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who was it looking for info on Jamaican crossing sweeper?

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  • who was it looking for info on Jamaican crossing sweeper?

    I can't find the thread now.
    ~ with love from Little Nell~
    Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

  • #2
    Nell, was it SussexPat?

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    • #3
      Yes It was me.

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      • #4
        Hallo Pat

        I can't remember details of your original query but I am reading Jerry White's "London in the 19th Century" at the moment. One of the illustrations is of a crossing sweeper and the caption says

        "Charles M'Gee, crossing sweeper, Ludgate Hill, 1815. Thought ot be seventy-three years old and with only one eye, the Jamaican born M'Gee was said to do well at the begging pitch he'd claimed as his own for many years. He was one of numerous black beggars - 'St Giles blackbirds' they wre called - in London in the early part of the century. 'Black people, as well as those destitute of sight, seldom fail to excite compassion' thought John Thomas Smith, that brilliant chronicler of London who drew, etched and published this print."
        ~ with love from Little Nell~
        Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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        • #5
          The crossing sweeper I was reading about in Mayhew's London Labour London Poor was Edward Albert. He was in London in 1856 so quite a bit later than Charles M'Gee.
          Your quote is very interesting. There was quite a discussion on the BBC messageboards after their production of Oliver Twist which had a black Nancy and several of the gang were black. Some people were objecting saying there were no black people in London in victorian times and that the BBC were just being PC. I was pretty sure that there were black people in many cities in Britain from at least the 17th century.
          I've kept a note of the information I have on Edward Albert and will probably do a bit more research when I next have an Ancestry sub. Edward was born in Jamaica and his wife's father was African. As their children and grandchildren married into the general population there could well be living desendants who wonder where they get their dark colouring.

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          • #6
            I suppose the chief objection to Nancy's being portrayed as black is that Dickens' didn't say she was. But of course there were black people in London and elsewhere. Black servants working in Bath were painted in 18th century.
            ~ with love from Little Nell~
            Chowns, Dunt, Emms, Mealing, Purvey & Smoothy

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