Before the Windrush: Race Relations in 20th-Century Liverpool 9781846319679, 9781781380000, 9781781385852

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Te racial relationship unashamedly celebrated in this Elder Dempster poster, issued from ‘Colonial House’, took less benevolent form in the employment practices imposed by the company on its West African seamen, many of whom were to seek refuge in Liverpool.

Before the Windrush

Before the Windrush Race relations in twentieth-century Liverpool

John Belchem

Liverpool University Press

For fellow residents of Liverpool 8

First published in 2014 by Liverpool University Press 4 Cambridge Street Liverpool L69 7ZU Copyright © 2014 John Belchem Te right of John Belchem to be identifed as the author of this book has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmited, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior writen permission of the publisher. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data A British Library CIP record is available ISBN 978-1-84631-967-9  cased ISBN 978-1-78138-000-0  paperback Web PDF eISBN 978-1-78138-585-2

Typeset by Carnegie Book Production, Lancaster Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

‘... spot the African presence the true source of her history’ From Levi Tefari’s poem, ‘Liverpool the daughter of Merseyside’, marking the re-opening of the Central Library and Archive, May 2013

‘Tere’s every race and colour of face And every kind of name But the pigeons on the pierhead Tey’ll treat us all the same If you walk up Upper Parliament Street You’ll see faces black and brown And I’ve also seen the Orange and Green In dear old Liverpool town’ Verse four of ‘I wish I was back in Liverpool’, lyrics by T. Duggins

Contents

List of illustrations List of tables List of abbreviations Acknowledgements Preface Introduction: ‘Te most disturbing case of racial disadvantage in the United Kingdom’ Chapter One: Edwardian cosmopolitanism Chapter Two: Riot, miscegenation and inter-war depression Chapter Tree: Wartime hospitality and the colour bar Chapter Four: Repatriation, reconstruction and post-war race relations Chapter Five: Race relations in the 1950s Chapter Six: 1960s: race and youth Chapter Seven: Te failure of community relations Chapter Eight: ‘It took a riot’ Sources consulted Index

x xii xiii xv xvii 1 17 39 79 121 161 197 225 251 279 286

List of illustrations

Frontispiece. Elder Dempster Lines Limited poster, 1936. Reproduced with the kind permission of Björn Larsson (Maritime Timetable Images). ii Figure 1. Photograph of Edward and Harriet James. Reproduced with the kind permission of Ray Costello. 20 Figure 2. John Archer (1863–1932). Reproduced with the kind permission of the artist, Paul Clarkson, and Liverpool City Council. 54 Figure 3. Pastor Daniels Ekarte’s African Churches Mission. From Marika Sherwood, Pastor Daniels Ekarte and the Afican Churches Mission (Savannah Press, 1994). 67 Figure 4. Plaque commemorating black seamen, Falkner Square, Liverpool. Photo © Nick Riddle, 2013. 89 Figure 5. Plaque commemorating deported Chinese, Pierhead, Liverpool. Photo © Nick Riddle, 2013. 126 Figure 6. Lagos To Liverpool, 1949. Photo by Bert Hardy. Reproduced with permission from Gety Images. 144 Figure 7. Liverpool Street, 1949. Photo by Bert Hardy. Reproduced with permission from Gety Images. 145 Figure 8. Shore Leave, 1949. Photo by Bert Hardy. Reproduced with permission from Gety Images. 146

Figure 9. Stanley House Community Centre (later Te Sir Joseph Cleary Centre), Upper Parliament Street. Reproduced with the kind permission of Ged Fagan. Figure 10. Stanley House Community Centre, 1981. Reproduced with the kind permission of Liverpool Record Ofce. Figure 11. ‘Dutch Eddy, Archie the Doorman, and Henry the Photographer’. Line drawing by John Cornelius, published by Liverpool University Press in Liverpool 8, 2001. Figure 12. Bessie Braddock with Hogan ‘Kid’ Bassey and Hogan Junior. From Te Braddocks, Jack and Bessie Braddock, published by Macdonald & CO., London, 1963. Figure 13. Te Chants with Te Beatles and Bessie Braddock. From Liverpool: City of Radicals, edited by John Belchem and Bryan Biggs, Liverpool University Press, 2011. Figure 14. Arthur Dooley’s sculpture of a black Christ on the Methodist Centre, Princes Avenue. Photo © Nick Riddle, 2013 Figure 15. ‘Shadow waives the rules’. Line drawing by John Cornelius, published by Liverpool University Press in Liverpool 8, 2001. Figure 16. Dorothy Kuya. Courtesy of Greater Manchester County Record Ofce (ref: GB124.DPA/1742/1/3).

172 172 175 201 202 214 227 230

List of tables

Table 2.1. Place of origin of West African seamen in Liverpool 1919 Table 2.2. West African residential locations in Liverpool 1919 Table 2.3. Occupations of West Africans in employment in Liverpool in 1919, 50 single, ten married (of whom six to white women) Table 2.4. Wartime occupations of 129 West Africans (118 single, 11 married of whom ten to white women) listed as unemployed in 1919 Table 2.5. Place of origin of West Indian seamen in Liverpool in 1919 Table 2.6. West Indian residential locations in Liverpool 1919 Table 2.7. Occupations of West Indians in employment in Liverpool in 1919, four single, three married (of whom two to white women) Table 2.8. Wartime occupations of 89 West Indians (73 single, 16 married) listed as unemployed in 1919 Table 2.9. Comparative fnancial aspects of riots in 1919 Table 7.1. Indicators of multiple deprivation in Granby compared with national average

48 49 49 50 51 51 52 53 55 234

List of abbreviations

ACWUK Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Colonial Peoples in the UK (later adopted the acronym ACWCUK) APU African Progress Union ASTS African Social and Technical Society AWIM African and West Indian Mission CPDA Colonial Peoples Defence Association LCP League of Coloured Peoples LCRC Liverpool Community Relations Council MAPG Merseyside Area Profle Group MAR Merseyside Anti-Racialist Alliance MCRC Merseyside Community Relations Council MDC Merseyside Development Corporation MHC Merseyside Hospitality Council MTF: Merseyside Task Force MWIA: Merseyside West Indian Association NALGO: National Association of Local Government Ofcers NCCL: National Council for Civil Liberties SNAP: Shelter Neighbourhood Action Project

Map of Liverpool 8 area incorporating the residential patern of West African seamen as ploted in Figure 2 of Diane Frost’s Work and Community among West Afican Seamen, and the location of nightclubs as shown on the website www.toxteth.com, with additional indication of the site of major facilities.

Acknowledgements

A litle delayed in appearance through senior management responsibilities, this book is in many ways a natural progression of my previous work on Liverpool’s remarkable history and demographic mosaic. Te project was completed following retirement from the University of Liverpool afer thirty-three years (insufcient time, no doubt, for an incomer to qualify even as an honorary scouser). Once again, I owe much to the assistance and in-house expertise of local librarians and archivists, notably in Special Collections and Archives in the Sydney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, and at the Liverpool Record Ofce, displaced to a Sandhills ‘satellite’ during the rebuilding of the Central Library. Aided by a grant from the British Academy (SG110264), I was able to consult sources held elsewhere, most notably at the National Archives, Kew, the Wellcome Library, London and the Hull History Centre, treasure house repositories where I also benefted from the knowledge and helpfulness of the staf. I have received encouragement, help and advice from many within the local community, and I owe particular thanks to Ray Costello, the doyen of black Liverpool family history, to Peter Urquhart, who shared his commitee memories of the well-intentioned Stanley House Youth Club, and above all to Bryan Biggs, oracle and curator of progressive culture in Liverpool. Over the years I have gained much from reading the works of my fellow Sussex alumni, Richard Price and Jim Epstein, prime exponents

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of the latest ‘imperial turn’ in British historiography. Richard very kindly read the typescript and suggested a number of improvements. I am also grateful to the readers appointed by Liverpool University Press, one of whom, Mark Christian, forwent the conventional anonymity to ofer helpful and encouraging suggestions. As ever, I have received exemplary service from Anthony Cond, Alison Welsby and the staf at Liverpool University Press. A number of friends and colleagues have helped with the illustrations: my thanks to Nick Riddle, Robin Bloxsidge, Roger Hull, Bryan Biggs, Joe Farrag, Ingrid Spiegl and Paul Clarkson. Finally, special thanks to Sarah Gartside, my PA when I was Pro-Vice Chancellor, whose masterly control of my diary allowed me to remain at least minimally ‘research active’, and to Mary, my long-sufering partner, an expert in guiding me through writer’s block. She has saved me from many grammatical (and other) solecisms. Te errors and omissions which remain are thus entirely my responsibility. John Belchem Liverpool 8 July 2013

Pr e fac e

Preface

Encountering racial discrimination and disadvantage, ‘coloured’ colonial migrants who setled in Liverpool long before the arrival of the Empire Windrush in 1948, were denied the creative diversity enjoyed (at least in literary and cultural theory) by their post-colonial counterparts. Migration is now perceived as a creative ‘in-between’ without secure roots, the point of departure for existential trans-national routes crossing geographical, chronological and imaginative boundaries, enabling and facilitating multiple subjectivities.1 Hybrid and fexible, trans-national migrants (as the prefx suggests) do not simply cross national boundaries but transcend them, consigning to oblivion (not before time) spurious (and dangerous) notions of ethnic essentialism, cultural purity and biological racism. As seen by historians, however, this cosmopolitan outcome, so much to be desired, appears less assured and far from apparent in the early stages of decolonisation. Race and racism, previously shaped by a geographical segregation in which black and Asian people were seen as belonging out in the empire, not in Britain, were perforce recast amidst the ‘tremendous paradox’ (to cite Stuart Hall) of the timing of mass inward migration: at the ‘very moment Britain fnally convinced itself to decolonise, that it had to get rid of the colonies, the colonised began fooding into England’.2 More pernicious than on-going anti-alien and anti-Irish atitudes, prejudice against ‘coloured’ colonials became pervasive soon afer the arrival of the Empire Windrush, drawing upon top-down and botom-up formulations of the threat posed to

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Britishness. Focused on Liverpool, where the colonial presence was far from new, this study ofers a pre-history as it were – hence the book’s title – of the deleterious race relations in Britain which accompanied (and besmirched) the otherwise vaunted transition from authoritarian empire to libertarian commonwealth. 3 As a great seaport, Edwardian Liverpool took pride in its ‘amazingly polyglot and cosmopolitan population’, located for the most part in its boisterous ‘sailortown’ adjacent to the waterfront – similar zones of inter-cultural contact (ofen with pubs and bars with Liverpool in their names) were to be found in seaports across the oceans, servicing the needs of trans-national maritime labour. ‘Tere is no city in the world, not even London itself ’, Ramsay Muir recorded in the 700th anniversary history in 1907, ‘in which so many foreign governments fnd it necessary to maintain consular ofces for the safeguarding of their exiled subjects’.4 Within this cosmopolitan profle of transients, sojourners and setlers, considerably enlarged during the First World War, were signifcant numbers of ‘coloured’ colonials, a ‘black’ British presence in the metropole long before the winds of change and the arrival of the Empire Windrush afer the Second World War. What befell Liverpool, the once proud second city of empire, during these intervening decades was a precursor of the problematic ‘racialised’ relations which were to accompany Britain’s uneasy (and incomplete) transition to a post-colonial (and post-industrial) multi-cultural society. Tere is a need for trans-national comparative analysis of ‘cosmopolitan’ world seaports as a distinct urban type, 5 a task beyond the scope of this volume, which seeks rather to locate Liverpool within recent developments in British Empire history, an historiographical approach which integrates core and periphery in a single analytic frame.6 Tis latest ‘imperial turn’ explores ‘encounters’, investigating connections between metropole and colony, race and nation, thereby demonstrating, as Antoinete Burton notes, both the inadequacy and the indispensability of the nation.7 By according due atention to the long-established ‘colonial’ presence in Liverpool – part of its ‘inconvenient imperial past’8 – this book should enrich understanding of how the empire ‘came home’. Regarding Britain as the mother country, colonials arrived in Liverpool through what they considered internal migration within a common British world. What they encountered, however, was (in the words of Bill Schwarz) the ‘unhomeliness of the imaginary homeland’.9 Teir legal status as British subjects notwithstanding, ‘coloured’ colonials in

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Liverpool were the frst to discover that ‘Tere Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack.’ Te long-established presence of what are now designated ‘black and minority ethnic’ groups notwithstanding, twentieth-century Liverpool was to serve neither as role model nor front-runner for contemporary ‘multi-cultural’ Britain. In a seemingly paradoxical (or anomalous) historical process, tensions were to persist, and at times explode into riot, despite the absence of signifcant new immigration and the high levels of mixed dating, marriages and parentage – and in spite of pioneering initiatives in race and community relations. In the afermath of the Toxteth riots of 1981, once proud ‘cosmopolitan’ Liverpool stood condemned for its ‘uniquely horrifc’ racism. A response to these and other riots, the new conventional orthodoxy of multi-culturalism (in ironic contradiction to the hybrid and creative needs of a truly multicultural society) ofered recently arrived immigrant groups protection and recognition within static ethnic boundaries. Once again, black Liverpudlians, already several-generations British, were lef marginalised and disadvantaged. In looking at what went awry in Liverpool, this study does not intend to add further to the transmogrifcation of the city accompanying its dramatic decline from the second city of empire to the shock city of post-colonial, post-industrial Britain. Rather, this book seeks to redress the marginalisation of the city (a process which extends far beyond the economic) to show how the faws and failings of its proto-typical race relations (a patern probably shared with other great world seaports) ofered important warnings and object lessons which too ofen went unheeded. In conventional wisdom, ‘race relations’ – whether perceived as a ‘problem’, an academic discipline or a practitioner profession – emerged afer the Second World War, the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury on 21 June 1948 marking ‘year zero for mass black immigration’.10 However well meaning, the very language deployed at the time was to an extent counter-productive. As Stephen Small has noted, the focus on ‘race’ and ‘race relations’ assumes ‘races’ exist and ‘seeks to regulate relations between them, and thus presumes what needs to be proven’. He advocates an alternative vocabulary of ‘racisms’ and ‘racialised relations’ which ‘questions the existence of “races”, looks at how groups not previously defned as “races” have come to be identifed in this way, and assesses the various factors involved in such processes’.11 Given the deeply embedded nature of the language

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of race relations, however, it would require disproportionate efort to secure the requisite discursive shif. For the sake of convenience, the conventional language is used here, but focusing on Liverpool is an open challenge to the orthodox chronology of race relations. By drawing atention to Liverpool’s ‘abnormally mixed’ population in the frst half of the twentieth century and its pioneer (albeit ofen ambivalent and ambiguous, fawed and misconceived) approach to race relations, this book seeks to provide historical context and perspective to more recent debates about Britain’s experience of empire in the twentieth century. As Liverpool exemplifes, issues of racism run much deeper than concern over immigration. No mere exercise in local history, the ‘black struggle for historical recognition in Liverpool’ serves as foundation narrative in the making of the black British, an identity obscured by post-Windrush concentration on immigration and the subsequent embrace of multiculturalism.12 A detailed archival case study, this book may help towards comprehending why, in the words of Paul Gilroy, Britain has shown itself to be incapable of coming to terms with its black and other minority setlers, why it has been quite so hopeless and resistant to the possibility of adjusting that imperiled national identity so that it might be more inclusive, cosmopolitan and habitable.13

Notes

1 For a useful introduction to the difcult works of Homi Bhabha, Avtar Brah and other post-colonial theorists, see John McCleod, Beginning Postcolonialism, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000, ch. 7. See also, Paul Gilroy, Te Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, London: Vertigo, 1993. 2 Stuart Hall, ‘Te Local and the Global: Globalization and Ethnicity’, cited in Wendy Webster, ‘Te Empire Comes Home: Commonwealth Migration to Britain’ in Andrew Tompson, (ed.), Britain’s Experience of Empire in the Twentieth Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, p. 128. 3 For a longer time-span, back to the mid-sixteenth century, see James Walvin, Black and White: Te Negro and English Society 1555–1945, London: Allen Lane, 1973. Walvin’s study ‘terminates on the eve of modern black immigration’, but he suggests that events post-1945, ‘while diferent in scale and impact, form a continuation of the well established history of black people in this country, rather than a new story. In

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retrospect it feels as though history had begun to repeat itself ’ (see pp. xiii and 215). 4 Ramsay Muir, A History of Liverpool, London: Williams & Norgate, 1907, p. 305. 5 A useful starting point here is W.R.  Lee, ‘Te socio-economic and demographic characteristics of port cities: A typology for comparative analysis?’, Urban History, 25, 1998, pp. 147–72. See also David Cesarani and Gemma Romain, (eds), Jews and Port Cities 1590–1990: Commerce, Community and Cosmopolitanism, London: Vallentine Mitchell, 2006. 6 See Andrew Tompson’s ‘Preface’ in Britain’s Experience of Empire, p. xi. 7 For an interesting discussion of ‘altered perspectives, rethinking identities, redrawing connections’ in empire history, including the work of Antoinete Burton, see the Introduction to James Epstein, Scandal of Colonial Rule: Power and Subversion in the British Atlantic during the Age of Revolution, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, pp. 1–12. See also, Richard Price, Making Empire. Colonial encounters and the creation of imperial rule in nineteenth-century Afica, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. 8 Sheryllyne Haggerty, Anthony Webster and Nicholas J.  White, (eds), Te empire in one city? Liverpool’s inconvenient imperial past, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008. 9 Cited in Webster, ‘Te Empire Comes Home’, p. 126. 10 Marcus Collins, ‘Pride and Prejudice: West Indian Men in Mid-TwentiethCentury Britain’, Journal of British Studies, 40, 2001, p. 391. 11 While a visiting fellow in the Department of Sociology at the University of Liverpool, Stephen Small drew atention to Liverpool as ‘an anomaly in the mapping of “racialised relations” in England’ with regard to a number of structural, cultural and ideological features. See ‘Racialised relations in Liverpool: A contemporary anomaly’, New Community, 17, 4, 1991, pp. 511–37. 12 Mark Christian, ‘Black Struggle for Historical Recognition in Liverpool’, North West Labour History, 20, 1995–96, pp. 58–66. 13 Paul Gilroy, Tere Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: Te cultural politics of race and nation, London: Routledge Classics Edition (with a new introduction by the author), 2002, p. xxxvii.

