriage, would possibly have spent some time in England being 'educated', for John Minn's sister, evidently approving of the union, was in England, and had remained in touch with her brother.[5] The British Friend also contains the account of Miss Remond, 'a young lady of colour' from the USA, 'spending the winter in London', who wrote in to the paper on 4th December 1859 to complain about the way she and her sister, Mrs Putnam, had been treated onboard the Cunard steamers and at the 'office of the American minister' in England.[6]

'Sally of Trinidad' is an article which tells of a Mr and Mrs K., who upon returning from the West Indies, brought with them back to Scotland the youngest of the family of one of the emancipated slaves, who was then 'lent out to families at a daily price, to wash linen'. At the time of this article going to press, it was claimed that Sally was 23 years of age; she made 'a submissive request' for some of her earnings, which she was refused, and then was forced to leave the house of her 'pretended friends' being 'denounced as rebellious'. The piece concludes:
She is a stranger in a strange land. She is black, without the least tendency to olive. She is little of stature, strong and healthy, active and industrious.[7]
An article entitled 'The London Shoe-Blacks', whilst discussing the respective advantages and disadvantages of this tradition, mentions in passing that the last London shoe-black was known to be a 'negro'.[8] Examples such as these provide information about the various strata of society which the Black and Asian presence was seen to have assimilated into, the definition of their activities ranging from 'educated' to manual, or what is seen as menial.

Issues of The African Times held in the Newspaper Library (22nd February 1862 to 9th December 1902) did not seem to contain references to Blacks living in Britain in its articles, but was more concerned with correspondence from Lagos, Sierra Leone, Accra, Liberia, and the Gold Coast. However, its commercial pages of 1865 contained an interesting advertisement for a:
SEMINARY FOR AFRICAN YOUNG LADIES, 2, PORTOBELLO ROAD, KENSINGTON PARK, LONDON. MISS SMITH receives a limited number of African Young Ladies for Education. TERMS. For Board, a thorough English Education, instruction in the French Language, Laundress, Seat in Church, Use of Piano, Books, &c; FORTY-TWO GUINEAS per Annum. Home comforts, liberal treatment, and parental kindness are certain.[9]

The African Times also provided information from another article that William Grant, Member of the Legislative Council of Sierra Leone, 'a native of Sierra Leone, of the Eboe tribe', had died in London, having taken 'a severe cold, [being required] to remain [...] in England during the winter months'.[10] But apart from specific details concerning particular individuals, it contained (occasional) articles of a general nature, albeit largely concerned with affairs in Africa, such as 'Destitute Negroes in England'.[11]

'Straying Sarah' appears in the Police & Public, although the eponymous Sarah appears not to have committed any crime apart from being lost and abandoned. She had sailed from Bombay with a family, having applied for a position as a nurse in an Indian paper, but the arrangements appeared to have been confused and she found herself alone at Charing Cross. Her statement was given in a 'curious jargon of dialects' as she was 'unable to speak English'. The story was covered again at a later date, where it appeared that no further information could be gauged concerning her employers, and where it transpired that in the interim, she had been living in the Eyre Home, and her maintenance 'defrayed, as before, out of the funds of the court'.[12]

Apart from instances depicting particular Black or Asian individuals in Britain, whether in a neutral, negative, or positive light, Police & Public also carried articles of a more general nature concerning 'foreigners'. It is unclear, though, whether this term definitely extended to Black and Asian groups of people or whether it merely implied the inclusion of the French, Dutch, Italian, and Jewish communities. A report discussed in one article of 17th August 1889 was provoked by 'The Select Committee on the Emigration and Immigration of Foreigners' and it declared that 'although it is impossible to state with accuracy the number of aliens at present in the United Kingdom', the number was 'not sufficiently large to create an alarm'. They were generally 'confined' to a 'special part of [a few] towns, [working at] tailoring, shoemaking, and cabinet-making, [being] moral, frugal, and thrifty, and inoffensive as citizens, but [were] generally very dirty in their habits'. The greatest concerns appeared to be those of the 'foreigners' lowering the wages of the 'British workmen' and of reducing 'still lower the social and material condition of [the British] poor'. This argument has been utilised with surprising regularity at various times of racial turbulence throughout history. This article, whilst providing us with the information that the authorities themselves at that time were poorly informed as to the exact state of the 'foreigners' within their country, also draws attention to the fact that already the need was arising for a greater policing or control of the minorities, whether this manifested itself in a call for stricter documentation or in the more ominous contemplation of the legislation 'against the importation of pauper and destitute aliens'. Likewise, it is evident how characteristics which are generally considered positive - their so-called thriftiness, their frugality, and their 'quick[ness] at learning' - are all easily metamorphosed into negative attributes in the light of economic competition, or indeed racist and stereotyped value judgements.[13]

