Hello, I am Terry, Archives and Local Studies Manager. In my last blog I wrote about a document from the English Civil War, a particular interest of mine. Recently, a researcher at the History Centre gave me a reference to an entry in a parish register that relates to another interest of mine, that is British Black History. It was from the Calne Parish Register of burials and dated 10^th December 1586 and notes the burial of “Maria Mandula advena et aethiops (stranger and AEthiops).”  Is this the earliest reference to a Black person in Wiltshire?

An entry from Calne Burial Register

Of course, we can never truly know if Maria Mandula was Black, but I was reminded by my colleague, Archivist Robert Pearson, that the word aethiops was used by Shakespeare to describe some Black people [aethiops was a term used for a black compound or mineral and also people originating from Ethiopia i.e. Africa].  We do know that Black people have been present in Britain since Roman times. A division of Moors, Numerus Maurorum Aurelianorum, was stationed on Hadrian’s Wall and archaeological evidence shows a number of Black Africans buried at York around the same period. The Roman Emperor Septimus Severus, born in Libya, was also buried at York. We also know that by the early 1500’s a number of Black people were associated with royal courts, notably John Blanke, a trumpeter who is depicted on the Great Tournament Roll of Westminster celebrating the birth of a son to Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, while Pedro Negro was possibly the first Black person knighted (by the Duke of Somerset at Roxburgh in 1547). By the reign of Elizabeth I, privateers like John Hawkins were dabbling in the slave trade along the Guinea coast in West Africa and it became fashionable in Britain to own a Black slave or servant, a fashion that lasted through the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century, where the estimated Black population in London, alone, numbered around 15 – 20,000. It is no surprise, therefore, to find Black people like Maria Mandula in Wiltshire documents such as parish registers, mostly as adult baptisms or burials, and occasionally marriages. For example, in May 1779 the burial register for the parish of St Paul, Marlborough, contains an entry for George Sydown, ‘A Black Drummer in the Wilts Rgt of Militia.’ Other documents we are surveying also highlight a Black presence. An engraving of Wilton House in the eighteenth century clearly depicts a Black servant while the Salisbury Journal, February 28^th 1763 carries an advertisement reading “[Sarum] Wants a Place as Footman, A Sober young Black, who can sound the French Horn extremely well.”

An entry from Calne Burial Register

The East Tytherton Moravian Graveyard Restoration Project has recently discovered a gravestone for Leonora Casey Carr (1808-1837) an Antiguan ‘Mostee’(a person of dual heritage), daughter of Frances, a slave woman, and George Carr, and has researched her life.

Coming up to the present, the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre is also involved in a community history project, SEE ME – The Wiltshire Black History Project, that will be looking to record the oral testimonies of elders in the African-Caribbean and other BME communities, including a number of inter-generational activities and I will update you on this in future blogs.

Please do let me know if you come across any references to Black people in Wiltshire records or if you wish to be involved in our exciting new project.