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I n t roduc t ion

‘Te most disturbing case of racial disadvantage in the United Kingdom’1

Hailed in its late-Victorian heyday as ‘the New York of Europe, a world-city rather than merely British provincial’, Liverpool, the human and commercial entrepôt linking the old world and the new, was a vibrant (if not always harmonious) contact zone between diferent ethnic groups with difering needs and intentions as transients, sojourners or setlers, categories by no means mutually exclusive. At the time of the 700 th anniversary in 1907 of the granting of leters patent to the borough, polyglot Liverpool, the nation’s second metropolis, stood proudly above the ‘Coketown’ monoculture of adjacent Lancastrian textile and industrial towns. In recent decades, however, as the history published to mark the 800th anniversary in 2007 acknowledged, the position has been reversed. Liverpool has become one of the least ethnically varied cities in the country, with only small numbers of ‘new Commonwealth’ migrants arriving afer 1945, the proportions of Hindus, Muslims and Sikhs falling signifcantly below the national average for England and Wales. Te strapline of the successful European capital of culture bid, ‘Te world in one city’, drew upon Liverpool’s historical legacy rather than its contemporary complexion in 2008.2 Changes in Liverpool’s demographic mosaic need to be understood within broad processes of imperialism, decolonisation and economic decline. Te starting point for understanding the city’s troubled history of race relations, however, is a specifc contextual factor: legacies and memories of the slave trade.3 Te ‘deep shadow’ cast by this heinous trade

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continues, and its horrors and inhumanity should never be forgoten.4 However, the extent of any signifcant demographic continuity in the Liverpool black community back to the days of the slave trade is open to question. Although the apex of the infamous ‘triangular’ trade across the Atlantic, Liverpool was not itself a major site for the sale of slaves (other than individuals sold by ships’ captains as servants). Even so, by the late eighteenth century Liverpool was the home of what Ray Costello describes as ‘a free black community drawn from many sources’, including servants, students of noble descent sent for education along with the sons and daughters of African merchants and slavers, and ‘dual heritage’ children (to use present-day terminology) of white plantation owners and African slave women.5 Numbers grew in ‘Britain’s oldest Black community’ with the infux of discharged black soldiers, former slaves who had fought for the defeated British in the American War of Independence (1775–83). However, Liverpool-born blacks of the twentieth century seldom traced their ancestry back to an eighteenth-century presence. Tey were the descendants of the considerable numbers of seamen, primarily West African, who dropped anchor and set sail from Liverpool a century later. Although not without problems, their presence in ‘sailortown’ (temporary or otherwise) was initially welcomed, atesting to the port’s cosmopolitan image, an essential aspect of civic re-branding as Victorian Liverpool sought to distance itself not only from the mercenary philistinism of the slaving past but also from the narrow provincialism of its industrial hinterland. At elite level, the much-deployed vocabulary of cosmopolitanism was ofen no more than an expression of civic boosterism, although here accent proved a hindrance. On a visit to Allerton Hall in 1813 Maria Edgworth was impressed by William Roscoe’s learning, but repelled by his ‘strong provincial accent which at once destroys all idea of elegance’.6 Later in the century the residual provincial tones of another Liverpudlian scholar-politician, W.E. Gladstone, were still cause for critical comment.7 Despite the suggestion of a certain style, posture and perhaps aesthetic decadence, the Liverpool Cosmopolitan Club, intended ‘for the use and enjoyment, pleasure and convenience of Gentlemen residing in the City’, failed to establish a niche among the city’s gentlemen’s clubs. 8 Tere was perhaps one occasion when a spirit of ‘universal humanity’ was on display, an oppositional exercise in which workers defed the government, middle-class Liberals and local rate-paying merchants (ever suspicious of bogus claimants) to uphold the time-honoured (British) right of asylum. In 1851 some 262 Polish-Hungarian refugees arrived in the

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town afer the collapse of the 1848 revolutions in central Europe, facing ‘deportation’ to America. Embarrassed by the presence of an international brigade of democratic republicans and refugee republican warriors in fight from reactionary empires, leading Liberals, having previously supported the nationalist cause at a distance, co-operated with the government (and local authorities) in a scheme to ship the refugees of to the United States with a one-of payment, thereby avoiding diplomatic disharmony and any further fnancial commitment. Outraged at such duplicity, Liverpool artisans, operatives and tradesmen rallied resources to enable most of the refugees to stay and fnd work in the town and throughout the north in the spirit of ‘universal brotherhood’.9 By the Edwardian period, the limitations of Liverpolitan ‘cosmopolitanism’ (a concept devoid of the normative resonance it has subsequently acquired in critical thought) were readily apparent. Closely entwined with Edwardian notions of imperial mission, racial hierarchy and national efciency, it celebrated the ‘distinguishing atributes of the Anglo-Saxon race’ with its ‘wise and just rule over men of diferent races, religions, colour, customs and ideas’.10 Te physical presence of such diverse (and ‘lower’) elements within the port, however, was seen as hindering Liverpool’s eforts to atain national standards and minima and secure due primacy within the urban hierarchy, a major concern of Ramsay Muir in his 700th anniversary history in 1907: ‘this amazingly polyglot and cosmopolitan population, consisting to a considerable extent of races which are backward in many ways, and maintaining itself largely by unskilled labour, vastly increases the difculty of securing and maintaining the decencies of life.’11 Tus, while still vaunting its credentials as ‘A Cosmopolitan City’ (to use Muir’s running header), Liverpool supported the campaign for restrictive legislation, deported ‘alien’ Chinese (the ‘yellow peril’) and, afer the initially welcome expansion in numbers to serve the needs of the First World War, began to grapple with the intractable problem of ‘British coloureds’ from the colonies. Te uneasy transition from war to peace had a disastrous impact on labour and race relations amidst an economic reverse felt more acutely in Liverpool than elsewhere, a precursor of inter-war depression and decline. Wartime xenophobic anti-alien fervour was transferred to the resident ‘British coloured’ purportedly taking jobs (and women) away from demobilised local white workers denied the land ft for heroes promised by the government. Race riots occurred in a number of ports across Britain in 1919 – London, Glasgow, Hull, Cardif, Barry and Salford – but those in Liverpool were particularly intense, refecting tensions which

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extended far beyond the local waterfront.12 What happened in ‘riotous’ Liverpool, the gateway of empire, reverberated across the globe. In fear of reprisals out in the colonies and fracture of the imperial framework – maintenance of which was considered vital to ensuring continued British dominance of trans-national trade, culture and commerce – the Colonial Ofce stood forward afer the 1919 riots to fund a ‘generous’ repatriation scheme, the best hope of safeguarding the good name of Britain and integrity of the empire. Although lacking any formal remit or designated budget, the Colonial Ofce paid increasing atention to the treatment and welfare of ‘coloured’ colonials domiciled in Britain, leading to the establishment of a specifc welfare department with an ofce in Liverpool. During the Second World War, the local remit was to extend beyond hospitality for temporary visitors, whether transient seamen, service personnel or wartime workers, to consider the ‘community’ needs of the long established, but previously neglected, resident ‘coloured’ population. Such ‘liberalism’ in a seemingly unlikely quarter ran counter to repeated atempts by an unholy alliance of cost-cuting shipping owners (notably Elder Dempster), ‘racist’ trade union leaders (defenders of the ‘wages of whiteness’) and hard-pressed local ofcials (concerned about public order) to redefne (or rather restrict) British nationality. A persistent presence, racism took diferent forms at diferent times in Liverpool, refecting the ambiguities, inconsistencies and contradictions on which it was constructed.13 ‘We have done what we can to prevent the alien element increasing but there is no power to deal with the British element,’ the Home Ofce replied to criticism of the growing black presence in inter-war Liverpool: ‘It is a penalty of being a mother country with a large mixed Empire. Te most that we can do is to discourage coloured seamen from obtaining British passports, so that we can treat them as aliens, when they get here, and prevent them remaining.’14 Racism also prevailed in philanthropic endeavour, a potent blend of paternalism, missionary zeal and faddist eugenics. Mabel Fletcher’s infamous Report on an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and other Ports for the Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children, drew upon the new eugenic binary orthodoxy, contrasting the virtue of the (now rehabilitated) Chinese with the vice and ‘real social menace’ of the ‘negro’. Underneath the ‘pseudo-scientifc and biological racism’, the Report difered litle from the blend of sex, prejudice and economics favoured by other advocates of repatriation and restriction – in his laudatory ‘Foreword’, Professor Roxby questioned

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the value of temporary expedients short of the ‘total exclusion of negro labour on ships entering the port’. For all its shortcomings, the Report had deleterious contemporary and enduring impact, serving, as Mark Christian has observed, to cement ‘the derogatory term “half caste” into the social perception of the city, along with previously held stereotypes about Black families and gave them credence via a seemingly “objective” and unbiased analysis’.15 According to Harold King, warden of the University Setlement and secretary of the Liverpool Association, being ‘half-caste’ was ‘in the modern industrial world a handicap comparable to physical deformity’. Visitors to the city, however, took a more kindly view, delighting in the cosmopolitan complexion of the south end, where J.B. Priestley encountered a primary school resembling a miniature League of Nations assembly gone mad … All the races of mankind were there, wonderfully mixed … Looking at them, you did not think of the rif-raf of the stokeholds and the slaterns of the slums who had served as their parents: they seemed like the charming exotic fruits, which indeed they were, of some profound anthropological experiment.16

Within the black community there were self-help agencies, most notably the African Churches Mission run by Pastor Daniels Ekarte. ‘Liverpool’s Coloured Centre’, the Mission in Hill Street ministered ‘to the body as well as the soul. Tere is a social centre for recreation, and a canteen where destitute Africans are temporarily fed and sheltered, as far as our limited funds permit’. While seeking ‘British justice free of prejudice’ for colonials born or domiciled in Liverpool, Ekarte favoured their return to Africa once suitably trained and skilled. By the late 1930s industrial training for those pejoratively labelled as ‘half-caste’ was the ‘chief aim’ of the Mission, in preparation for their return to Africa to promote colonial development. It was this scheme that brought Ekarte to the atention, and earned the approval, of Harold Moody’s League of Coloured Peoples (LCP), the authentic voice of the small black middleclass elite in Britain whose atention was promptly diverted from Cardif (scene of racial confict in 1935) to Liverpool. During the Second World War both the LCP and the recently formed Colonial Ofce Welfare Department established a presence in Liverpool, initially to atend to the needs of West Indian technicians and trainees on a labour-recruitment scheme – on their arrival, the Colonial Ofce, much concerned by recent disturbances in the Caribbean, had sought to make ‘such arrangements for the social life of these Jamaicans as would

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prevent their becoming “contaminated” by the rather unsatisfactory West African seamen population of Liverpool’.17 In mobilising the colonies for global war, Britain was obliged to redefne the imperial mission, to move forward (much to the approval of the LCP) from ‘tutelage to partnership’ and thence towards colonial self-government. ‘If this process is not to be frustrated it is of the frst importance that those who come to this country from the Colonial Empire shall feel that here too the partnership is a fact and not a phrase,’ Te Times commented, noting with concern that ‘racial discrimination is not always easy to avoid.’18 Te application of the local colour bar, accentuated by the segregation applied by US troops (including the ‘coloured American Labour Corps’) stationed on the outskirts of the city, came under critical scrutiny, particularly as directed against ‘notoriously touchy’ West Indians. It soon became apparent that discrimination-free wartime accommodation, hospitality and recreation for the new ‘coloured’ arrivals could not be provided in a discrete self-contained manner – account had also to be taken of the needs of long-term black residents, previously ignored and/or traduced. However, as Stephen Bourne has shown, proposals to distinguish the later by some form of badge – Harold Macmillan suggested ‘a litle Union Jack to wear in their butonholes’ – came to nothing.19 Planning for post-war reconstruction included innovative ‘community’ proposals to tackle segregation and discrimination for the beneft of the resident black population in Liverpool. Unable to assume domestic responsibility beyond the service of frst resort ofered by its Liverpool ofce, the Colonial Ofce Welfare Department struggled to persuade the relevant authorities and agencies to put aside objections to ‘special’ provision and commit resources to initiatives such as the Stanley House Community Centre. Progress with this intended fagship project was tortuously slow as the local authority refused to infringe its ‘colour-blind’ impartiality to acknowledge purported special needs (a stance retained up to and beyond the 1981 riots), while well-meaning voluntary agencies worried lest any specifc provision might prove counter-productive, reinforcing the feeling of segregation. Projects like Stanley House suggested that black Liverpudlians should be included within the post-war construction of Britishness, but there was no desire for any increase in numbers of ‘dark strangers in our midst’.20 A re-afrmation of pre-war defnitions of imperial citizenship, the British Nationality Act of 1948 maintained an open door for all British subjects from the Empire and Commonwealth, but there was a

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marked preference for post-war labour market needs to be met instead by ‘alien’ workers from Eastern Europe, recruited on the basis of their ‘presumed genetic similarity’.21 In a reprise of events afer the First World War, the Home Ofce ensured the swif and comprehensive deportation of the ‘alien’ Chinese, while the Colonial Ofce encouraged the repatriation of ‘coloured’ colonials, not only the undesirable and unemployable but also the upwardly mobile, those expected to remain grateful for the skills, training and professional qualifcations acquired in their wartime sojourn. Once again, the transition to peace hit Liverpool hard with a return to high levels of unemployment (while labour shortage applied elsewhere), soon followed by a further round of race riots (over the August bank holiday weekend in 1948). Liverpool, as feldwork undertaken by an American academic confrmed, was the major ‘problem community’ in ‘race relations’.22 Tis depressing context notwithstanding, the number of new arrivals from the colonies, whether passengers or stowaways, increased signifcantly – well ahead of the arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948 – in mistaken expectation of continued wartime wage rates. Although encouraged to move on from depressed Liverpool, there were fears that, being ill-suited to labour market needs and life in industrial areas, they would drif back to be with their own kind, living of generous benefts and compounding ‘the special social problems which result from their presence’. Liverpool remained at the forefront of concern about race relations into the 1950s as new forms of black organisation emerged, more militant than either the middle-class LCP or Ekarte’s spiritual mission. Te removal of 25% of colonial seamen from the shipping register prompted a vehement response among the resident black community, spearheaded by the Communist-infuenced Colonial People’s Defence Association (CPDA). Te Communist Party, indeed, was to accord special atention to Liverpool, the ‘key city’ in ‘the joint struggle for Colonial rights at home and abroad’. Having been the focus of concern in the troubled post-war years into the early 1950s, Liverpool underwent a transformation thereafer, emerging as a model of race relations, aided by a period of relative (alas short-lived) prosperity through belated industrial diversifcation. Te various favourable developments, however, were by no means unproblematic. A seeming testament to ‘multi-cultural’ Liverpool, the remarkable fourishing of ethnic associational culture, from the tribal to the pan-national, revealed the complexity and heterogeneity of the ‘coloured community’, but the highly

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Before the Windrush

segmented structure precluded a united ‘black’ front against discrimination. Co-ordination was to the fore in the newly established (all-white) Colonial Welfare Commitee, a multi-agency initiative led by the Personal Service Society, which stepped forward when the Colonial Ofce had to close its Liverpool ofce: while galvanising the local voluntary sector to redress the disadvantage endured by the black community, it stopped well short of any provision which might encourage an increase in numbers. Still lauded as a fagship project, Stanley House Community Centre was ofen beset with confict over its paternalistic management style and inability to satisfy the competing needs of new arrivals, ethnic groups and Liverpool-born blacks. Furthermore, the ‘branch-plant’ prosperity of the afuent 1950s and early 1960s, the formative period of ‘Merseybeat’, was not immediately accessible to the black community. Close to outer council estates much favoured by the re-housed white working-class but eschewed by blacks, the new industrial plants were far away from the security of the Granby Triangle, with its networks of ethnic collective mutuality, shebeens, clubs and other compensatory delights (popular atractions which Stanley House could not match). Tese qualifcations notwithstanding, Liverpool was regarded as a success story in community relations, conformed by its avoidance of the race riots of 1958, afer which it was regularly approached for advice by cities experiencing the post-Windrush infux. Te good times did not endure. As economic prospects declined, community relations deteriorated, although journalists, politicians and ofcials persisted in regarding Liverpool as exemplary. Critical dissent was expressed frst by those concerned with local black youth, as in the report Special but Not Separate produced by the Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee, an ominous examination of ‘the situation of young coloured people in Liverpool’. Obscured by national preoccupation with immigration and new arrivals, the discrimination and disadvantage experienced by Liverpool-born black youths lay concealed (and festering) beneath the spurious local rhetoric of harmonious relations. Evidence presented to the Select Commitee on Race Relations shortly aferwards suggested that Liverpool, so far from being a role model, stood as an ominous object lesson, foreshadowing problems to come if British-born children of recent arrivals were to encounter similar levels of discrimination and disadvantage. Ten came the riots of 1972, an early warning from Liverpool – mainly unheeded – of trouble ahead as the British-born children of the Empire Windrush generation approached adolescence, alienation and racial polarisation.

