I was delighted to hear Onyeka talking about Africans in Tudor England yesterday morning on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme. It's fantastic this subject is getting airtime, and we must all hope that translates to lesson time in schools, university courses and research, and further media coverage. 

It was a very short discussion (for a longer one, see this interview with Vox Africa TV; for more detail on the status of Africans in Tudor England, see my articles on "Slavery and English Common Law"; on "Why Slavery shouldn't distort the History of Black People in Britain" and the case of Caspar van Senden and his failed attempts to transport Africans from Britain in 1596-1601).

However I was puzzled by Onyeka's reference to an African in Tudor Blackburn, so I looked it up in his book and found (on p.361) a reference to the baptism of "Leticia" whose father is described as "Willm Voclentine Egiptian", on 3rd December 1602 in the record of St. Mary's, Blackburn, now held at the Lancashire Record Office. 

Other similar examples I found in my research  include ‘Anthoine an Egyptian’, buried in Gravesend on 26 May 1553, and ‘Batholomew the sonne of an Egiptian’ baptized in Barnstaple on 23 August 1568.

However, I didn't include these references in my thesis because I didn't feel that they could be taken as straightforward evidence of individuals who came from Egypt. 

The people referred to as "Egyptians" at this time were ‘gypsies’, or Roma/Romany people, of Hindu origin. Both linguistic and genetic studies have confirmed their origin in the Indian subcontinent. A Parliamentary Act of 1530 concerning Egyptians (illustrated above, and transcribed here) explained that: 

"before this tyme divers and many owtlandisshe people calling themselfes Egiptsions using no craft nor faict of merchandise, have comen in to thys realme and goon from Shyre to Shyre and place to place in grete companye and used grete subtile and craftye meanys to deceyve the people bearing them in hande that they by palmestrye could tell menne and Womens Fortunes and soo many Tymes by craft and subtiltie hath deceyved the people of theyr Money & alsoo have comitted many haynous Felonyes and Robberyes to the grete hurt and Disceipt of the people that they have comyn among."

Further Acts concerning ‘Egyptians’ were passed in 1552, 1554, and 1562. They were to be banished, their goods forfeited. By 1562, this was somewhat modified by the ruling that those born in England were to be placed in service. 

The fact that these people did not come from Egypt was recognised by at least one contemporary writer. Thomas Dekker wrote in Lantern and Candlelight (1608): 

"If they be Egyptians, sure I am they never descended from the tribes of any of those people that came out of Egypt. Ptolemy, King of the Egyptians, I warrant never called them his subjects; no nor Pharoah before him."

For more on Egyptians in Early Modern England, have a look at Chapter 3 of D. Mayall, Gypsy Identities, 1500-2000: From Egipcyans and Moon-men to the Ethnic Romany (2004). 

When an individual really is of African origin, the records are not slow to report or comment on it. It is only when an individual is described as ‘a/the blackamore’, ‘a/the negro’, or we are told where they come from or were born that we can be completely sure of their identities. 

 There is enough certain evidence of Africans in Tudor England (for example, this list of references found in London parishes, one of which is pictured below; my own research gathered evidence of over 360 Africans in Britain, 1500-1640, some 200 of which date from the Tudor period) to work with, without having to include these misleadingly-named "Egyptians". 

Since first posting this, Michael Ohajuru, art historian and author of the Black Africans in Renaissance Europe blog, has pointed out that the image above isn't that easy to decipher. Below is an annotated version. Where it says "East" ( in most of the entries on this page), it means they were buried in the east end of the graveyard. 

Less than eight minutes into Juliet Gardiner's programme, Presenting the Past, How the Media Changes History on Radio 4, I had to press pause and start tweeting yesterday. 

She said that as a historical advisor on Atonement (2007), there was a decision that had made her uneasy- the depiction of a  black soldier appearing with Robbie in Dunkirk. She asserts: "In fact, it was almost impossible for there to have been a black soldier in the British Expeditionary Force in France". She suspects this was done "to reflect today's multicultural society" and "gave a misleading impression of how Britain was at the time". Screenplay by Christopher Hamilton- explains it away as colour-blind casting, but says "it probably wasn't accurate". This element of the film did prompt discussion at the time, in the Guardian and the Spectator. And Gardiner herself responded to questions, commenting "statistically one would expect there to have been a handful of black soldiers scooped up by the Military Services Act, and one or two of those may have been sent to France with the BEF"- a statement which seems quite contradictory to what she says on her Radio 4 programme. I'm no expert on the 20th century, but I've seen plenty of pictures of black soldiers in both world wars- not just African Americans, or even Imperial troops, but British-born men too, as you can see from this online exhibition from the Ministry of Defence, this slideshow from Phil Gregory of the Black Presence website, and Tony Warner's recent talks at the Imperial War Museum. Surely, even if there wasn't a huge number of black soldiers in the BEF at the beginning of the war, showing one in Atonement makes the larger point that there were black soldiers in World War 2, in the same way as the Lancastria was co-opted to represent many smaller ships that sunk at Dunkirk. 

But where I really had to press pause in shock was when Tim Bevan, producer of Elizabeth (1998) as well as Atonement, commented "had that [casting a black actor] taken place in our Elizabeth movie, you wouldn't have been able to prove that, at all,  and it would have been interpretative". This is a film which has no problem placing it's own dramatic interpretation on various other historical events- showing the queen sleeping with Robert Dudley, for example- something that really is unprovable. (See Alex von Tunzelman's unpicking of the film on her Guardian Reel History blog). But I'd like to pick up Bevan's gauntlet now, just in case he's planning a third Elizabeth film to follow Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007). If he ever wants to cast a black actor in a Tudor film (or indeed a Stuart or a Georgian one): I can prove it for him! In my research into Africans in Britain, 1500-1640 for my Oxford D.Phil. thesis I found evidence of over 360 Africans living in England and Scotland during the period. (Oh, please, someone make a film set in the court of James IV of Scotland, featuring the "More Tabronar"). More specifically, there is clear evidence that Elizabeth I had at least one African servant at her court. Records survive from 1574 and 1575 showing her ordering clothes for a "lytle Blackamoore" from her tailor. Further to this, a painting known as "Elizabeth I at Kenilworth" shows her being entertained by a small troupe of black musicians. This was in keeping with a wider trend  of Africans working at royal and aristocratic courts across Europe. However, it would equally be accurate to show Africans walking about in Tudor crowd scenes. The most interesting recent attempt to show this was in Dr. Who, The Shakespeare Code (2007). But that's another story (and another blog?).


For now, I just want to end by saying that as historians, we have to work harder to ensure that the Media doesn't Change History, but History Changes the Media. This is a two-way street, but we need to do our bit (by blogging, for example!) to ensure new research is fed into the media. The BBC Radio 3/ AHRC collaboration New Generation Thinkers initiative  is a great example of how this can work in practice. Let's have more of that!



You can read yesterday's Twitter discussion on this with @jessicammoody, @cath_fletcher, @michael1952 and @HistoryNeedsYou on Storify.