Black Victorians: Hidden in History
Beyond the patrician vision of Victorian Britain traditionally advanced in our textbooks, there always existed another, more diverse Britain, populated by people of colour marking achievements both ordinary and extraordinary.
Black lives were visible, present and influential.
William Cuffay
A Black working-class radical who protested and plotted for democratic reform. His efforts saw him exiled to Tasmania.
Sarah Forbes Bonetta
A West African orphan who became goddaughter to Queen Victoria and was feted in society circles.
Fanny Eaton
A Jamaican-born artists’ model who helped shape the now-famous Pre-Raphaelite aesthetic.
Ira Aldridge
A star of the stage who won acclaim for his defining role in Othello.
Henry 'Box' Brown
Having earned his sobriquet in an extraordinary escape from slavery, Brown joined the popular abolitionist speaking circuit in Britain.
Pablo Fanque
A circus impresario who transformed popular entertainment in Britain and later inspired a Beatles song.
Ida B. Wells
A powerful anti-racist orator and Black feminist who called time on white supremacy.
Want to find out more about these remarkable figures?
Read Keshia N. Abraham and John Woolf’s landmark history exploring and celebrating the lives of Black Victorians.
In this deeply researched and dynamic history, Woolf and Abraham reach into the archives to recentre our attention on marginalised Black Victorians, from leading medic George Rice to political agitator William Cuffay to abolitionists Henry ‘Box’ Brown and Sarah Parker Remond; from pre-Raphaelite muse Fanny Eaton to renowned composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. While acknowledging the paradoxes of Victorian views of race, Black Victorians demonstrates, with storytelling verve and a liberatory impulse, how Black people were visible and influential, firmly rooted in British life.
#BlackHistoricalLivesMatter