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Why was so litle atention accorded to these prescient lessons and warnings from Liverpool? Obsessed with immigration, the race relations ‘industry’ that developed in the wake of legislation in the late 1960s tended to overlook Liverpool: newly arrived immigrants from the West Indies, India and Pakistan constituted a mere 0.4% of the local population, well below the threshold for resource investment and concern. Shunned by ‘new Commonwealth’ migrants, recession-blighted Liverpool was soon in free fall down the urban hierarchy, a seemingly unstoppable descent into the ‘shock city’ of post-industrial, post-colonial Britain. So far from serving as warning and object lesson, Liverpool was cast in another role, designated (and denigrated) as a proverbial (and irredeemable) exception, an internal ‘other’ at odds with positive developments elsewhere in enterprise Britain. For agencies seeking to regenerate and rehabilitate the city, measures to address racial discrimination and disadvantage were seldom a priority (or even included) in a succession of ill-fated projects to tackle multiple deprivation. Local councillors continued to subscribe to the fction of racial harmony, dismissing all who argued otherwise as ‘interfering do-gooders and sensationalist sociologists’. In the continued absence of any acknowledgement of the ‘special but not separate’ needs of the black British population in the city, the council simply sought to emulate developments elsewhere, implementing English language centres and other forms of reception provision for new arrivals. Of litle relevance to long-established (and long-sufering) black Liverpudlians, such projects caused anger and ofence, hindering the eforts of those seeking to promote community relations. New levels of police harassment of black youths exacerbated the tension, leading to the formation of the Merseyside Anti-Racialist Alliance ‘to combat the institutionalized forms of racial discrimination that have existed on Merseyside for a very long time’. Working with this umbrella organisation, a panoply of black groups, supported by the under-resourced Merseyside Community Relations Council and atendant academics in the Merseyside Area Profle Group, campaigned hard to force the City Council to fulfl its legal obligations and implement a long-overdue equal opportunities policy. Having fnally acceded, the local authority straightway reduced its funding to the Community Relations Council and various voluntary agencies in the feld. Shortly aferwards, within a month of the outbreak of rioting in Liverpool 8 in 1981, the Select Commitee on Race Relations, having heeded the warning signs, issued an ominous report acknowledging that Liverpool was ‘the most disturbing case of racial disadvantage in the

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Before the Windrush

United Kingdom … a grim warning to all of Britain’s cities that racial disadvantage cannot be expected to disappear by natural causes’. Downplaying the role of race, lef-wing activists claimed the events of summer 1981 as ‘a revolt of the unemployed, a riot of the dispossessed’. However, the specifc location of the riots within a distinct part of Liverpool 8 (misreported by the media as Toxteth) indicated a crucial racial component. Originating in Granby, these were not race riots in the patern of 1919, 1948 and 1972, but racial factors served as proximate and defning cause, as Philip Waller’s astute analysis afrms: Te rioting was not a race riot, in that the struggle was not white against black or vice versa; but there was a strong racial component to it, in that rioting would probably never have occurred without the lead being taken by the blacks who were aggrieved at police practices. 23

Unavailing eforts to keep the post-rioting post-mortem focused on the central issue of police harassment came to symbolise the black struggle for recognition of their special (but not separate) needs. Brushing aside the ill-concealed racism of the Chief Constable and his force, the ofcial response to the riots took the form of headline-grabbing initiatives to tackle urban deprivation, not institutional racism. Of dubious beneft to the black community, Michael Heseltine’s vaunted regeneration projects came at the expense of central government fnancial support for local government, lessening the funds available for mainstream services utilised by Liverpool blacks. Progress on the equal opportunities policy came to a halt when Militant took control of the City Council shortly aferwards, with a workerist ideology of absolute class solidarity which prohibited (with even more rigour than the old ‘colour-blind’ policy) any form of ‘divisive’ positive action to tackle racial disadvantage and discrimination. In a gesture of goodwill and reconciliation, the new Labour administration which replaced Militant in 1987 called upon Lord Giford (who had recently chaired the Broadwater Farm inquiry) to examine race relations in the city.24 Drawing upon their long experience in London, Leeds, Bradford and Manchester, the inquiry team judged racism in Liverpool to be ‘uniquely horrifc’.

*** Overlooked throughout the post-war decades by the obsession with immigration and the number of new arrivals, Liverpool-born blacks

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Introduction

11

were out of place in the subsequent embrace of multiculturalism (soon discovered to be at odds with liberal and Enlightenment notions of citizenship). Heralded at the time, but now questioned, multiculturalism ofered immigrant groups protection, collective mutuality and token recognition within rigid segmented ‘ethnic fefdoms’ which, as Tim Bunnell has shown, tended to ‘fx, naturalise and essentialise “cultures”’. 25 While part of the multi-cultural mosaic, ethnic minorities remained circumscribed, unwilling to look beyond particularist boundaries for fear of jeopardising their claim to resources as a distinctive group.26 Being several-generations British, although not always recognised as such, black Liverpudlians lacked an immigrant point of ethno-cultural access, while still remaining marginalised, ignored or repudiated by the dominant host culture. Given the history of Liverpool 8, terms such as ‘mixed race’ carried similar ofence to the despised categorisation ‘half-caste’. When community relations came under critical scrutiny, academic researchers suggested the appellation Afro-English, but this failed to gain purchase. Tere is a telling contrast here with the Liverpool-Irish, who, having endured disadvantage and discrimination, entered the white mainstream and secured a hyphenated identity. Indeed, the Liverpool-Irish slummy, emblematic of the Liverpudlian struggle against adversity, misperception and misrepresentation, came to be inscribed as the prototypical ‘scouser’.27 Ethnographic studies conducted by Jacqueline Nassy Brown in the early 1990s suggested that Liverpool-born blacks sought either to establish their own ‘racial’ identity (by means of what has been called ‘additive blackness’)28 or else sought solace in pan-racial nostalgia. In the frst approach, a polarising process of ‘localization as racialization’, the collective place-birth lineage embodied in the signifer ‘Liverpool-born black’ was accorded exclusionary force. Not always welcoming to new arrivals from the Caribbean and post-colonial Africa (or recent refugees from Somalia), this local essentialism gave a ‘black’ (and alternative) infexion to Merseypride, the insistence on exceptionalism and apartness, through which the city mediated its descent into marginality and ‘renegade outsiderism’. Te alternative was to evoke ‘the Liverpool Tat Was’, a reifed ‘authentic’ multi-cultural Liverpool belonging to all.29 In this imagined past – before history and geography turned against Liverpool – the ‘community’ mentality of the Scotie-Road ‘slummy’ co-existed with a broader culture, a seafaring cosmopolitanism celebrated in black popular memory, genealogical research and the multi-media outputs of ‘mapping memory’ projects. 30 Inter-cultural hybridity was perhaps best personifed

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Before the Windrush

by Kanso Yoshida. A second cousin of the Japanese emperor Hirohito, he came to Liverpool before the First World War, became so atached to the place that he stayed, joined the merchant navy, served in both world wars, took British nationality and was known to all (as his obituary in 1960 recorded) by the adopted nomenclature, Paddy Murphy. 31 In her autobiography, Bessie Braddock, local councillor then MP for Liverpool Exchange, calculated some 75,000 ‘patients’ from around the globe had visited her constituency surgery since 1930: ‘Tey include Chinese, Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Jamaicans, Adenese, Arabs – every race and colour you can think of. Strictly speaking I’m there for the beneft of my constituents, who are a cosmopolitan crowd. But in practice I am at the service of people from all over the world.’32 As reconstructed in popular memory, the diaspora space of ‘sailortown’ Liverpool is revered (without excess theoretical baggage) as an exotic multi-cultural space. No more than a memory, cosmopolitanism evaporated as ‘sailortown’ itself disappeared through urban redevelopment, wartime bomb damage, and distant relocation of the working docks. Te more problematic meanings associated with the area were to remain, however, accompanying the black community in the short move away from the waterfront, eventually into the Granby Triangle. A circumscribed area on the maritime-urban frontier, ‘sailortown’ has stood as metonym for the wider city, the critical infuence in representations of Liverpool’s distinctive culture, character and history. An exception within Britain, Liverpool was representative (perhaps formatively so) of developments in other major seaports. Black communities in the near waterfront zone of European seaport cities have inherited many of the defning myths of ‘sailortown’ in terms of crime, vice and ‘foreignness’ and have found it difcult to disabuse such misperception and media misrepresentation. 33 It is to be hoped that for Liverpool at least this study will aid the much-needed process of historical reappraisal.

Notes 1 Fifh Report of the Home Afairs Commitee, 1980–81: Racial Disadvantage, p. xlvi on Liverpool, ‘a grim warning to all of Britain’s cities that racial disadvantage cannot be expected to disappear by natural causes’. 2 John Belchem, ‘Celebrating Liverpool’ in John Belchem, (ed.), Liverpool 800: Culture, character and history, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006, pp. 56–57. See also the chapter by Belchem and Donald

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M. MacRaild, ‘Cosmopolitan Liverpool’, pp. 311–92. Figures just released from the 2011 census indicate that 9.9% of the population of Liverpool were ‘born abroad’ against the national average of 13% for England and Wales. 3 Jacqueline Nassy Brown, ‘Enslaving history: Narratives on local whiteness in a black Atlantic port’, American Ethnologist, 27, 2000, pp. 340–70. For a useful introduction to the historiography, see Sheryllyne Haggerty, ‘Liverpool, the slave trade and the British-Atlantic empire, c. 1750–75’ in Sheryllyne Haggerty, Anthony Webster and Nicholas J. White, (eds), Te empire in one city? Liverpool’s inconvenient imperial past, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008, pp. 17–34. 4 Caryl Phillips, Te Atlantic Sound, London: Faber and Faber, 2000, p. 93. Phillips was glad to leave Liverpool afer a visit in the early 1990s, touring sites associated with slavery: ‘It was disquieting to be in a place where history is so physically present, yet so glaringly absent from people’s consciousness.’ On the inter-linkage between remembering and forgeting, see Catherine Hall, ‘Troubling Memories: Nineteenthcentury histories of the slave trade and slavery’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 21, 2011, pp. 147–69. 5 Ray Costello, Black Liverpool: Te early history of Britain’s oldest black community 1730–1918, Liverpool: Picton Press, 2001, ch. 1. 6 C.  Colvin (ed.), Maria Edgworth: Leters fom England 1813–44, Oxford: Clarendon, 1971, p. 10. 7 Notes and Queries, 7th series, 6 (1888), pp. 124–25, 153, 178, 210. See also Tony Crowley, Scouse: A social and cultural history, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012, which provides a more extensive analysis than my essay, ‘“An accent exceedingly rare”: Scouse and the infexion of class’ in Merseypride. 8 National Archives, Kew, Board of Trade Papers: BT 31/3973/25221, Liverpool Cosmopolitan Club Company Ltd, 1887. 9 John Belchem, ‘Britishness, asylum seekers and the northern working class: 1851’, Northern History, 39, 2002, pp. 59–74. 10 Souvenir of the First Colonial Products Exhibition, 1904. 11 Ramsay Muir, A History of Liverpool, London: Williams & Norgate, 1907, pp. 305–06. 12 Jacqueline Jenkinson, Black 1919: Riots, Racism and Resistance in Imperial Britain, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009. 13 Laura Tabili, ‘We ask for British justice’. Workers and Racial Diference in late imperial Britain, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 1–14. 14 National Archives, Kew: Home Ofce Papers, HO45/25404 Aliens: Colour problems and white slave trafc in Liverpool and other ports;

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Before the Windrush

police reports; correspondence with the Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children. 15 Mark Christian, ‘Te Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness, Journal of Historical Sociology, 21, 2008, pp. 213–41. 16 J.B.  Priestley, English Journey, London, 1934; 1994 edn, pp. 240–49. Liverpool Diocesan Review 1935, p. 589 noted that anthropologists need not pay the expense of a voyage to Polynesia: ‘Te much criticised Liverpool tram for one penny will take you to St Michael’s, standing in lofy grandeur in a quiet square, and you have lef Liverpool, and are in the midst of a babel of tongues, where every other child has the curly hair of the negro, or the wide slanting eyes of the East.’ 17 National Archives, Kew: Colonial Ofce Papers, CO 859/40/2, Treatment of coloured people by Elder Dempster Shipping Company, opening memorandum. 18 ‘Colonials in Britain’, Te Times 24 Sept. 1942. For the essential imperial dimensions of the war, although generally remembered in ‘Eurocentric manner’, see Ashley Jackson, Te British Empire and the Second World War, London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006, p. 7. 19 Stephen Bourne, Mother Country: Britain’s Black Community on the Home Front 1939–45, Stroud: Te History Press, 2010, p. 12. 20 Chris Waters, ‘“Dark Strangers in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947–1963’, Journal of British Studies, 36, 1997, pp. 207–38. 21 Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-War Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, ch. 2; Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997, chs 1–3. 22 John St Clair Drake, ‘Te “Colour Problem” in Britain: A study in social defnitions’, Sociological Review, new series, iii, 2, 1955, pp. 197–217. A black US academic, John St Clair Drake was prompted to undertake research for his University of Chicago PhD thesis by publicity about the ‘brown babies’ born of wartime liaisons between black US troops and British white women, see Graham Smith, When Jim Crow met John Bull: Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain, London: I.B. Tauris, 1987, p. 207. 23 P.J. Waller, ‘Te riots in Toxteth: A survey’, New Community, 9, 1981–82, p. 346. 24 On the disturbances in Totenham, October 1985, see Michael Rowe, Te Racialisation of Disorder in Twentieth Century Britain. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, ch. 5, which notes how ‘the racist criminalisation of the black

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Introduction

15

community served to simplify the complex story of the Broadwater Farm disorders.’ 25 Tim Bunnell, ‘Multiculturalism’s regeneration: Celebrating Merdeka (Malaysian independence) in a European Capital of Culture’, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, new series, 33, 2008, p. 264. For the interconnected nature of the debate about multiculturalism and immigration, see Jeremy Harding, ‘Europe at Bay’, London Review of Books 9 Feb. 2012, pp. 3–11. 26 John Nagle, ‘Multiculturalism’s double bind: Creating inclusivity, diference and cross-community alliances with the London Irish’, Ethnicities, 8, 2, 2008, pp. 177–98. 27 John Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse: Te history of the LiverpoolIrish, 1800–1939, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 22 and 322–23; and ‘Whiteness and the Liverpool-Irish’, Journal of British Studies, 44 (2005), pp. 146–52. Tere were individual exceptions: born in 1918, Grace Wilkie, daughter of an African seaman and English mother, proudly proclaimed when interviewed for ‘Black Britain’ by BBC2 in 1991: ‘I belong to Liverpool and Liverpool belongs to me,’ quoted in Bourne, Mother Country, p. 42. 28 Jayne O. Ifekwunigwe, ‘(An)Other English city: Multiethnicities, (post) modern moments and strategic identifcations’, Ethnicities, 2, 3, 2002, p. 336. 29 Brown, Dropping Anchor, chs 4 and 9. See also the extensive ‘review symposium’ of this book in Antipode, 39, 2, 2007, pp. 355–81. 30 For the recent AHRC-funded ‘Mapping Memory’ project, see www. liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/maritime/research/mappingmemory. 31 Fritz Spiegl, Scouse International: Te Liverpool dialect in fve languages, Liverpool: Scouse Press, 2000, p. 22. 32 Jack and Bessie Braddock, Te Braddocks, London: Macdonald, 1963, p. 162. 33 John Belchem, ‘Port cities, cosmopolitanism and “otherness”: Te (mis)representation of Liverpool’ in J.  Harris and R.  Williams, (eds), Regenerating Culture and Society: Art, Architecture and Urban Style within the Global Politics of City-Branding, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011, pp. 281–93. I am much indebted to on-going research on ‘sailortown’ by a Liverpool colleague, see Graeme J. Milne, ‘Maritime city, maritime culture? Representing Liverpool’s waterfront districts since the mid-nineteenth century’ in Mike Benbough-Jackson and Sam Davies, (eds), Merseyside: Culture and place, Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2011, pp. 89–108.

