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Before slavery in the British Empire was abolished under the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833, the status of black people in Britain was complex. British law allowed enslavement overseas, on the slave ships from West Africa and the West Indian plantations. However, inside the British Isles, slavery was not legally sanctioned.

We do not know exactly how many people of African origin were living in Britain in the late 18th century. Many were here as a result of the Transatlantic Trade in enslaved Africans.

• Some came with their owners from North America and the West Indies, brought to work as servants to the household. One example of this was Mary Prince. She was brought to England by her owner and had endured hardship and abuse in the West Indies. Although legally free while in England, Mary would have been enslaved again on her return to the West Indies. So she escaped, with the help of other servants, and went on to dictate her life story. It was published as the first book in English by a black woman.
• Most arrived as servants and lived in Britain in similar conditions to other servants. We know this because of well-known examples such as Francis Barber. He was the servant and heir of the writer Samuel Johnson. Barber helped Johnson revise his Dictionary of the English Language and later opened a draper’s shop.
• A few achieved social status. They included Ignatius Sancho, who composed classical music, owned property and had the right to vote. There were also Africans from high class families sent here for education.
• A few were brought here to be sold on the quaysides and in the coffee houses of slave ports such as Bristol and Liverpool. We know this from posters advertising the sales. This was in spite of the fact the slavery was unlawful in Britain.

Some black people were held in conditions of enslavement here in Britain and some were violently abused. We know this from advertisements about runaways, from court cases and from well known individual cases such as Mary Prince. However most Africans lived here in freedom, as can be seen from parish records. Court documents show Africans accused of crime were treated in the same way as white people.

It is not clear whether there was a distinct black community in places like London and Liverpool, or whether black people lived as part of the wider working class. After 1833 and in the later 19th century, their presence is harder to trace because they were not recorded as ‘black’ in census returns. Paintings, cartoons and photographs often show black people present in many parts of Britain, and it is likely that many people were of African descent, often through intermarriage. They appear to been assimilated into the wider population and some became very well known.

The ‘Black Loyalists’ who had been promised freedom from enslavement if they fought for Britain in the American War of Independence, were brought here when Britain lost the war. Many of them ended up destitute, begging on London’s streets. Over 400 were transported to Sierra Leone in West Africa in a resettlement project by the Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor.

Movements for change

Some black people were active in movements for change.

• Autobiographies by those who had been enslaved made people in Britain aware of the realities of enslavement. Mary Prince who suffered terrible treatment at the hands of her owners published her autobiography, The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave in 1831 and was the first black woman to do so.
• Activists such as Olaudah Equiano and Ottobah Cugoano, both former enslaved people and authors were centrally active in the movement to abolish slavery and the slave trade.
• William Davidson and Robert Wedderburn were both the children of black enslaved mothers and white fathers who became political activists against slavery and for the rights of working people. Davidson was hanged and beheaded for his part in the Cato Street Conspiracy - a plot to assassinate leaders of the government.
• William Cuffay (from St Kitts in the Caribbean) was a leader of the Chartist movement for political reform, and was convicted of preparing to set fire to certain buildings as a signal for an uprising and was transported to Tasmania in 1848. Many of the Chartists’ demands are now an accepted part of our Parliamentary system, such as secret ballots in elections, votes for all and payment to MPs so that not only the rich could stand for election.

Some black people, such as Queen Victoria’s god-daughter Lady Sarah Forbes Bonetta, the nurse Mary Seacole and the composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, achieved success and prominence in late Victorian society. There were several popular black entertainers such as the circus owner Pablo Fanque whose company travelled all over the country.

This was a time when ideas justifying enslavement and empire by dehumanising people who had been colonised, were widely held. One notable case was the African American actor Ira Aldridge. Although he was a highly successful performer of Shakespeare’s leading roles all over Europe, his performance of Othello in London received racist reviews and was forced to close.