click on image for larger view
February 8th
Henry Beckford born c1813 died date unknown
The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840, by B R Haydon.
in the National Portrait Gallery, London, U.K.
Exeter Hall
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larger view.
'... a liberated slave, now a delegate, is looking up to Clarkson with deep interest, and the hand of a friend is resting with affection on his arm, in fellowship and protection; this is the point of interest in the picture, and illustrative of the object in painting it—the African sitting by the intellectual European, in equality and intelligence, whilst the patriarch of the cause points to heaven as to whom he must be grateful.'
from the description of the painting by the artist, Benjamin Robert Haydon
Very little appears to be known of Henry Beckford; we see the back of his head in the foreground of a painting of the great Anti-Slavery Convention in London in June1840, and we hear his voice earlier in Exeter Hall on May 22nd, 1840, when he speaks briefly at the reception for the Rev William Knibb, himself and another ex-slave, Edward Barrett. Beyond that we can pick up a few scraps from his few words on that occasion.
According to Haydon, Beckford had been a slave for 27 years, presumably from his birth. Beckford said that his mother had been sold, in Africa, by her brother, but with no indication of her age when she was sold. At the time of his visit to England he was involved in teaching 110 children, presumably in a Baptist school, since he was described as a deacon of the St Ann's Bay Baptist Church. Beyond this I have found nothing; I hope that someone, some day, may come up with more.
However, I do wonder if possibly I have encountered his son and grand-daughter at a later period. In the mid-1880s, Henry Beckford, a teacher born about 1835, appeared in Port Antonio in some capacity (reputedly as principal before W H Plant) at Titchfield Free School. He continued to be involved with the Teachers' Association in Portland in the 1890s, and late in the decade he was elected to the Portland Parochial Board, on which he served, very actively, until 1903. He died in 1911 aged 76, leaving two sons and two daughters, One of those daughters, Albertha Elizabeth, had been born in Montego Bay in 1864, and had made her career in Port Antonio running her own school, which established an excellent reputation, apparently until her death in 1933. One brief reference, to her presence at Dr Robert Love's People's Convention in Spanish Town in 1899, sets her firmly in the tradition of Henry Beckford, the ex-slave and anti-slavery activist, two generations earlier.
Whether these three Beckfords were related or not, their stories are worth telling, as an illustration, if nothing else, of the resilience of the human spirit, and of Black Jamaicans in particular.
BRIEF REFERENCES
'The lords of humankind re-visited'
CATHERINE HALL
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies (2003), 66: 472-485 Cambridge University Press [not online!]
JAMAICAN AND BRITISH BAPTISTS IN WEST AFRICA, 1841-1888
by Paul R. Dekar, Niswonger Professor of Evangelism and Missions, Memphis Theological Seminary, 168 East Parkway South, Memphis TN USA 38104. (c) Paul R. Dekar [online]
It may be of interest to note that the male delegates at the Convention refused to accept the female delegates on a basis of equality.
Jamaican history month 2007
the worthy frog
Joy Lumsden 2007