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C h a p t e r On e

Edwardian cosmopolitanism

Tanks to its massive dock system, ‘as solid and enduring as the Pyramids, the most stupendous work of its kind that the will and power of man have ever created’,1 Edwardian Liverpool, the proud (and prosperous) ‘second city of empire’, promoted itself as the pre-eminent cosmopolitan hub, the commercial and human entrepôt linking the old world and the new: Indisputably the premier ocean port in the British Empire, it is the most famous and the most frequented emporium of cosmopolitan trafc the world has known in ancient or modern times … In olden times it used to be said that “all roads lead to Rome”. Today all seas lead to Liverpool, if not as a terminus, at least as an exchange or a clearinghouse for world-wide international transport. Tere is no part of the globe, however remote, whose natives may not be met on the Liverpool landing stage, and there is no territory so distant whose products do not pass from time to time through the docks and warehouses of Liverpool and Birkenhead.2

On a ‘democratic promenade’ along the famous landing stage, renowned for its ‘cosmopolitanism, comprehension and catholicity’, the faneur encountered the world in one city: ‘all sorts and conditions of men, of all colours … everybody seems to be here, from everywhere. Tis is representative humanity.’3 Jumma prayers at the local Mosque (one of the frst in the country) atracted ‘coloured races’ of ‘a cosmopolitan kind’, an ‘ingathering of the representatives of all nations’ with varied dress and ‘polyglotic’ tongues.4 While engaged in ethno-sectarian

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Before the Windrush

defence of its large migrant fock from across the Irish Sea, the local Catholic press sought reassurance and perspective from the city’s demographic profle, a mixture of races the like of which no other industrial community in the North of England can furnish. Jew and Gentile, Mongolian and Negro, Irish and Welsh, with no overwhelming proportion of the genuineborn Englishman, and last of all, that hybrid product of civilisation, the Orangeman, all live and have their being on the banks of the Mersey. 5

Te arrival in 1911 of a band of thirty or so coppersmith Gypsies, exotic ‘real Roma’ from eastern Europe, brought great delight to the Liverpoolbased Gypsy Lore Society, but otherwise merged all but unnoticed into the ethnic mosaic: Many kinds of foreigner tread the streets of Liverpool, and thus, when Uncle Kola and his tribe appeared on the banks of the Mersey from nowhere in particular the litle boys put him down as a new species of ‘Dago’, and did not embarrass him with unwelcome atention. 6

A defning feature of Ramsay Muir’s History and other publications celebrating the 700th anniversary in 1907 of the granting of leters patent to the borough, cosmopolitanism had long served to distinguish Liverpool from its provincial and industrial hinterland. Herman Melville’s description of Liverpool in Redburn (1849) placed the port at the very hub of nineteenth-century globalisation: every dock was ‘an epitome of the world, where all the nations of Christendom, and even those of Heathendom, are represented … Here under the benefcent sway of the Genius of Commerce, all climes and countries embrace; and yard-arm touches yard-arm in brotherly love’.7 In 1877 the Liverpool Critic observed that Unlike the dwellers in most English towns, all of us in Liverpool are, to a great extent, citizens of the world, for everything around us tells us of far-of countries and foreign ways, and in our midst are constantly natives of so many distant lands that we insensibly imbibe and learn to practice peculiarities not British. 8

By the time of the International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry in 1886, Liverpool was acknowledged (even in the London press) as ‘the New York of Europe, a world-city rather than merely British provincial’.9

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Edwardian cosmopolitanism

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A much deployed trope, cosmopolitanism seems to date back to the remarkable exercise in civic re-branding following the abolition of the infamous slave trade in 1807. With unashamed commercial pride, Georgian Liverpool had established itself as the ‘slaving capital of the world’, oblivious to external criticism. In what was perhaps the frst expression of self-declared ‘otherness’, Liverpudlians upheld their commercial acumen and success (in which the slave trade was undiferentiated business) against the meddlesome moralism of ‘outside’ abolitionist opinion. Having cut itself of from the mainstream of changing British ideology, Liverpool was soon faced, however, with what Seymour Drescher has described as ‘a threat not just to its economic base but to its cultural identity’.10 As abolitionists claimed the high ground, materialist Liverpool stood condemned for barbarism, philistinism and lack of civilised culture. Afer abolition, moral and social distancing developed apace. Reassessment of the past privileged those who had opposed the trade against the odds, although radical abolitionists, such as the blind poet Edward Rushton, a former sailor in the trade, tended to be passed over in favour of the more refned ‘Humanity’ men, most notably William Roscoe and his circle of merchant-scholars. Reviled at the time, the Roscoe circle were rehabilitated as role models for ‘Liverpolis’, the foundation fgures of Liverpool’s post-abolitionist pre-eminence in the civilised culture of commerce (formative years in establishing the superiority of Liverpool gentlemen over Manchester men). In studying renaissance Florence, Roscoe had found ‘refreshment from the brutal materialism of his native town, and inspiration for the atempt to breathe into it a new spirit’.11 Cultural re-branding was accompanied by rapid and successful economic realignment with the opening of lucrative new markets and trade to Africa and elsewhere. Faced with potential economic adversity, Liverpool was to show itself at its transformational best, thereafer a recurrent (and reassuring) feature in the articulation of Merseypride. Several of the new markets dealt in products produced by on-going (and still legal) slave labour, but there was a distinct change in mood and character, symbolised by an increased cosmopolitan presence. With the opening up of new markets, ethnic diversity became increasingly apparent and welcome: signifcant numbers of Kru (from West Africa), Lascar (from the Indian sub-continent), Chinese and other sea-faring communities within and beyond the ‘black Atlantic’, were drawn to the port and its open waterfront culture, ofen more than temporarily.12

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Before the Windrush

Figure 1: A Victorian example of inter-marriage: Edward James, a Bermudan seaman who setled in Liverpool in 1853, married Harriet Gates in 1873. On enlisting in the First World War, Albert, one of their sons, was described by the examining medical ofcer as having ‘slight defects but not sufcient to cause rejection … Is a half-caste’.

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Edwardian cosmopolitanism

21

As fre regulations precluded crews from staying aboard while in port, merchant seamen had perforce recourse to ‘sailortown’ Liverpool, an urban strip of bars, brothels, boarding houses and other services, ‘haunts from which’, Melville recorded, ‘sailors sometimes disappear forever; or issue in the morning robbed naked, from the broken door-ways.’13 Beneath the licensed theatres and music halls of the city centre (where Sam Hague’s ‘original slave troupe’ of minstrels, ‘real niggers’ were the star atraction),14 sailortown Liverpool was notorious for its ‘unenviable pre-eminence in the unnecessary superfuity of its moral and material temptations to wrong-doing’.15 As Charles Dickens discovered (with suitable police protection), various delectations (or rather ‘unlawful traps’) were on ofer every night, catering to ‘British Jack’, ‘Loafng Jack of the Stars and Stripes’, ‘Spanish Jack’, ‘Maltese Jack’, ‘Jack of Sweden’, ‘Jack the Finn’ and ‘Dark Jack’. Reduced to the crudest stereotype for a multi-national audience, the stage Irishman shared the boards in dubious premises with other acts luring the unwary into drink and other dangers through device and deception: risqué tableaux vivants in which participants cross-dressed or wore only fesh-coloured coton tights, and the ‘hideous’ blacking up of musicians and dancers such as Mr Nozzle (‘a nigger singer with blackened face, striped shirt, tight trousers, and top boots’) and Mr Banjo Bones, a favourite, who, as Dickens observed, could command a considerable fee.16 Homer’s Gardens, fctional seting of Te Brandons, John Denvir’s serialised story of Irish life in Liverpool, provided lodgings for artistes and street performers of various nationalities, mainly Irish, Italian and Jewish – Punch and Judy men, acrobats, organ-grinders, musicians, out of work artistes and ‘burnt-cork niggers now looking somewhat pie-bald afer the day’s heat’.17 In cosmopolitan areas like this, with a foating population of transients, sojourners and setlers, waterfront Liverpool was more akin to Five Points, ‘the 19th century New York City neighborhood that invented tap dance, stole elections, and became the world’s most notorious slum.’18 Liverpool, however, seems not to have matched such ‘syncretic’ fusion between Irish and black culture, although it was always receptive (as its fascination with blackface minstrelsy atested) to the latest fashion from across the Atlantic – boys as young as seven took to the cheap concert room stage to perform clog dances ‘à la Juba’.19 A pleasure zone of cultural contact (and danger for the unwary), sailortown Liverpool became a favourite stopping-of point for AfricanAmerican seamen descended from victims of the (now repudiated) triangular trade. ‘In Liverpool indeed’, Herman Melville recorded,

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Before the Windrush

the negro steps with a prouder pace, and lifs his head like a man; for here, no such exaggerated feeling exists in respect to him, as in America. Tree or four times, I encountered our black steward, dressed very handsomely, and walking arm in arm with a good-looking English woman. In New York, such a couple would have been mobbed in three minutes; and the steward would have been lucky to escape with whole limbs.

Relishing ‘the friendly reception extended to them’, not least the company of white women, Afro-American sailors were able to enjoy what Melville dubbed ‘unwonted immunities’.20 In the absence of factory employment, young Irish women in Liverpool developed a niche market in the sex industry observed by F.W.  Lowndes, servicing ‘the numerous negroes always present in Liverpool as ships’ cooks, stewards, seamen and labourers’ in a network of streets in sailortown ‘known by various names, the least objectionable, perhaps, of which, is “Blackman’s Alley”’.21 Longer-term unions seem to have involved some token acculturation. ‘“I’m a true Christian now, and mean to remain one”’, Zaid, a well-known ‘Asiatic’ in Liverpool, assured a bemused Protestant evangelical missionary: “Yes”, chimed in an Irish woman, with such a broad accent, from the land of Erin, that it made her declaration somewhat difcult to understand, “yes, he’s a Christian now, and the priest who made him so says so; and I says to him, ‘Sure and I won’t marry you till you be a Christian, so long as my name’s Driscol’”. All this was true excepting what concerned Christianity. Tis worthy Romanist would marry none but a Christian; so the Arab consented to the modus operandi by which he was to be made one, and the priest sprinkled some water on his face, and pronounced him to be such, to the satisfaction of both. 22

Black passengers in transit were delighted by their reception when they ventured into town, even into the established church. Denied entry to US colleges on account of his race, James McCune Smith, the son of a ‘self-emancipated bond-woman’ and the frst African-American to obtain a medical degree, spent several days in Liverpool in 1832 en route to Glasgow University, enjoying ‘interracial activity that would have been unthinkable in the United States at that time’.23 Together with his companion, he atended a service at St George’s, an ‘English Episcopalian Church’, the chief architectural work of the dock engineer Tomas Steers, built on the site of the medieval castle: Tere were no cold looks, no supercilious or sanctimonious frowns; none appeared to have reached that pitch of devotion in which creatures frown

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upon the works of their Creator – upon their fellow creatures, not for the hue of the soul, but of the skin. What a contrast, when compared with the reception that would have been given us in an Americanation (sic) church!24

Fugitive slaves such as William Wells Brown were delighted to discover that ‘the prejudice which I have experienced on all and every occasion in the United States … vanished as soon as I set foot on the soil of Britain.’ However, he caused something of a sensation in the Liverpool customs hall when his luggage was found to include a ‘negro collar’, an ‘instrument of torture’ worn ‘by a female slave on the banks of the Mississippi’. 25 Te cosmopolitan complexion was enhanced by the emigration trade. By the mid-nineteenth century, Liverpool was already the premier European emigration port, the ‘food-gate of the old world’: in 1851, it sent 455 ships to New York carrying 159,480 passengers, the equivalent fgures for Le Havre being 124 ships and 31,859 passengers, and those for Bremen 132 ships and 19,431 passengers. Of the 5.5 million ‘moving Europeans’ who subsequently crossed the Atlantic between 1860 and 1900, 4.75 million sailed from Liverpool.26 Some groups, such as the Mormons en route from Scandinavia to Utah, kept themselves insulated and apart in their own mission and accommodation houses in Liverpool, while the less wary fell victim to the notorious ‘sharpers’, an unscrupulous band of lodging-house keepers, ticket brokers, ‘runners’, currency converters and other heartless fraudsters who feeced those awaiting trans-shipment, ofen leaving them penniless and hence immobile. 27 Gateway to the empire and the new world, Victorian Liverpool was what historical geographers term a ‘diaspora space’, a contact zone between diferent ethnic groups with difering needs and intentions as transients, sojourners or setlers (categories which, as Linda Grant’s grandparents atest, were by no means mutually exclusive).28 Trough accident, ill-health or misfortune, poor Irish migrants, Jews and other ‘moving Europeans’ found themselves caught in a ‘curious middle place’, disoriented by lack of funds for further travel and unexpectedly stuck in Liverpool in poor accommodation close to the docks. ‘Te number of foreigners who apply for a passage to America is still increasing,’ the Society of the Friends of Foreigners in Distress rued in the 1860s, as it implemented ‘more stringent rules’ to ‘discourage mendicity’: ‘Te regular emigrants from the Continent are followed by a number of their destitute countrymen, lacking the means to proceed, but who indulge in the vague hope of fnding here opportunities of crossing the

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Before the Windrush

Atlantic.’29 Annual reports of the Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor displayed a compassionate readiness to provide the most appropriate form of relief with a stern determination to prevent the availability of such welfare adding still further to the migrant infux into Liverpool, the botleneck of transatlantic diaspora. 30 Following the Russian pogrom of 1881, a special Liverpool Commission of the Mansion House Relief Fund provided local board, lodging and medical inspection for refugees arriving from Hamburg via Grimsby and West Hartlepool, and bulk-purchased steamship tickets to America together with suitable clothing and kosher food for the voyage, an initiative that assisted 6,274 poor Jews across the Atlantic at a cost of just over £30,000. 31 Tereafer the Board took a harsh line, ofering assistance to those in transit only in the most exceptional circumstances: Te Board receives frequent applications from people just arrived from Russia to forward them to America, but in no case does it accede to this request. If it did, poor Jews would be atracted to Liverpool as the port of embarkation in the hope of being sent to America. Te amount spent in fares and emigration account is partly devoted to sending back poor foreign Jews to their own country and partly, when special circumstances dictate such a course, in assisting wives to rejoin their husbands in America. 32

Merging imperceptibly into the ‘low’ Irish quarters, ‘cosmopolitan’ waterfront Liverpool catered for a vast foating, migrant and casual population, many of whom relied on goods of dubious derivation available in the ‘secondary economy’ of the streets and on ofer at Paddy’s Market: All the seamen know this covered market, where they frequently come to replenish their wardrobes. Even those natives who have never seen England before and speak no English can ask for ‘Paddee Markee’, as if the place were our pride and joy, the diadem of the Empire. 33

Tere were limits, however, to inter-cultural contact, not least through the ‘segregation’ imposed by some of the foreign seamen when in port (a patern repeated much later by the arrival of allied troops during the world wars). On visiting Dennison Street in 1850, the reporter for the Morning Chronicle found the street frequented almost wholly by American sailors, who look upon it as so entirely their own, that they have established a rule forbidding a ‘darkey’ or coloured man to pass thorough it – a popular law, worthy

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of Charleston, or any other slave town in America. If a coloured man, unaware of the fact, should accidentally stray into this pro-slavery preserve, he would run the risk of being mobbed. 34

