credits
Dr George Rice
Caribbean community
Caribbean contribution to two world wars
The Windrush
Harry Powell recalls
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.
Dr George Rice
Dr George Rice was a black American, born c. 1848, who studied medicine at Edinburgh under Joseph Lister and became an eminent doctor. He moved to Plumstead where he met and married Florence Mary Cook in 1881.
Dr George Rice, in the second row, second from right, at the Woolwich Workhouse Infirmary.
He was then Medical Superintendent of the Woolwich Workhouse Infirmary. The Workhouse which later became St. Nicholas Hospital, Plumstead, has now been demolished except for the Doctor’s House where, possibly, Rice lived.
Later he was appointed Doctor at the Sutton Workhouse Schools and became a specialist in the treatment of epilepsy. He lived with his wife and daughter at 50 Egmont Road, Sutton, until his death 1935. When his daughter Lucinda died in 1967 it was fortunate that the house clearer was black because he took an interest in the family photographs and papers that he found there and deposited them with the London Borough of Sutton.Caribbean community
In the London Borough of Lewisham one in ten people are from direct African/Caribbean ancestry.
The reason for this can be traced back to recent history in the twentieth century and before that. Many Caribbean people during the first 50 or 60 years of the 20th Century looked upon Britain as the mother country.
This was reinforced with two world wars, the first from 1914-18 and the second from 1939-1945.
Caribbean contribution to two world wars
Many thousands of Caribbean people fought in the two world wars and because of this, freedom and democracy survives to this day. For the second world war, many people from the Caribbean voluntarily joined Britain in the fight for freedom against Nazi Germany.
Some of the older Caribbean residents of Lewisham can remember the poster campaigns following the second war, advertising work opportunities in Britian for people from the Caribbean. For example, posters in Grenada advertised vacancies on London Transport Buses, due to heavy losses of the civilian male population during the second world war.
The Windrush
Some Lewisham residents from the Caribbean can recall a typical poster showing Tower of London Beefeaters, suggesting that England’s streets were paved with gold. There were many meetings held for interested Caribbean people to help support them coming to the mother country, for example, with special voyages laid on to ship them to England. The first of one such voyage was the historic Windrush ship which made its journey with the first major contingent of people from the Caribbean in 1948. This and many subsequent voyages were needed to rebuild Britain after the ravages of the second world war, when many cities and people's homes and businesses had been bombed by the Germans. Many of Britain’s young men from the ages of 18 to 45 had died in the war or were maimed.
Harry Powell, Co-ordinator of the Lewisham Way Youth and Community Centre, recalls his family history in Jamaica.
Harry's early history parents (Real Audio)Harry Powell of the Lewisham Way Youth and Community Centre comments on some of the issues young people face and where some of the possible solutions lie.
Living in Lewisham, youth issues (Real Audio)The Pan African Caribbean Community Organisation based in Charlton has been established to provide a service to the local African Caribbean community, for young people up to elders in the Community. The organisation's Chair, Roy Pinder explains that whilst it currently serves black elderly and lone parents, it is also launching an after-school and Saturday school club
Roy Pinder - About project (Real Audio)