BRITAIN · PEOPLE · MEMORY
1987—2027
40 years of Black History Month in the UK
EXPLORE THE COLLECTION
Francis Barber’s life included enslavement, naval service, education, marriage and teaching. Letters, family records and his contribution to Samuel Johnson’s biography reveal a man making choices…
John Ystumllyn made a life as a gardener, craftsman, husband and father in north Wales. His portrait and the surviving accounts connect Black Welsh history with…
Diego helped Francis Drake’s men find allies and survive in Panama before travelling to England and across the Pacific. His recorded work as an intermediary, builder…
Reasonable Blackman worked as a silk weaver in Elizabethan Southwark. Parish records connect his family to a neighbourhood of migrant craftspeople, while the deaths of two…
Mary Fillis arrived in England as a child and worked in two London households. The detailed account of her baptism in 1597 preserves her father’s craft,…
Jacques Francis worked on the wreck of the Mary Rose and gave evidence in a dispute over another sunken ship. His story connects skilled African labour,…
Royal accounts record African women living within the households of James IV’s Scotland, with clothes, materials and gifts purchased for them. The story associated with Ellen…
An altar found near Burgh-by-Sands names a Roman unit with roots in north-west Africa. Its inscription, a military list and nearby archaeology reveal connections across the…
New Beacon Books connected publishing with the work of building a readership. Founded by John La Rose and Sarah White in 1966, its history takes in…
Beryl Gilroy’s work joined classrooms, children’s books, novels and psychotherapy. Her teaching papers and literary manuscripts reveal a writer concerned with how people learned, spoke and…