‘Dark Jack’, Dickens discovered, had to be on his guard throughout sailortown: Tey generally kept together, these poor fellows, said Mr. Superintendent, because they were at a disadvantage singly, and liable to slights in the streets. But, if I were Light Jack, I should be very slow to interfere oppressively with Dark Jack, for, whenever I have had to do with him I have found him a simple and a gentle fellow. 35

During the 1860s, the Frederick Street locality, the epicentre of cosmopolitan Liverpool, was the scene of at least one murder and of ‘numberless outrages’ against Manila seamen and other foreign sailors, whose misfortune, the Daily Post reported, ‘seems to consist in having a darker complexion than the natives of our “tight litle island”’. 36 A serial perpetrator of such vicious atacks openly boasted that on release he would ‘have it in for those fukes’ – a term used by the ‘roughs’ to Manillamen – and that the ‘laws of this country ought to be like those in America, where the fukes were not allowed to walk on the footwalk’. 37

Apparently, sailors form Manila and Hawaii were called ‘fukes’ on account of their ‘fat faces’: … these fellows were in greater demand by the girls than either the Chinese or the Negroes; and this made them so conceited that there resulted few marriages and many bastards … the women liked them, for they played the ukuleles to perfection and made excellent pimps. Perhaps the keenest insult one could ofer would be to call one of them a Negro. 38

Down to the early twentieth century, Frederick Street (or ‘Flukey Alley’) continued to represent the changing cosmopolitan essence of seaport Liverpool, as a newspaper report of 1906 atested: In this short and narrow, but by no means dismal, thoroughfare dwells in concert a motley population of British, Chinese, negroes and Scandinavians, coming and going on their own mysterious afairs, lounging and conversing on public house steps and in their own restaurants. Te street has been successively ‘Litle Africa’, the temporary home of natives of Manila – who disappeared afer the diversion of trade caused the Spanish-American war – and fnally, with portions of Pit Street, the

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Before the Windrush

lodging place of Chinese cooks, stewards, deck-hands, fremen etc. who have been coming to Liverpool in increasing numbers for the last 8 or 9 years. Te African is still in evidence, some of the oldest inhabitants being of this race, and their children and grandchildren fourish in the same quarters. 39

Te Catholic press sought to defect atention away from the proverbial binge-drinking and violent disorder of Scotland Road, main artery of the Irish north end, to warn of ‘dark dangers’ in the south end. In a series which brought new meaning to the sobriquet ‘Black Spot on the Mersey’, the Liverpool Catholic Herald drew atention to the ‘no-go’ cosmopolitan area around Mill Street and Beaufort Street in Toxteth, characterised by ‘lodging-houses for negro, lascar and other foreign seamen, mulato children, drunken men and women, and street fghts. Tese streets are not considered desirable beats by the police, many of whom have come to grief in the perambulations therein’.40 Most streets in the south-end waterfront tended towards specifc ethnic clustering, with communal tolerance being secured, as Graeme Milne has noted, ‘more through segregation than through any goodwill’.41 Paddy O’Mara, a self-proclaimed ‘Liverpool-Irish slummy’, spent his Edwardian childhood on Brick Street, ‘a street of abominably overcrowded shacks … Negroes, Chinese, Mulatoes, Filipinos, almost every nationality under the sun, most of them boasting white wives and large half-caste families, were our neighbours, each color [sic] laying claim to a certain street.’ Some forceful characters, however, were oblivious of any boundaries, spatial or otherwise, such as Mary Ellen Grant, the ‘Connaught Nigger’ with an Irish mother and West African father, the most notorious (and feared) of the female ‘money lenders’ in the Edwardian slums, ‘tough, reckless, shrewd fnancially, abandoned morally’.42 By the end of the nineteenth century, tensions within Liverpool’s vaunted cosmopolitanism – previously called into question by mercantile support for the Confederate South during the American Civil War – were becoming exposed. Having defended the Liverpool Islamic Institute in Brougham Terrace, the ‘English Mecca’, from atack by militant Baptists and local stone-throwing youths (inappropriately described as ‘street arabs’), the solicitor W.H. Quilliam, Sheikh-ul-Islam of the British Isles, had to divert his energies in the 1890s to campaigning for the welfare of ‘Lascars Adrif’, exploited sailors from the Indian sub-continent forced to accept lower wages and harsher conditions by ‘Asiatic Articles’. Lef derelict in port when sick or incapacitated, those who sought to join ships

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in Liverpool (on standard contracts) sufered increasing discrimination as ‘a veritable crusade [was] being preached on either side of the river Mersey against the employment by British shipping companies of these “foreigners” as they are contemptuously styled.’43 Te determination to safeguard white employment (and the ‘wages of whiteness’) at sea was accompanied by a hardening of atitude towards migrants. Liverpool, the Head Constable rued in his annual report in 1904, ‘is beginning to sufer the presence of the undesirable alien’.44 Tose unable to progress further were characterised by contemporaries in most unfatering terms as ‘the scum lef by the tide of migration between Europe and the continent of America’.45 Among these, those from Ireland were condemned as ‘the residuum of the Irish – that is, those cases who had not “wing” enough, when they came from Ireland to carry them across the Atlantic’.46 Celebration of diversity was increasingly undermined by racist discourse, even in the measured prose of Ramsay Muir in his 700th anniversary history of Liverpool: Tere is no city in the world, not even London itself, in which so many foreign governments fnd it necessary to maintain consular ofces for the safeguarding of their exiled subjects. It should, however, be noted that this amazingly polyglot and cosmopolitan population, consisting to a considerable extent of races which are backward in many ways, and maintaining itself largely by unskilled labour, vastly increases the difculty of securing and maintaining the decencies of life.47

Cosmopolitanism was hindering social progress to the detriment of Liverpool’s reputation in ataining national minima and efciency. At its Edwardian apogee, Liverpool was at one and the same time promoting its cosmopolitan credentials while supporting the campaign for restrictive legislation. Tere was growing concern at the presence of ever greater numbers of seamen from all corners of the British Empire – and the alien beyond. As Laura Tabili has noted, black setlement grew signifcantly from the late nineteenth century as men arrived from the colonies both voluntarily and involuntarily: while some travelled by perfectly legitimate means, whether by working one-way passages or arriving as passengers, other seamen were discharged or abandoned when ill, or deliberately stranded by employers. Initially, their plight elicited a philanthropic response when nocturnal visits to the docks discovered ‘men of colour sleeping amongst bales of coton’ and living on ‘the grain and sugar which they found lying

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Before the Windrush

about’. A commitee was established in 1880 ‘to consider the means for giving relief to those coloured seamen presently in distress in Liverpool’, in particular ‘the cases of crews bringing ships safely to British ports, and who, instead of being reshipped or sent to their respective homes, are discharged and lef without the means of returning to their own country.’ A number of speakers exposed the double standards that applied: ‘this country sent out missionaries to convert the coloured people, but when any of those people came to Liverpool they were treated like dogs.’ Jacob Christian, a ‘coloured man’, reported that when he went to a shipowner to ofer seamen, the ‘frst thing that was generally said to him was “I want no coloured men”’: He asked if that was a Christian feeling … In the county he came from they would not see the people going about starving; but it appeared in this country if a coloured man went to get a ship he was called a Zulu, or something of that sort.48

By the Edwardian period there had been a distinct hardening of atitudes. A series of Alien Acts, starting in 1905, restricted numbers from outside the empire, but the problem of ‘British coloureds’ proved more intractable. Various vested interest groups – shipping owners, trade union leaders, government departments and local ofcials – struggled to redefne British nationality so as to codify and institutionalise racial hierarchy for their own advantage. A persistent presence, racism took diferent forms at diferent times in Liverpool, refecting the ambiguities, inconsistencies and contradictions on which it was constructed.49 Te frst to feel the full force of Edwardian racism were the ‘alien’ Chinese. Te United States had already introduced a Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882 afer a long campaign of hatred, led out of San Francisco by Irish workers. Australia and New Zealand developed ‘white’ only policies in the wake of this American action, while a sustained and savage critique of Chinese ‘coolie’ labour also impacted upon South Africa. Te fashpoint of concern over the ‘yellow peril’ in Liverpool was the arrival from London in 1906 of 32 Chinese without the ‘guarantees of employment’ required by the recently introduced Aliens Act of 1905. Tis ‘unguarded dumping’ prompted an hysterical reaction fanned by labour leaders and by sensationalist ‘investigative’ journalism into ‘Chinese Vice in England’. 50 Te dockers’ leader James Sexton, second-generation Irish in Britain, deployed explicitly racist discourse, condemning the ‘beastly’ morals of

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the Chinaman: ‘He comes here like an international octopus, spreading its tentacles everywhere, and he undermines and corrupts the morals, and pulls down the wages of the English people. (Shame).’51 Claude Blake, the ‘special commissioner’ for the Sunday Chronicle, drew a lurid picture of life behind the neat façade of Liverpool’s Chinatown, larger, flthier and more vice-ridden than its counterparts in New York, San Francisco, Panama and Manila. Blake’s blend of bigotry, fear and sexual fantasy extended beyond the familiar allegations of drug dens, gambling, brothel-keeping and violence to demonise the Chinese for their sexual deviance. He ofered prurient detail of the propensity for communal coupling (only the most substantial businessmen in Chinatown kept their white mistresses to themselves); the profciency at arousing the ‘perverted curiosity’ of white women (notably the wives of sailors at sea); and the preference for under-age sex (girls no older than 13 or 14 were procured under the infuence of opium concealed in sweetmeats purchased in all innocence from Chinese shops). Te following week Blake intensifed the pressure, insisting in an article, ‘Should England Welcome the Yellow Man?’, that the ‘peril’ in Liverpool extended far beyond the recent ‘unguarded dumping’. With the collusion of Chinese detectives employed by shipping lines, sailors reported for their ship in Liverpool only to ‘skip out’ at the next British port – Barry, Cardif, Glasgow – before taking a train back to Liverpool and the sordid pleasures of its Chinatown: Te rapid growth of Liverpool’s Chinese colony is mainly due to Chinamen leaving their ships in port in this manner, and the process will go on as long as the ships trading to China sign on Chinamen. Te growth is, of course, being greatly accelerated by the birth of half-caste children, for this race is notoriously prolifc … Te whole question is in a nutshell: Is Great Britain going to proft by the biter experience of America and Australia, by the experience of all white communities cursed by the infux of the yellow man? Or is she going to wait and deal with the scourge afer half a million or so of Chinamen have setled in these islands to contaminate the white race?52

Prompted by Sexton, the City Council decided to appoint a Commission to investigate Chinese setlements in Liverpool. Te fndings repudiated the allegations of criminal and insanitary behaviour: even the laundries, supposedly ‘a cover for immorality’, were given a clean bill of moral and public health. With 224 resident

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Before the Windrush

and 132 transient Chinese, fears that they were extending out of their setlement around Cleveland Square and out of their niche occupations in laundries (49), boarding houses (13) and shops (7) into what was already an overcrowded labour market were unfounded. 53 Te report referred to cases of under-age sex, but on subsequent investigation the Head Constable cautioned against legal action as the appearance of the girls ‘would in itself raise a good defence in law’. Dunning, indeed, was ‘unable to fnd that these cases present any features diferent to those of other cases of like nature, only too common, in which girls of precocious physical development without a protecting sense of chastity or sufcient parental control, fnd men ready to take what is ofered them’. His conclusions on the ‘general behaviour of the Chinese’, pety gambling apart, were distinctly favourable: Of all the foreign element present in Liverpool, whether in the shape of residents, or transient emigrants, or of the crews of ships in dock, the Chinese perhaps give the police less trouble than any others. Tey are not found drunk in the streets, they do not beat their wives, and, up to the present, all the crimes brought home to them have been commited on Chinamen. 54

As the vast amount of (mainly unreported) evidence presented to the Commission atested, the Chinese were a highly functional migrant community, a view confrmed by more measured journalistic investigation. 55 Individual lodging-houses catered for migrants from specifc regions (those from Hong Kong were British subjects, not ‘aliens’); indeed, a range of diferent languages and dialects (Fukinese, Shanghai dialect, Hakka, Cantonese and Mandarin) were all to be heard in Edwardian Liverpool. Te notorious Tongs acted in similar manner to Irish Ribbon lodges: secrecy facilitated crime, politics and violent gang rivalry, but their overriding function was collective mutuality and welfare. Te largest such beneft society, the Chong Yee Tong, made an annual contribution to a local hospital. 56 Funeral customs were maintained with a special Chinese section (known as ‘poters’ felds’) at Anfeld cemetery. 57 The formidable Emily Hoare acted as ‘a species of Chinese consular agent … to whom all the Chinese appeal in the troubles and difficulties which beset them in this district. She has also come to be regarded as a semi-official “go-between” by various local and governmental authorities’. Half-Chinese (her father came from Singapore),

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this ‘culture broker’ personified Liverpool’s global connections. Born in Litherland, she went to sea as a stewardess on the American sailing ships, where she met and married her first husband, a Chinese steward, Peter Chungting. After some years at sea, the couple opened a Chinese boarding house and shop in Liverpool, which Emily continued to run after Peter’s death. 58 Her ‘consular’ efforts were supplemented by the missionary zeal of G.A. Kirkham, Baptist founder of the Gospel Hall Chinese Mission, ‘the only distinct Chinese Church in Great Britain’, which supplied the laundries, stores and lodging-houses (still the target of stone-throwing ‘hooligans’) with ‘Chinese Gospels and other Christian Literature’. Kirkham was ceaseless in his efforts to disabuse popular prejudice, taking every opportunity to present the Chinese as a harmless and inofensive people … loyal to our King … painstaking in their business, kind to each other, temperate, clean, industrious, honest and generous in their dealings … they are naturally polite, but they do resent the constant begging by Roman Catholic Nuns who pester them continually for alms. 59

While the Chinatown community gained acceptance, fears remained about an infux of numbers. New orders were introduced in 1911 to remove the loophole in the 1905 alien legislation by which the Ocean Steamship Company brought steady numbers of Chinese to Liverpool each month on vessels which, carrying fewer than twenty steerage passengers, were classifed as ‘non-immigrant’ ships and thus not inspected. While the legislation was also intended to prevent the substitution of British seamen on union rates by cheap foreign labour, the steamship companies found ways and means to employ increasing numbers of ‘alien’ Chinese seamen at cheap wages. Te unions responded angrily. Te determination to exclude cheap Chinese and ‘coloured’ labour brought sharply dressed ships’ stewards and catering staf, who otherwise kept themselves apart from deck hands and those who toiled in the stokeholds, into united action with Havelock Wilson’s National Sailors and Firemen’s Union (NSFU), an unaccustomed ‘unity’ which secured the frst signifcant gains in the 1911 strikes, an escalating industrial confict which brought the city ‘near to revolution’. As I have argued elsewhere, such class solidarity as was forged in pre-war Liverpool is perhaps best understood in terms of the making of a ‘white’ working class, given the continuing salience of ethno-sectarian

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Before the Windrush

forms of associational culture and collective mutuality, orange and green.60 While backward in the forward march of the mainstream labour movement – ‘Liverpool is roten and we had beter recognize it,’ Ramsay MacDonald declared in 191061 – the great seaport was ofen frst to encounter radical ideas from overseas. Te footfall of syndicalist literature brought back from the United States by seamen (just as later was to be the case with rhythm and blues records), the port ofered safe haven for members of the American Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), beter known as ‘Wobblies’, escaping repression across the Atlantic. Having encountered syndicalist ideas while working in the States, Fred Bower, the rolling stonemason, sought to unite local sectarian formations and diverse nationalities through the International Club, but its composition failed initially to traverse racial division: ‘Couldn’t you give the platform a litle more colour?’ our secretary asked me. ‘How so?’ I replied. ‘Why,’ he said ‘you’ve got no coon.’ Of I set, jumped on the frst tram car, got down to the purlieus of the docks, and soon ran up against a son of Africa. ‘Say, have a drink?’ I called to him. Sure, he would. ‘Would he like to come to a meeting?’ ‘Anything for a shilling.’62

Liverpool Forward, a paper imbued with socialist principles, continued to give strong support to the eforts of the NSFU to remove cheap Chinese or ‘Ching-Ching’ labour. Te campaign intensifed during the First World War as the double standards of ‘fag-wagging’ employers were soon exposed: ‘When it comes to “business”, patriotism takes a back seat. Liverpool men are too costly and Ching-Ching takes pride of place.’63 Given the requirements of war, Alfred Holt and Company called for ‘the suspension of all impediments to the importation of Chinese crews from the East’, otherwise there will soon be a corner in Chinese seamen in this country and, their efciency being great, it will be impossible to deny them equal or higher wages than Europeans … We have the greatest difculty in maintaining a passable condition of efciency in those boats manned by White fremen and we are not prepared at this time of critical navigation to contemplate the substitution of the competent Chinese … by the fotsam and jetsam of the beach.64

At the end of the war, the repatriation of the large number of time-regulated Chinese seamen in Liverpool was not without difculties, with many

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reluctant to leave until they had cleared their debts with the boarding house keepers, but the focus of concern in labour and race relations had already shifed away from the ‘yellow peril’ to the much enlarged ‘British coloured’ presence.

