Black Greenwich Pensioners

Fascinating small exhibition at the Old Royal Naval College Visitors’ Centre looking at black sailors who had passed through the Royal Hospital for Seamen and the effect they had had on the area.

This show was mainly information boards with just a few artefacts from the family of John Simmons who served at Trafalgar and is shown in this picture with his Trafalgar medal. However it was packed with stories and insight into the area in the 18th and 19th century. What a fantastic piece of research!

The Royal Navy was the largest employer of free black labour at the time in Britain however the hospital did not record the race of new pensioners just their county of origin so it isn’t clear how many of them were black. It is likely that many registered as American were black former slaves. The show pointed out that in the navy all the sailors lived equally on board ship and probably at the hospital, rank was more important than race. As pensioners could live in or out of the hospital in the local area, many of the black pensioners married local women.

Figures who stood out for me included John Thomas, who as a slave alleged cruelty on his plantation on Barbados and ran away to sea. In 1813, having been at the hospital, he asked to return to the island in return for “no stripes” ie no punishment. In 1830 his owed pension of £56 was paid to a trustee in Barbados for his children. 

The show ended with a board on Greenwich and the slave trade pointing out that a local man, Ambrose Cowley, supplied manacles and yokes to the trade. The hospital itself owned a plantation in Jamaica which it gained as part of the settlement of a debt.

Closes 21 February 2021

Review

Telegraph

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thomas Becket: Murder and Making of a Saint

Image
Stunning exhibition at the British Museum on the life and afterlife of Thomas Becket. I studied Becket both at A Level and at university so I was really looking forward to this show and it did not disappoint. From walking in to see an old friend, the early Limoges casket showing the murder from the Victoria and Albert Museum, I was gripped. The show told the story well using fantastic objects and led you through his life, the murder, the political aftermath, his sainthood and miracles, and how Canterbury became a major pilgrimage site. It is hard to pick out the best objects as so many were wonderful. I loved that they had early copies of some of the five eyewitness accounts of the murder which made you fell you were almost touching the event. I liked the manuscript on his time in exile which was almost like a comic strip. How wonderful to get a 13th century font from Sweden which shows how far and how quickly the news that Henry II had integrated the murder spread. I think my
Read more

Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year Exhibition 2019

Image
Delightful exhibition at Clarendon Fine Art showing pictures from the Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year TV series. I had loved the series which had set nine artists, both professional and amateur, to paint one of three celebrities. It then had a semi-final and final with them all looking at one sitter and in the final they also took on a commission. I loved the way you watched a picture build and how some were then made or spoiled by one stroke of paint.   Finding these pictures I knew so well in the flesh was therefore fascinating. None of them disappointed. My favourite artist from the final, Tom Mead, works looked just as good in real life if not better as you could see the detail. The show included his impressive self-portrait which he submitted to enter the competition, a wonderful fragmented picture of his reflection in a mirror giving a sense of movement. I loved that it included a large version of him and a miniature. His commission for the final of Jazzie B was
Read more

The Renaissance Nude

Image
Beautiful exhibition at the Royal Academy looking at the nude in Renaissance art. The show was gently themed but mainly let the pictures speak for themselves. It began by looking at the subjects, both religious and secular, which include nude figures then examined techniques and models used in these works, finishing by looking at more personal pictures. This is a period I’ve studied a lot so there were a lot of old friends and it was quite fun predicting what might appear. There were a few surprises too such as the rather surprising drawing of the Ecstatic Christ. I liked the fact the show included lots of different art forms not just paintings including sculpture, etchings, drawings and illuminated manuscripts. There were some fascinating hangs to draw comparisons particularly two sets of pictures by Giovanni Bellini and Hand Memling from almost exactly the same date. These were shown back to back in a display cabinet down the middle of one room. My favourite work was
Read more