Black History Month

Article written by Joe Saunders

October in Britain is Black History Month, an opportunity for ‘a national moment of reflection, recognition and celebration.’[1]  Each October a range of organisations and communities across the county participate in this focussed period of engagement as a focal point for thinking and talking about Black history in Britain. 

Black history is a core part of Britain’s story and should not be thought of only in one month of the year, or as the organisers of Black History Month UK put it, ‘Black history is not a specialist subject or an add-on to the curriculum… It forms part of the social, cultural and civic development of the United Kingdom’.[2]

Black British history is a rich thread within our national, local and family stories. The experience of Black Britons is both deep and varied as shown by archaeological evidence and the historical record. Black musicians were for instance recorded in the retinue of King Henry VIII of England and at the court of King James IV of Scotland in the early 1500s. The development of trading lines between Britain and the wider world during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries led to a growing presence of people of colour in Britain. Many people came to Britain having been enslaved though some came as, or became, free men and women.

Britain’s colonial development, including heavy involvement in the transatlantic slave trade, led to a growing number of Black people coming to Britain. This includes as seamen and servants as well as enslaved people. Communities in port cities with strong links to the trade in enslaved Africans, such as Bristol and Liverpool, had particularly strong Black presence. Some Liverpudlians can trace their African heritage back to Britain’s oldest Black community, established in the city by at least the 1730s.[3]  By the latter part of the eighteenth-century England probably had a population of around 15,000 Black people.[4]

The abolition of slavery in the British Empire appears to have led to a decline in Black people settling in Britain though communities continued and some people arrived to work, and to study here. Black people continued to face discrimination from portions of Victorian society, however. Despite this the Black population of Britain steadily grew and Black Britons were engaged in a range of activities, including some who found fame such as Crimean War heroine Mary Seacole and circus proprietor Pablo Fanque. 

During the First World War many Black people served as soldiers or worked as seamen, with many settling in Britain afterwards. A similar pattern occurred during the Second World War with many people from West Africa and the West Indies serving and later relocating. Following the Second World War, migration to Britain increased from the Caribbean and from parts of West Africa, driven by labour shortages and facilitated by imperial and Commonwealth connections. Symbolised by the arrival of HMT Empire Windrush in 1948. 

For those of us actively researching the past we can consider the experience of Black people in our work. Some of us are already doing this, such as the Caribbean Family History Group, who assist people tracing their ancestry. Another worthwhile organisation to be aware of is the Young Historians Project ‘which promotes the scholarship and popular understanding of Black history.’[5]

There are some excellent history books where we can learn more, such as David Olusoga, Black and British: A Forgotten History (2017) and Miranda Kaufmann, Black Tudors: The Untold Story (2017). Readers of fiction might also find Joseph Paterson’s recent novel The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho (2023) to be great introduction to one of eighteenth-century Britain’s most fascinating figures. 

Lastly, find out more about Black History Month 2026 here, https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/black-history-month-2026/ with information and a resource pack.

Sources
[1] ‘Black History Month 2026’ BHM2026, https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/black-history-month-2026/.
[2] ‘Black History Month 2026’ BHM2026, https://www.blackhistorymonth.org.uk/black-history-month-2026/.
[3] Ray Costello, Black Liverpool: The Early History of Britain's Oldest Black Community 1730–1918 (2001).
[4] ‘Black Lives in England’, https://historicengland.org.uk/research/inclusive-heritage/the-slave-trade-and-abolition/sites-of-memory/black-lives-in-england/.
[5] Young Historians Project, https://www.younghistoriansproject.org/.

Image credits
Cover photo by Anthony McKissic on Unsplash