*** A vaunted concept in present-day critical theory, cosmopolitanism lacked any notion of ethical worldliness, planetary humanism or transformative self-understanding in its Liverpolitan high-point Edwardian infexion.65 Above all, it served to reinforce the cultural supremacy of the British Empire and its racial hierarchy. At the height of its Edwardian prosperity, the city was proud to host the frst Colonial Products Exhibition in support of a self-supporting and united empire, the ‘wonder, admiration and envy of the whole civilised world’. Te empire displayed the ‘distinguishing atributes of the Anglo-Saxon race’ and its ‘wise and just rule over men of diferent races, religions, colour, customs and ideas’.66 With its ‘informal’ extensions across the globe (served by ships from Liverpool), this hierarchical framework ensured British dominance of trans-national trade, culture and commerce. Collected in haphazard and unsystematic manner from across the oceans (by scholarly gentleman-merchants on a later-day grand tour and long-distance seamen with eyes for the exotic), ethnological exhibits at the Liverpool Museum, another expression of cosmopolitan civic pride, were displayed in strict accordance with the late-Victorian racial hierarchy. Caucasian (white) artefacts occupied pride of place on the ground foor while Melanian (black) objects were housed in the basement and labelled as ‘Ethnographical Collections of Barbaric Races’ and ‘Arts and Crafs of Primitive Races’. Africans, however, were not simply passive suppliers of their material culture. By taking account of what they were prepared to exchange, give as gifs, produce for sale, write about or present to the museum, the ethnography collection, Zachary Kingdom and Dmitri van den Bersselaar insist, can be made to speak eloquently and convincingly about African history, trade and imperialism.67 It is important to take account of such interactions to understand race relations in Liverpool, where the numbers of ‘British coloureds’ from the colonies were to increase signifcantly during the First World War.

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Notes 1 Ramsay Muir, A History of Liverpool, London: Williams & Norgate, 1907, pp. 301–02. 2 W.T.  Pike (ed.), Liverpool and Birkenhead in the Twentieth Century, Brighton: Pike & Co., 1911, pp. 11–13. 3 Walter Dixon Scot, Liverpool 1907, London: A. and C. Black, 1907, p. 39; ‘A Mersey Meditation. Life on the Landing Stage’, Sunday at Home, 1911, pp. 481–84. 4 Te Crescent 6 May 1908. 5 Liverpool Catholic Herald 22 Jan. 1910. 6 Andréas (Mui Shuko, pseudonym of R.A.  Scot Macfe), Gypsy Coppersmiths in Liverpool and Birkenhead, Liverpool: H. Young and Sons, 1913. 7 Herman Melville, Redburn, Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics, 1976, p. 234. 8 ‘Americans in Liverpool’, Liverpool Critic 13 Jan. 1877. 9 ‘Liverpool: Port, Docks and City’, Illustrated London News 15 May 1886. 10 Seymour Drescher, ‘Te Slaving Capital of the World: Liverpool and national opinion in the age of abolition’, Slavery and Abolition, 9, 1988, pp. 128–43. For recent critical assessment of the risk-prone slave trade in Liverpool’s development see Sheryllynne Haggerty, ‘Liverpool, the slave trade and the British-Atlantic empire, c. 1750–75’ in Sheryllynne Haggerty, Anthony Webster and Nicholas J. White, Te empire in one city? Liverpool’s inconvenient imperial past, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008, pp. 17–34. 11 Muir, History of Liverpool, pp. 292–93. See also John Belchem, ‘“Liverpool’s story is the world’s glory”’ in his Merseypride: Essays in Liverpool exceptionalism, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2nd edition, 2006, pp. 3–30. 12 For an interesting overview of the concept of the ‘Black Atlantic’, see J. Walvin, Making of the Black Atlantic: Britain and the Afican Diaspora, London and New York: Cassell, 2000. 13 Melville, Redburn, p. 265; ‘Te Prohibition of Fire and Light in the Liverpool Docks’, Morning Chronicle 3 June 1850, part of the series of 20 weekly leters on ‘Labour and the Poor: Liverpool’. See also the sections on Liverpool in Stan Hugill, Sailortown, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967 and the important on-going reassessment by Graeme Milne. 14 Tenth year of one glorious and uninterrupted season at the St James’s Hall, Lime Street, Liverpool of Hague’s Minstrels (the original slave troupe), Liverpool, 1880. 15 ‘Liverpool’s Character’, Porcupine 30 June 1877. 16 Charles Dickens, Te Uncommercial Traveller, fnal edition, 1869, ch. 5.

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See also ‘Te Amusements and Literature of the People: Labour and the Poor, Liverpool, leter xvi’, Morning Chronicle 2 Sept. 1850; and the evidence of Head Constable Greig to ‘Report of the Select Commitee on Teatrical Licenses and Regulations’, PP1866 (373) XVI, qq. 6943–7199. 17 John Denvir, Te Brandons: A story of Irish life in England, London: Denvirs Irish Library, 1903, previously serialised in Nationalist and Irish Programme 30 Aug.–6 Dec. 1884. 18 Tyler Anbinder, Five Points: Te 19th-century New York City neighborhood that invented tap dance, stole elections, and became the world’s most notorious slum, New York: Free Press, 2001. 19 ‘Te Free Concert Room’ in H.  Shimmin, Liverpool life: Its pleasures, practices and pastimes, Liverpool: Egerton Smith & Company, 1857, ch. 4. 20 Melville, Redburn, p. 277. John Williams, an escaped American slave, expressed surprise at seeing in Liverpool ‘a person dressed like a gentleman, with a face black and shiny as ebony – an unmistakable negro – come walking down the street with a beautiful white lady on his arm’, quoted in James Walvin Black and White: Te Negro and English Society 1555–1945, London: Allen Lane, 1973, p. 193. 21 F.W. Lowndes, Te Extension of the Contagious Diseases Acts to Liverpool and other seaports practically considered, Liverpool: Holden, 1876, p.  31, and Prostitution and Venereal Diseases in Liverpool, London: J. & A. Churchill, 1886, pp. 3–4. 22 Joseph Salter, Te Asiatic in England; sketches of sixteen years’ work among Orientals, London: Seeley, Jackson and Halliday, 1873, p. 232. 23 Tomas M.  Morgan, ‘Te Education and Medical Practice of Dr James McCune Smith (1813–1865), frst black American to hold a medical degree’, Journal of the National Medical Association, 95, 7, 2003, pp.  603–14. I am grateful to Dr Morgan for drawing my atention to Smith’s journal. 24 Extract from Dr Smith’s journal, Colored American, 3 Feb. 1838. 25 William Wells Brown, Te American Fugitive in Europe, Boston: John P.  Jewet and Co., 1855, pp. 39–40. I am grateful to my Liverpool colleague Professor Charles Forsdick for this reference. 26 G. Read. ‘Te Flood-Gate of the Old World: A study in ethnic atitudes’, Journal of American Ethnic History, 13, 1993, pp. 31–47. 27 ‘Emigration – Emigrants and Man-Catchers’, Morning Chronicle 15 July 1850. Melville noted how they also preyed on sailors in port: ‘Of all sea-ports in the world, Liverpool, perhaps, most abounds in all the variety of land-sharks, land-rats, and other vermin, which make the hapless mariner their prey. In the shape of landlords, bar-keepers, clothiers, crimps, and boarding-house loungers, the land-sharks devour him, limb by limb; while the land-rats and mice constantly nibble at his purse’ (Redburn, p. 202).

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28 See Linda Grant’s article ‘History broke Liverpool, and it broke my heart’, Guardian 5 June 2003, on how her grandparents, transients turned setlers, mistook Liverpool for their intended destination, New York; see also her novel, Still Here (London: Litle, Brown, 2002). See also Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Dropping Anchor, Seting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool, Princeton, NJ and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2005. 29 ‘Society of Friends of Foreigners in Distress’, Daily Post 15 Dec. 1865. 30 Te reports are located in the Liverpool Record Ofce at shelfmark 296 BOG. 31 Persecution of the Jews in Russia. Mansion House Relief Fund. Liverpool Commission, Liverpool, 1882. 32 Twelfh Annual Report of the Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor, 1887–88, Liverpool. Te most useful accounts of the Jewish community are to be found in N. Kokosalakis, Ethnic Identity and Religion: Tradition and change in Liverpool Jewry, Washington D.C.: University Press of America, 1982; J.A. MacGregor, ‘In Search of Ethnicity: Jewish and Celtic Identities in Liverpool and Glasgow 1850–1900’, unpublished M.Phil thesis, University of Liverpool, 2003; and Mervyn Goodman, ‘From Toxteth to Tel Aviv: Te contribution of Merseyside to the establishment of the state of Israel’, unpublished M.Phil thesis, University of Liverpool, 2001. 33 J.B.  Priestley, English Journey, London, 1934; 1994 Mandarin edition, p. 248. 34 ‘Labour and the Poor. Liverpool leter xv’, Morning Chronicle 26 Aug. 1850. 35 Dickens, Uncommercial Traveller, p. 44. 36 ‘Brutal atack on foreign seamen’, Daily Post 15 Dec. 1864 37 ‘Brutal atack upon Manilla seamen’, Liverpool Mercury 18 Aug. 1864. 38 P. O’Mara, Te Autobiography of a Liverpool Irish Slummy, London: Martin Hopkinson, 1934, p. 14. 39 Weekly Courier 6 Nov. 1906. 40 ‘Black Spot on the Mersey’, Liverpool Catholic Herald, 10 Jan.–14 Feb. 1902. 41 Graeme Milne, ‘Maritime Liverpool’ in John Belchem, Liverpool 800: Culture, character and history, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006, p. 308. 42 O’Mara, Autobiography, pp. 11 and 66–67. 43 Te Liverpool Moslem Institute produced a weekly newspaper, Te Crescent, and a monthly journal, Te Islamic World. Atendance at the ‘mosque’, hastily erected in the garden, was thin except when Lascar seamen were in port: ‘Our foating or irregular congregation swells ofen to two hundred persons, most of whom are Indian sailors, and the rest

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Turks … our litle English mosque is a huge delight to them.’ See also Ron Geaves, Islam in Victorian Britain: Te Life and Times of Abdullah Quilliam, Markfeld: Kube, 2010. 44 ‘Te Head Constable’s Second Annual report’, Liverpool Review 12 March 1904. 45 Watch Commitee: Report on the Police Establishment, and the State of Crime, 1908, Liverpool, 1909, p. 46. 46 Liverpool Catholic Herald 27 Jan. 1905. 47 Muir, History of Liverpool, p. 305. 48 ‘Coloured Seamen and their Grievances’, Liverpool Mercury 25 Aug. 1880. 49 Laura Tabili, ‘We ask for British justice’. Workers and Racial Diference in late imperial Britain, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994, pp. 1–14. 50 National Archives, Kew, Home Ofce Papers: HO45/11843: Aliens. Chinese Immigration, etc. 1906–25. Tis large fle contains extensive material on the Chinese in Liverpool. Secondary studies include: S. Craggs, and I. Loh Lynn, A History of the Chinese Community, Liverpool: Merseyside Community Relations Council, 1985; Maria Lin Wong, Chinese Liverpudlians, Birkenhead: Liver Press, 1989. 51 Quoted in Gregory B. Lee, ‘Troubadours, Trumpeters, Troubled Makers: Lyricism, nationalism and hybridity’ in China and its others, London: Hurst, 1996, p. 206. 52 Sunday Chronicle, 2 and 9 Dec. 1906. 53 Report of the Commission Appointed by the City Council to inquire into the Chinese Setlements in Liverpool, Liverpool, 1907. 54 See Dunning’s reports, 11 Dec. 1906, 8 Jan. and 1 Feb. 1907 in Liverpool Record Ofce: Town Clerk’s papers Box 405, which includes all evidence and supporting material relating to the Commission. 55 See in particular Herman Schefauer, ‘Te Chinese in England’, London Magazine, June 1911 in HO45/11843. 56 ‘Grateful Chinese’, Liverpool Weekly Mercury 11 Nov. 1911. 57 ‘Chinese Funeral in Liverpool’, Liverpool Weekly Mercury, 22 April 1911. 58 ‘Notable Chinese Liverpool Lady’, Liverpool Weekly Mercury, 8 April 1911. 59 See the correspondence from Kirkham in HO45/11843. 60 John Belchem, ‘Radical Prelude: 1911’ in John Belchem and Bryan Biggs, (eds), Liverpool: City of Radicals, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011, pp. 26–36. See also John Belchem, ‘Whiteness and the LiverpoolIrish’, Journal of British Studies, 44, 2005, pp. 146–52. 61 Quoted in Sam Davies, Liverpool Labour: Social and Political Infuences on the Development of the Labour Party in Liverpool, 1900–1939, Keele: Keele University Press, 1996, p. 19. 62 Fred Bower, Rolling Stonemason. An Autobiography, London: Jonathan Cape, 1936, pp. 184–85.

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63 Liverpool Forward, 27 March and 1 May 1914. See also Ken Lunn, ‘Te seamen’s union and “foreign” workers on British and colonial shipping’, Bulletin of the Society for the Study of Labour History, 53, 1988, pp. 5–13. 64 Leter from Alfred Holt and Co., 20 June 1918 in HO45/11843. 65 For a useful introduction to the complex meanings atributed to cosmopolitanism by theorists such as Bruce Robbins (ethical worldliness), Paul Gilroy (planetary humanism) and others, see Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Dropping Anchor, pp. 215–18. Amanda Anderson describes the cosmopolitan process of transformative self-understanding as ‘capacious inclusion of multiple forms of afliation, disafliation, and reafliation, simultaneously insisting on the need for informing principles of self-refexivity, critique, and common humanity’ (Te Powers of Distance: Cosmopolitanism and the cultivation of detachment, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001, pp. 30–31 and 63–66). See also Rebecca Walkowitz, Cosmopolitan Style: Modernism beyond the nation, New York: Columbia University Press, 2006; Kwame Anthony Appiah, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a world of strangers, New York: Norton, 2006. 66 Souvenir of the First Colonial Products Exhibition, 1904. 67 Zachary Kingdom and Dmitri van den Bersselaar, ‘Collecting empire? African objects, West African trade and a Liverpool museum’ in Haggerty, Webster and White, Te empire in one city?, pp. 100–22.

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C h a p t e r t wo

Riot, miscegenation and inter-war depression

Large numbers of colonial migrants were drawn to the port city during the First World War, a time of critical shortage in the labour market, although claims in the local press that wartime ‘Dark Town’ Liverpool numbered at least 5,000 would seem somewhat exaggerated.1 Most ‘coloured colonials’ were engaged in the merchant marine, flling the vacuum afer ‘alien’ seamen were recalled (or removed) to their own countries; some went into active military service; and others took the (otherwise rare) opportunity of moving into shore-based employment, mainly in oil cake mills, sugar mills and refneries, as well as munitions factories. Tere were some minor wartime tensions, for the most part prompted by the arrival of outsiders, white servicemen from the United States (encamped at Knoty Ash) or South Africa (recuperating in local military hospitals) who were accustomed to segregation. Te uneasy transition from war to peace was to have a disastrous impact on labour and race relations amidst an economic reverse felt more acutely in Liverpool than elsewhere, a precursor of inter-war depression and decline. Wartime xenophobia, violently expressed (albeit somewhat indiscriminately) in anti-alien riots, found new expression in clashes with the resident ‘British coloured’ purportedly taking jobs (and women) away from demobilised local white workers denied the land ft for heroes promised by Lloyd George. 1919 witnessed race riots in a number of ports across Britain – London, Glasgow, Hull, Cardif, Barry and Salford – but those in Liverpool were particularly intense, refecting tensions which extended

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far beyond the local waterfront.2 As anxious Colonial Ofce ofcials realised, what happened in ‘riotous’ Liverpool, the gateway of empire, reverberated across the globe.