It is noteworthy that the colour of the Black or Asian individual being discussed, in some newspapers, is rarely given precedence in the title of the article, if at all. It is not emphasised, or used as an attention-grabbing technique or 'bait' to draw and maintain the reader's attention as a preliminary tactic, although it is generally mentioned as a descriptive used in the first sentence or so of each article. However, this too falls in line with what seems to have been the journalistic tactic of the day, for certain types of papers. In the same way, the subjects of these articles are described variously as 'Mrs ---, a well-dressed, respectable-looking woman', or 'Mr ---, a surly, shifty-looking character'. In this way, colour appears to be merely another characteristic - like a large stomach, or a mean-tempered mouth - that is singled out and commented on, in order to give the reader a succinct descriptive. There is even a case where the colour of the individual being written about is not mentioned at all, and it is only by means of the illustration (assuming that it is accurate) accompanying the piece that the reader is able to reach the conclusion that the man 'almost eaten alive by a tiger [and] so crippled, that he will never be able to resume his dangerous and fool-hardy avocation again' is not Caucasian.[14] Likewise, The Halfpenny Police Gazette, in reference to one of the sketches under the caption 'Scenes in Every Day Life', showing what could plausibly be a black man walking together with a white woman, undergoing public humiliation, merely declares that 'a few words will suffice upon the [subject] chosen by our artist. "The Country Fair," so graphically depicted, is fast becoming a thing of the past'.[15]

Fraternity, which ran from July 1893 to February 1897 as the 'Official Organ of the Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man', was edited by Celestine Edwards, who played an active role in what would in contemporary terminology be termed anti-racial and anti-discriminatory practices, along with a strong emphasis on humanist values, then coined 'anti-caste'. He spoke widely at antislavery meetings, and became known as 'the Negro lecturer'.[16] Fraternity is the most comprehensive and informative single source on the Black and Asian presence in Britain I have come across so far among Colindale's collections, especially insofar as assisting researchers in locating other sources is concerned. It had certain standard sections and columns, such as 'To Their Credit', dedicated to various Black and Asian individuals (mainly American), who made a name for themselves either through their studies, their business achievements, or their heroic actions. Another standard and extremely interesting column was entitled 'What Concerns Ourselves in Recent Magazines', dedicated to all race-related matters given coverage in the press, naturally disapproving and censorious of the negative incidents, and laudatory and supportive of the positive. Fraternity's material is without doubt of enormous interest and value, and I am looking forward to returning to the Newspaper Library to investigate it and other periodicals still further.

References:
[1] The Antislavery Advocate (March 1853): 44-45.
[2] The Antislavery Advocate (August 1853): 85.
[3] The Antislavery Advocate (July 1853): 76.
[4] The Antislavery Advocate (August 1853): 83.
[5] The British Friend (November 1843): 173, 174.
[6] 'Slavery Still At Its Dirty Work', The British Friend (January 1860): 15.
[7] 'Sally of Trinidad', The British Friend (October 1860): 251-252.
[8] 'The London Shoe-Blacks', The British Friend (September 1860): 224-226.
[9] The African Times: Journal of the African-Aid Society (23rd December 1865): 67.
[10] The African Times: Gold Coast Gold Mining and Railway Chronicle (1st February 1882): 15.
[11] 'Destitute Negroes in England', The African Times: Journal of the African-Aid Society (23rd December 1862): 68-69.
[12] Police & Public (10th August 1889): 10; (17th August 1889): 10.
[13] Police & Public (17th August 1889): 1.
[14] 'Terrible Scene at a Menagerie', World's Doings: War, Police, Social Events, Life and Fashion, Incidents and Perils by Land and Sea (9th October 1870): [1], 2.
[15] The Halfpenny Police Gazette; or, London by Gaslight (9th December 1871): 2, 4.
[16] Fraternity (September 1893): 14.

Copyright: © 2000: The British Library Board. Reproduced from Newspaper Library News, 28 (Summer 2000), pp. 6-9. ISSN: 1469-8943.