credits
CARIBBEAN - DISTANT HISTORY
Donald Adolphus Brown
Black Communities
Slavery
Simba Project, based in Woolwich, demonstrating traditional arts and crafts at Deptford Community Radio Project's Cultural Awareness Day in July 1999, at the Lewisham Irish Comunity Centre, Catford.
Community contacts: Harry Powell, Lewisham Way Youth and Community Centre, 138 Lewisham Way, New Cross SE14.
Roy Pinder, Chair, Pan African Caribbean Community Organisation, 66 Charlton Church Lane, Charlton, London SE7.
Donald Adolphus Brown
Donald Adolphus Brown, born in 1874, was the youngest son of a black Jamaican Petty Officer in the Royal Navy, and an Englishwoman.
Donald was trained for the navy at the Royal Hospital School in Greenwich, and joined the Merchant Navy in 1889. He married Eliza Adelaide Knight who became a prominent East End suffragette.
After he had left the Merchant Marine he went to work in the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, and moved to Bostall Lane in Abbey Wood.
He was soon promoted to the post of Foreman and in 1921, he was awarded the Edward Medal for Bravery for putting out a fire in an explosives’ store. He died in 1949. His daughter Winfred Langton has written an as yet unpublished biography of her parents entitled "Courage".
Edward Medal for Woolwich Man
Bravery at Woolwich Dockyard
For a deed of sterling bravery on January 17, 1919, the King has awarded the Edward Medal to Donald Aldophus Brown, foreman at the Royal Naval Ordnance depot, Woolwich.
While a number of rockets and lights were being re-packed at the depot (says the London Gazette in announcing the award) one of the rockets exploded, causing other rockets in the same case to explode.
Brown immediately threw water on the flaming case, opened the doors of the storehouse, and dragged the case into the open. This he did single-handed, but as a result of his example, other employees came to his assistance, and the fire was eventually extinguished by the use of fire-buckets and a portable pump.
The storehouse was full of fireworks and flares of every description, and there was a large store of detonators immediately adjoining. Several hundred men and women were at work in the immediate vicinity. Had it not been for the promptitude and determination shown by Brown, there is no doubt that a very serious explosion would have occurred
Brown was fully aware of the fact that the store was full of explosives, and of the danger which he was running, and by his courageous act he certainly saved many lives.
The Pioneer 11th March 1921.
Black Communities
Parish records, particularly registers, are a rich source of black history. In the early registers, and in the prosperous parts of our district, entries list servants in the wealthy households of Blackheath, Lee, Lewisham, and the richer areas of Greenwich.
In the St Alfege’s register for 1699 there is an entry for "a black moore from Mrs Gugs [Guy’s]". She is earlier in the register described as a Virginia planter. However, in later register entries for the towns of Greenwich, Deptford and to a lesser extent, Woolwich, there are many references to black people who are not linked to local families.
The following are Greenwich examples:
- 1772 - Mary Badwell, a Jamaica negroe woman about 21 year of age.
- 1781 - Thomas Johnson Samuel, a Negro from America, supposed to be born about the year 1759.
- 1781 - Ann Unus, a Negro from America, supposed to born about the year 1753.
- 1782 - John Edwards, son of John, an Indian, supposed to be born at Madras about the year 1754.
The Greenwich registers record the baptisms of 27 black people between 1754 and 1813, none of who are attached to a household.
Eighteenth century Woolwich is tantalising for black history researcher. John Barker’s detailed and accurate plan of the town in 1749 records the following places: Doudie’s Caribbees and the Caribbee Isles.
Additionally, Toddy Tree Watergate adjoined the Gun Wharf close to the Caribbee Isles. Toddy Tree is an old word for a palm tree.
The rate books, Overseers’ Accounts, and the Churchwardens’ accounts for 1749 have been searched but none have yielded any further clues to these intriguing names.
It is tempting to believe that these were areas where small communities of Black people lived. Sadly, the Woolwich registers have very few relevant entries.
Among these, the following are noteworthy:
1784 - Elizabeth Johnson, daughter of John and Margaret Johnson born 12th April, baptised 14th May.
Elizabeth Johnson, daughter of Thomas and Ann Johnson, born 28th March, baptised 14th May. Both blacks and paupers.
1786 - Peter Harris, a Negro from Jamaica about 22 years of age christened after the second lesson this day in the presence of the parish officers and a large congregation, Nov 5th.
Slavery
Blackheath was a wealthy London suburb in the eighteenth century. Around the edge of the Heath lived some twenty shipping merchants, several of whom were closely involved with the slave trade.
William Innes of Grotes Place was a leading West India merchant and supporter of the slave trade, Thomas King of Dartmouth Grove was a partner in the firm Camden, Calvert and King, notorious slave agents, and Duncan Campbell of Orchard House, Overseer of the Prison Hulks, was a plantation owner in Jamaica.
John Julius Angerstein of Woodlands, Blackheath, had a third share in a slave estate in Grenada, and Sir Francis Baring, founder of Baring’s Bank, who lived at the Manor House, Lee, is said to have made his money out of dealing with slaves when he was 16.
In 1704, Ambrose Crowley, a successful iron merchant, moved to Greenwich because his premises in Thames Street, London were too cramped. Beside his splendid Jacobean, Crowley House, at Highbridge in Greenwich, he built a large warehouse to store his ironware. M.W.Flinn states that Crowley’s London warehouse supplied Thomas Hall with manacles, ankle irons and collars for his slaving vessels.