*** Wartime xenophobia was particularly pronounced in Liverpool, a seaport at the heart of the war efort. News of the sinking of Lusitania, ‘the pride of the port of Liverpool’, led to rioting and looting which, the Head Constable reported, soon extended beyond atacks on premises and individuals with Germanic names: Te mob was not particularly discriminating in its atentions, which were paid not only to Germans and Austrians, and the English husbands and wives of Germans and Austrians, but to Russian Jews, heathen Chinese and Irish and Italian Catholics whose wares excited the cupidity of the mob, or who, as was apparent in some cases, especially in the Jewish quarter, had incurred the hostility of trade rivals. 3

While a vital presence for the war efort, ‘coloured’ colonials had to be on their guard, particularly if they ventured beyond sailortown Liverpool. Injured afer a torpedo atack, Ernest Marke from Sierra Leone was taken to the home of the ship’s chief steward in Wavertree where, during the course of his recuperation (before enlisting in the navy), he served at Mass and Benediction at the local Roman Catholic church. Tis prompted an hysterical response from one parishioner, who claimed she had seen the devil on the altar: Tere were very few negroes in England in those days and there were certainly none at Wavertree. Tis was the frst time that woman saw me and I imagine I was the frst black man she had ever seen. But why a devil? Why not an angel or a ghost?4

In and around the city centre, ‘coloured’ colonials had to be ready to present their registration papers (or, as in the case of Pastor Ekarte, sufer insults). 5 When challenged by a policeman for his papers, Henry Wilson, a ‘negro’ from Barbados, chose instead to produce a revolver, for which he was duly sentenced to two months hard labour under Defence of the Realm Regulations.6 Te most serious forewarning of trouble ahead came in September 1918 at the Belmont Road Military Auxiliary Hospital, where relations between black and white patients had been

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good until the arrival of troops who had served in South Africa. Taunted by the newcomers as ‘niggers’ and ‘swine’, and denied access to the concert room, members of the British West Indies Regiment responded with violence when one of their sergeants, the legless John Demerete, known as ‘Demetrius’, was placed in a cell. Te ensuing struggle in which, Te Times reported, ‘crutches and sticks were freely used, and pots and pans were fying around’, involved some 50 West Indians and over 400 wounded white soldiers. Police eventually restored order, but an Irish nurse, caught in the rush of men, went into shock and died four days later of pneumonia.7 Having fought for King and Empire, colonial servicemen and war-workers were aggrieved by the ingratitude displayed once the war was over. An unfortunate Nigerian seaman, torpedoed in the Black Sea, found on his return to Liverpool that his possessions had been sold on the assumption that he was dead. He was accorded no sympathy, however, when he tried to sign on for ship’s work in the tight post-war labour market: ‘“No colour. When white men fnish you get job”. “White men never fnish”, he lamented’. An Indian seaman who had served in the Royal Navy for four years before geting a job on a ‘river hopper’ on the Mersey, was informed on his abrupt dismissal: ‘You were quite efcient but there are 11,000 demobilised soldiers to be re-instated and they must have frst chance.’ To make maters worse, he found the preference extended beyond white ex-servicemen to include Scandinavians and other white ‘aliens’: ‘the white men must be re-instated frst, the unions insist on it.’8 Resentment increased as false allegations circulated that black seamen had not taken the same risks as whites during the war. In fact, Elder Dempster had endured a particularly high casualty rate of both ships and men, many of them West Africans employed in engine rooms, a particularly vulnerable part of the ship.9 Indignant black war veterans responded by taking every opportunity to display their medals and ribbons. Two Jamaicans arrested on Oxford Street in April 1919, allegedly for assaulting a policemen, stated in court that they had been treated badly ‘simply because they were coloured men, and notwithstanding that they had fought for “King and Empire.”’ ‘I am as good as any white man,’ one of them insisted from the dock: ‘My blood is just the same: it isn’t black and I’ve done my bit just as Lloyd George has done for King and country.’10 Race relations deteriorated as Liverpool was hit hard by the post-war dislocation of international trade. As racial rhetoric hardened in the

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worsening economic climate, so the changing patern of spatial geography accelerated: the recent ethnic clustering in the formerly open diaspora space of ‘sailortown’ solidifed into defensive and segregated locales, ‘China-town, Dark-town and other alien quarters’, depicted in alarmist accounts as ‘no-go’ territory for whites and the police. ‘Te colonists are apt to look upon their particular quarter as their own,’ the Liverpool Echo rued: Tey take over, as it were the general amenities to the exclusion of the English and other peoples, who may come to be regarded as intruders. Licensed houses and shops become the exclusive rendezvous of negroes or Chinese, where whites become undesirable customers.11

In the absence of the ‘replacement boom’ enjoyed by areas serving the domestic market, economic prospects continued to deteriorate. Newspaper editorials raised ominous questions about ‘Te Future of Liverpool’, soon to be deserted by Cunard on symbolic transfer of its Atlantic vessels to Southampton.12 Ernest Marke was struck by the dramatic change when he returned to Liverpool following demobilisation: ‘things had changed a lot. For one thing jobs weren’t as easy to come by as they were during the war; fnding the proverbial needle in a haystack was easier.’13 Union preference notwithstanding, white merchant seamen demobilised from the armed services also found their old sea-faring jobs hard to come by. Te Lord Mayor gave a sympathetic response to ‘a Deputation of about fve thousand discharged soldiers and sailors residing in Liverpool, and who are out of employment’, who complained of ‘the presence of black labour in our midst, a sentiment with which I thoroughly agree’.14 As demand continued to fall and the labour market tightened, confict was doubtless inevitable. Jacqueline Jenkinson’s study Black 1919 looks no further than this bleak economic context to account for the riots: Te riots were a product of general post-war circumstances and the particularly poor employment situation within the merchant shipping industry. Divisions within the seagoing workforce were manufactured by the restrictive practices imposed by weak sailors’ unions to retain and encourage their (white) membership.15

Anxiety over jobs spread beyond the merchant marine. ‘Te friction has extended to large factories in Liverpool, particularly sugar refneries and oil cake mills, where coloured men have been employed for some years,’

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the press reported. ‘One frm had discharged all coloured men, as the white men refuse to work with them.’16 While triggered by economic competition, racial hostility was fuelled by a range of other pronounced post-war factors: gendered, political and imperial. At the time, the local authorities and the press atributed the trouble to what the Head Constable summarised as ‘the arrogant and overbearing conduct of the negro population’: the propensity of ‘blacks’ to ‘“swank” about in smart clothes’; the presence of greater numbers of West Indians, ‘more troublesome’ than West Africans; and the provocative stance of ‘the white women who live or cohabit with the black men boasting to the other women of the superior qualities of the negroes as compared with those of white men’.17 Recent studies of ‘white women and men of colour’ have put such comments in perspective by highlighting shifs in gender and race relations following wartime liberalisation and the breaching of old boundaries. Women, particularly munitions workers, had gained a new sense of entitlement and sexual confdence, including ‘the right to choose one’s own partner, regardless of race’. Having been well paid, black servicemen and war-workers had ‘a new self-confdence, new expectations and a determination to claim their rights as imperial subjects’. Te war, however, had taken its toll on traditional notions of (white) British working-class masculinity, as became apparent, Lucy Bland notes, amid post-war dislocation and riots: In the years immediately afer the war, a victorious but disillusioned and frequently psychically, if not physically damaged army of white British working-class men returned home, initially to face unemployment, and, in Britain’s main ports, the spectre of the racial ‘other’ courting ‘their’ women. White working-class masculinity, already batered by the inglorious nature of the war, including the emasculating conditions of trench warfare, now came up against challenges to two main defners of British masculinity, namely the ability to work and the ability to atract the opposite sex.18

Te Head Constable’s report of the riots began by designating the ‘negroes’ as aggressors, but then chronicled a rapidly retaliatory and deteriorating series of events which soon placed the ‘coloured’ population in mortal danger. Trouble started with razor atacks by West Indians on white men in the streets, followed by an alleged assault on a West Indian by a couple of Scandinavian seamen, which led to bloody retaliation. (Scandinavian seamen, it has been suggested, sought to cover their

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own foreignness at a time of continuing xenophobia by ‘pointing out blackness’.)19 Having ransacked the Scandinavian Home in Great George Square, black gangs rioted in the streets, lashing out at any whites and policemen in their path. Following this riot, the police raided ‘all the coloured men’s boarding houses in the immediate neighbourhood’, in the course of which Charles Wooton (or Wooten according to the ofcial report), a 24-year-old native of Trinidad, escaped to be pursued by a baying crowd, only to be captured by the police, then torn from their hands and thrown into Queens Dock to drown. Led by organised gangs of ‘John Bulls’ – white youths, soldiers and sailors aged 16–30 – and supported by infuriated crowds numbering 2,000–10,000, a vicious anti-black reign of terror ensued for the next few days, beginning in the Mill Street area, away from the earlier trouble and directed against those not previously involved, ‘the majority of them being West Africans, whilst most of those who participated in the frst atack were West Indians’. Tere were many injuries and much destruction of property – while popping out to the corner shop, Ernest Marke and his room-mate found themselves trapped between two mobs, who beat them up mercilessly.20 As the white rampage continued, the police, having already provided sanctuary for 200 blacks in Great George Street Fire Station, took in a further 720 terrifed ‘coloured’ men with their wives and children into the local Bridewell. Another 70 ‘coloured men’ who had taken refuge in the Ethiopian Hall in Russell Street, ‘a social meeting place for negroes’, were transferred by prison vans to the Cheapside Bridewell: ‘Tat this precaution was justifed was later shown, when several gangs of hooligans from the Pit-street locality were discovered in the side streets ready for an atack on the “blacks.”’21 Dreading yet worse violence – as the police were ‘so overpowered that no arrests could be made’ – the Head Constable called upon the Home Ofce to remove the blacks out of harm’s way: I should be glad if the Secretary of State could advise if there is any power to intern them either on board ship or in one of the Military Camps which is now vacant on the outskirts of the city, and what steps he suggests can be taken to remove this black population, some 2000 to 3000 by compulsory repatriation or otherwise. I am confdent that, unless a drastic and quick clearance is made, disturbances leading to loss of life will result. 22

At this stage, however, no government department was prepared to take responsibility for ‘coloured’ colonials in the United Kingdom,

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although Special Branch reports, sent direct to the Cabinet, underlined the need for urgent action. Liverpool atracted the particular atention of the intelligence services, busy monitoring revolutionary organisations stirred by Soviet socialism and/or anti-colonialism from adjacent Ireland to distant India: Reports from Liverpool are not reassuring: there is feeling about intervention in Russia, restrictions on trade development and profteering. Race hatred is still acute in the district, particularly among ex-Service men, who resent the employment of coloured men in the Liverpool warehouses. Tey demand that if the men cannot be deported they should be segregated.23

Te buck was passed from department to department. As the ‘coloured men in Liverpool are British subjects and not aliens’, the Home Ofce insisted it had ‘no control over them’. When approached by the Home Ofce, the War Ofce claimed it was ‘powerless to act as the blacks are now all civilians’, prompting a senior civil servant to respond with unconcealed sarcasm (and racist language): Tank you for your leter about the Liverpool niggers. I must say I am rather pleased by the subtlety of it. Having used these men in the Army and having then demobilised them in this unfortunate country, the Military Authorities plead no jurisdiction. 24

Only too aware that ‘the keeping of the blacks throws a heavy strain on the Police Force,’ the Home Ofce explored other possibilities. Dispersal into the surrounding countryside was dismissed afer discussions with the manager of the local Employment Exchange: farmers would not, or dare not, employ Chinese and Negroes on account of the biter feeling that at present exists, and in the Ormskirk District, Irishmen are also unacceptable. He added that the coloured problem is causing them a good deal of anxiety and he ventured the opinion that ultimately the Government will have to repatriate these unemployable men.25

Repatriation, however, involved further inter-departmental wrangling and constitutional difculties. Compulsion could not be applied: free movement of all British subjects was, as Neil Evans has observed, ‘vital ideological cement for the empire’.26 With deportation out of the question, what was required was positive inducement, a course that required public funding.

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At a meeting with the Lord Mayor shortly before the riots broke out, D.T. Aleifasakure Toummanah, an African merchant and secretary of the Ethiopian Hall, asked about the possibility of a ‘bounty’ for those ‘coloured’ colonials prepared to consider repatriation but who did not wish to return ‘without a penny in their pockets’. ‘Te majority of them have pawned their clothes in order to obtain food. Tis was due to their being unable to obtain work as seafarers.’27 Te Lord Mayor duly wrote to the Colonial Ofce suggesting a ‘douceur’ of £5 to ‘dispose of them as quickly as possible’: It has occurred to me that his question of giving £5 would be a cheaper method than to continue out-of-work donation and still have them on our hands … If the Government could repatriate these black men without delay it would not only be doing them a turn but relieve the irritation which the presence of these men causes to our men. 28

Te economic logic was not immediately apparent to the Colonial Ofce, who had no wish to take on any responsibility or commitment in the domestic sphere, regarding the welfare of colonials in Liverpool as strictly a mater for the local authorities. When prominent black traders from the Gold Coast, having just arrived in Liverpool, were atacked and mugged in the later stages of the riots, the Colonial Ofce, fearful of reprisals against white traders in West Africa, lobbied the local authorities, the Home Ofce and the Treasury to pay compensation. Te request was refused since there was no precedent or grounds under the Riot (Damages) Act for public payment to persons injured in a riot.29 Pending this rebuf, the Colonial Ofce decided to step forward for the greater well-being of the empire. As internment was impracticable, the Ofce acceded to the need for subsidised repatriation, the best hope of safeguarding the good name of Britain and the integrity of the empire. ‘Tese riots are serious enough from the point of view of the maintenance of order in this country, but they are even more serious in regard to their possible efect in the colonies,’ the ‘Memorandum on the Repatriation of Coloured Men’ recorded: I have every reason to fear that when these men get back to their own colonies they might be tempted to revenge themselves on the white minorities there, unless we can do something to show that His Majesty’s Government is not insensible to their complaints … I am convinced that if we wish to get rid of the coloured population whose presence here is causing so much trouble we must pay the expense of doing so ourselves. 30

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‘Imperial obligation’ was the crucial consideration, a point underlined by the Bishop of Liverpool, as he added his support to a ‘generous’ scheme of repatriation to help eradicate the otherwise disastrous retaliatory impact of the riots out in the colonies: As members of the British Empire, upon which the sun never sets, we are bound, for our own welfare and for the sake of our own kith and kin, to deal fairly with our fellow subjects, and with those in whose countries our own people are at present living. Te stories of deeds of violence wrought in Liverpool circulate like wildfre through the world. Tey are told in every market and bazaar and exchange in Asia and in Africa. Tey rouse the worst passions of a hot-blooded race. Tey provoke reprisals. Tey will lead to the shedding of the blood of defenceless men and women of our own race. Tey bring a slur on our name and a stain to our fag. Tey lower our prestige. 31

At a hastily convened conference in the Colonial Ofce, a special repatriation scheme was introduced, ofering various inducements to ‘British coloureds’ (£2 to cover debts and a £5 resetlement grant) to return to the colonies. Tose with white spouses were to be excluded, however, there being ‘no question of providing a passage at government expense for the European wife of a coloured man’. 32 Te Liverpool police, having fnally regained control of the riot-torn streets, were sent new instructions by the Home Ofce: … while it is not possible to deport compulsorily any coloured men who are British subjects it is considered desirable that so far as possible all unemployed coloured men should be induced to return to their own countries as quickly as possible … I am therefore to request that you will furnish as quickly as possible particulars of the unemployed coloured population in Liverpool showing the number who are British subjects and the number of other nationalities. In the case of the British Subjects you should ascertain by careful enquiry how many are defnitely prepared to avail themselves of the opportunity of being repatriated and give particulars of the countries to which they should be sent. 33

With due diligence, the police compiled eight detailed lists containing names, addresses, previous employment record and marital status of a total of 189 West African and 96 West Indian seamen (supplemented by brief reference to the 34 West Indian ‘negroes’ who had already indicated their willingness to return to the Board of Trade, the 138 ‘negro seamen’

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in the African Hostel ‘employed constantly on the ships of Messrs, Elder Dempster’, and 12 ‘negroes who belong to H.M. Navy at the David Lewis Hostel’). Tose fortunate enough to be in employment showed a marked reluctance to ‘return to their native country’, while the unemployed were prepared to consider the option ‘providing they receive a small amount of money when they embark and that any clothing they have in pledge be redeemed and handed over to them’ – and provided their wives (‘mostly white women’) could accompany them. 34 Some of those who took advantage of the scheme were to rue their decision: ‘I soon discovered that I’d jumped from the frying pan straight into the faming fre,’ Ernest Marke recorded on arrival in British Guiana. 35 Table 2.1: Place of origin of West African seamen in Liverpool 1919 Place of birth Sierra Leone Calabar Accra Cape Coast Castle Lagos Bonny British Nigeria Gold Coast Quita Saltpond Axim Bow Conassie Cota Kroo Dakkar Forcados Okune Queta, Togoland Saboo Secundi Terebro, West Africa Warri Total

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Number 117 16 12 10 8 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 189

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Table 2.2: West African residential locations in Liverpool 1919 Name of Street Mill Street Jackson Street Newton Street Warwick Street Nelson Street Parliament Street Beaufort/Beauford Street Hill Street Duke Street Hardy Street St James Place Caryl Street Grenville Street South Stanhope Street Chester Street Great George Street Harding Street Upper Pit Street Bengal Street Dove Street Grafon Street Great Orford Street Greenland Street Grove Street Upper Brook Street, Manchester Upper Huskisson Street Vine Street Total:

Number 51 16 16 15 13 11 9 9 7 7 5 4 4 4 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 189

Table 2.3: Occupations of West Africans in employment in Liverpool in 1919, 50 single, 10 married (of whom six to white women) Occupation Ship’s freman Ship’s steward Ship’s trimmer Oil cake mills Labourer

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Number 22 6 4 4 3

50

Before the Windrush Occupation Ship’s greaser Sugar mills Ship’s cook Ship’s laundryman Boarding house keeper Canal worker Catle food mils Dock labourer Docks and Harbour Board Gasworks Motor mechanic Royal Navy Seaman Ship’s donkeyman Tar works

Number 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Table 2.4: Wartime occupations of 129 West Africans (118 single, 11 married of whom 10 to white women) listed as unemployed in 1919 Occupation(s) Ship’s fremen Seamen Ship’s steward Ship’s cook Greaser Ship’s trimmer Ship’s fremen/Navy Ship’s freman/sugar mills Seaman/Army Seaman/Navy Unspecifed Ship’s freman/Army Ship’s cook/oil cake mills/rubber works Deck hand Sculleryman Ship’s cook/Army Ship’s freman/oil mills/Army Ship’s freman/shore work for Elder Dempster Ship’s steward/Army

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Number 61 14 13 6 5 4 3 3 3 3 3 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Riot, miscegenation and inter-war depression Occupation(s) Ship’s steward/shore work for Elder Dempster Student

Number 1 1

Source: ‘Repatriation of Negroes’, Inspector’s Report, C Division, Liverpool Police, 26 June 1919, HO45/1107/377969, lists B-E. Table 2.5 Place of origin of West Indian seamen in Liverpool in 1919 Place of birth Jamaica Barbados Demerara Trinidad West Indies British Guiana St Lucia Antigua Turks Island Bermuda Colon Granada Kingston Mauritius Porto Rico Roscau St Kits St Vincent Total

Number 37 17 9 7 5 4 4 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 96

Table 2.6: West Indian residential locations in Liverpool 1919 Name of Street Hardy Street Upper Pit Street Duke Street Great George Square Caryl Street Mill Street Grenville Street Dexter Street

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Number 15 13 12 7 6 5 5 3

51

52

Before the Windrush Name of Street Parliament Street Chester Street Frederick Street Greenland Street Grove Street Stanhope Street Vine Street Wilton Street Bamber Street Back Bitern Street Beaufort/Beauford Street Crown Street Head Street Henry Street Nelson Street Peach Street Percy Street Pleasant Street Russell Street Shakespeare Street, Garston Sufolk Street

Number 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

Table 2.7: Occupations of West Indians in employment in Liverpool in 1919, four single, three married (of whom two to white women) Occupation Ship’s freman Oil cake mills Sugar mills Crane driver Docks Seaman

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Number 2 1 1 1 1 1

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Table 2.8: Wartime occupations of 89 West Indians (73 single, 16 married) listed as unemployed in 1919 Occupation(s) Seamen Ship’s fremen Seamen/Army Ship’s stewards Ship’s cooks Unspecifed Ship’s fremen/Army Ship’s fremen/Navy Army Boatswain/Navy Greaser Labourer Seamen/Navy Trimmer

Number 37 23 7 6 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1

Source: ‘Repatriation of Negroes’, Inspector’s Report, C Division, Liverpool Police, 26 June 1919, HO45/11017/377969, lists F-I.

For the most part, ‘coloured’ colonials preferred to remain in Liverpool, although a number for Kru transferred to Cardif and other ports in the hope of beter prospects and higher wages. ‘Liverpool owes a great deal to the African negroes,’ Toummanah asserted to the local press in the afermath of the riots. ‘Why should he, therefore, be ostracised?’ Speaking on behalf of those wishing to assert their right to live and work in the motherland unmolested as British subjects and war veterans, he lamented their current plight: Te negro has been taunted by every boy, girl, man and woman in the streets … Te majority of negroes at present are discharged soldiers and sailors without employment; in fact some of them are practically starving, work having been refused on account of their colour … Some of us have been wounded, and lost limbs and eyes fghting for the Empire to which we have the honour to belong … We ask for British justice, to be treated as true and loyal sons of Great Britain. 36

Besides merchants like Toummanah, middle-class black professionals lent support to the cause. Te black barrister Edward Teophilus Nelson,

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Figure 2: Born in Liverpool of a West Indian father and Irish mother, John Archer moved to London where, in Batersea in 1913, he became Britain’s frst black mayor, an achievement recently recognised by his inclusion in the ‘Great Britons’ postage stamp set issued by the Royal Mail. Hanging in Liverpool Town Hall, this fne portrait is one of several by local artist Paul Clarkson to interrogate the city’s black history.

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a member of the African Progress Union (APU) formed in 1918 to campaign for black political rights, defended blacks arrested in the early stages of the riots. On the instructions of its president, John Richard Archer, the APU contributed to Nelson’s fees. A Liverpool-born black with a West Indian father (a former ship’s steward) and Irish mother, Archer retained a keen interest in race relations in the port afer his move to London to pursue medical studies and a dual political career in local government (as Mayor of Batersea in 1913, he was Britain’s frst black mayor) and in pan-African afairs. Of the 14 black defendants charged with assault and riotous assembly, four were found not guilty, while the remainder received sentences ranging from eight to 22 months. 37 Te fnal bill for the riots – characterised more by violence to the person than by destruction to property – was considerably less under the Riot (Damages) Act than that for the rioting and looting during the Police Strike two months later. Here the public order problem, set against widespread industrial militancy, returned to more familiar Liverpudlian territory. Erupting from the ‘volcanic’ area of Scotland Road, hooligans, ‘rough-looking’ women and the dockland ‘mob’ (sobriquets for the north end Liverpool-Irish) invaded and looted the city centre, transmogrifed into a ‘war zone’ with London Road as ‘the Ypres of Liverpool’. While most reports (including those from Special Branch) highlighted the ‘strong disorderly Irish element’, some noted the active participation of foreign sailors in port together with the ‘residuum of a cosmopolitan population which contains many elements of disorder and violence’. 38 Table 2.9: Comparative fnancial aspects of riots in 1919 Type of riot in 1919 No. of claims Racial: June 54 Police: August 583

Amount claimed £2,734 £163,222

Amount paid £1,502 £105,505

Source: LVRO: 352MIN/WAT 1/58 f.100, 6 July 1920.

In the afermath of the riots, the Superintending Ofcer at the Port of Liverpool introduced a scheme requiring aliens to produce a special registration card and fnger print before they could by paid of or sign on for a ship. Te practice was subsequently incorporated into the Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order in 1925. Racist in spirit if not in the leter, the Order purportedly sought to safeguard union seamen Downloaded from . , on , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at .

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against substitution by underpaid black labour (in particular, Arab seamen from the Yemen) by imposing a special registration certifcate on black seamen who could not prove British nationality (and would thus be liable to deportation). Te documentary proof required (far in excess of the continuous discharge book that sufced for white seamen) was an impracticable stipulation for thousands of seamen born in Africa, the Caribbean, the Middle East, India and Malaya: their British nationality and right of domicile were snatched away by bureaucratic fat. Recently, historians have tended to downplay the role of ‘visceral popular racism or “natural” antagonisms and afnities’ in accounting for the Order, designated by Laura Tabili as ‘the frst instance of state-sanctioned racial subordination inside Britain’. 39 A formative moment in what Kathleen Paul describes as the ‘whitewashing of Britain’, the Order represented ‘an atempt by the state, in collaboration with employers, to segregate the labor market, to prevent further black migration, and to deny black Britons’ claim to Britishness’. By no means an isolated incident, it was ‘a clear example of an ongoing practice, which continued and matured into the post-World War II period’.40 Troughout the inter-war years, indeed, there were repeated ‘moral panics’ about the growth of black (and Arab) setlements and the wholesale dumping of ‘coloured seamen’ at Liverpool and other British ports. In their most sensational form, these alarms linked ‘coloured’ men to the ‘white slave trafc’, including allegations that a number of young Catholic girls ‘fresh from Convents’ in Liverpool had been ‘enticed into brothels controlled by coloured men’, prior to being shipped to Malta for ‘immoral purposes’. Having checked with the Liverpool police that there was ‘no evidence of the existence of any “rings” of coloured “White Slave” trafckers’, the Home Ofce sought to set the record straight about its eforts to restrict immigration: We have done what we can to prevent the alien element increasing but there is no power to deal with the British element. It is a penalty of being a mother country with a large mixed Empire. Te most that we can do is to discourage coloured seamen from obtaining British passports, so that we can treat them as aliens, when they get here, and prevent them remaining.41

Other departments of government, however, cautioned against placing any restriction on the rights and free movement of imperial British subjects whatever their colour. Even as applied to the prime target,

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Arab seamen from Yemen, the 1925 Order was mitigated by what Tony Lane describes in his study of South Shields and Cardif as the ‘political imperatives of bureaucracy and empire’. In the upper echelons of power, where Arabophilia prevailed, there was anxiety about its adverse impact in the crucial Aden Protectorate, promoting senior civil servants in the India Ofce, Colonial Ofce and Foreign Ofce to hamper its implementation. Tese imperial considerations, Lane notes, constantly slowed down and weakened the domestic impetus towards promulgating the 1925 Order, curtailed and constrained the exclusionist enthusiasm of port-based ofcials in the UK and fnally undermined the impact of the Order. Te fnal balance of political forces within the British states [sic] apparatus was in favour of imperial imperatives, which at least in this instance had a liberal outcome.42

In Liverpool, these imperial concerns extended to India and the treatment of Lascar seamen (previously excluded from the repatriation scheme as they were contracted for round-trip voyages only under ‘Asiatic articles’, although a certain number always jumped ship, or were abandoned, in port). Here again, government departments appeared to be at cross purposes. Concerned at the over-zealous behaviour of local ofcials in Liverpool, an India Ofce Minute warned that the ‘Home Ofce policy of worrying coloured seamen is being pushed to indefensible limits’.43 On May Day 1927 a mass protest of Lascar seamen in Cleveland Square denounced the ‘Alien Certifcate for Indians’, called for its replacement by a document of nationality and legitimacy for those who had served the empire loyally in peace-time and in war, and announced the formation of the Liverpool Indian Association led by the communist Nathalal Jagjivan ‘Paddy’ Upadhayayam. Established ‘for the defence and promotion of the political, social and economic rights of Indians’, the newly formed organisation called upon the Indian National Congress to investigate their complaints and assist in their redress.44 To the alarm of the India Ofce and the Colonial Ofce, it seemed that unemployed black seamen in the United Kingdom might henceforth fnd common cause (across geographical and class boundaries) with colonised elites in anti-colonial struggle. Despite these high-level anxieties, racism remained embedded in employment practice, certainly as applied to West Africans. In the absence of adequate registration facilities in their home country, many Sierra Leonean Kru, unable to establish their British credentials, were

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classed as ‘aliens’. Even when duly registered as such, they were efectively denied the due wage levels (as stipulated by the 1925 Order) by a series of notorious ‘agreements’ between Elder Dempster and the Home Ofce. To avoid the equal pay provisions of the Order, West African seafarers’ articles were recast in terms similar to Asiatic articles: crews were to be engaged and discharged only in West Africa on local wages (that is to say, considerably below British rates) and would remain under contract in Liverpool unable to sign on for any other ship (those with passports were ofen compelled to give them up in favour of a ‘green card’ issued by the Company, thereby ensuring they could not seek alternative employment). Elder Dempster undertook to ‘control’ its ‘undocumented’ labour force while in port, much to the relief of the overstretched Home Ofce (who seemingly turned a blind eye to the pay provisions of the 1925 Order), and to repatriate the men when they had no further need of their services (the company had made its own arrangements to repatriate 100 seamen in the immediate afermath of the 1919 riots, followed by a further 627 between February 1920 and August 1921). Control took the form of racially segregated company housing in a spartan hostel in Upper Stanhope Street, sparsely furnished with minimal amenities ‘in keeping with the normal standard of living of West African seamen’.45 Te company had no compunction in abandoning those considered least satisfactory, a category which included blacklisted ‘troublemakers’ and activists as well as the sick and infrm, dumping them in Liverpool rather than returning them to the colonies as promised. When repatriation was applied by the company, it was not without controversy. Questions were raised in the House of Commons when one unfortunate Elder Dempster employee, having reported to the Labour Bureau, was promptly sent to the Immigration Ofce, then to the Bridewell and thence to the SS Abinsi for immediate repatriation afer a brief 15-minute farewell meeting with his wife and child. Te Home Secretary insisted that Elder Dempster had decided to dispense with the services of John Momo (also known as John Zarlia) who, in the absence of any evidence or certifcate of British nationality, was duly repatriated to his home country at the company’s expense. Investigation by the Methodist Recorder revealed that the ‘repatriated West African’ – who had not been given time to prove his status – was in fact a British subject born in a British colony who had lived a respectable and blameless life in Liverpool for the last 12 years and was a respectable member of the African Wesleyan Mission.46 Over time, West African employees developed an array of resistance strategies

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against their exploitation and/or repatriation, acquiring British passports and/or marriage partners, entitling them to work (at union rates), relief and social services in Liverpool.47 In the process they seem to have been hampered as much as assisted by what Carlton Wilson has described as the ‘benevolent paternalism’ – or rather ‘benign racism’ – of the African and West Indian Mission (AWIM), whose approach ‘embodied a form of racial prejudice that hindered a more positive black experience in Liverpool’.48 Supported by the Liverpool Methodist Mission, the University Setlement and the Anti-Slavery Society, the AWIM, established in 1922 with an all-white advisory commitee to administer its funds, provided black seamen with a place of worship, welfare services and emergency loans, while also serving as a clearing house to hasten and facilitate repatriation. Appointed as the AWIM’s frst minister, the Rev. Ernest Adkin promptly discovered that racial feelings ran high and memories of the 1919 riots were still raw, impeding his paternalist mission: ‘Our work amongst the Africans in Liverpool is quite new and I am having to feel my way as to the methods of approach to the men we are out to help,’ he wrote to John Harris at the Anti-Slavery Society. ‘I fnd, as you will know, a very sore feeling in the minds of many of the men, produced mainly by the atitude of the majority of English people towards the coloured races and this feeling hinders greatly any endeavour we may make for their good.’ His frst priority was to build upon the exiguous religious provision (a short Sunday evening service) at the Elder Dempster Hostel: ‘as many of the African seamen are our own Mission people from the West Coast, we feel that something more defnitely religious should be done for them to keep them from the temptations of the city.’49 Dismay at the limited impact of early eforts led almost to disillusionment, given what he described to Harris as the ingratitude of blacks to white benevolence: I fnd the progress of my work very slow and were it not that I feel something is bound to be done for these men in our midst, one would almost be tempted to give up; for their uter indiference to any efort on their behalf by white people is discouraging in the extreme. I wonder if they are really religious at home as they profess to be, for if so they seems to shed it all when they land here … the riots of 2 or 3 years ago made them very biter and I feel that I have to win their confdence before I can do much with them. 50

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Te task became harder still when Elder Dempster, having reduced the wages of its West African crew, tried to prevent relief being given to those who had refused to accept the reduction and had been discharged. ‘It is an atempt to starve them into submission & is unworthy of a great frm,’ Adkin protested to Harris: As you will guess, the straits these poor fellows fnd themselves in tend to intensify the biterness already in their hearts and makes work amongst them more difcult. I have found a marked diference in their atitude since the last reduction by the Elder Dempster Company and they point to these things whenever we try to approach them. 51

As Harris also served as secretary to the Commitee for the Welfare of Africans in Europe War Fund, Adkin asked for fnancial help in seting up a fund to distribute among distressed black seamen. Tenceforth, as Carlton Wilson has shown, the operations of the AWIM became to all intents and purposes an extension of John Harris’s ‘racist’ beliefs, an exercise in what Paul Rich designates as ‘philanthropic racism’. 52 As a missionary in Africa, Harris, ‘a benevolent paternalist of the old school’, had advocated the segregation of whites and blacks in Rhodesia and South Africa as a means of guarding traditional African values. Back in Britain, in charge of the surplus war fund lef over from money raised to provide welfare facilities for Africans brought over as labourers to Britain and France in the war, he became a leading proponent of repatriation. Confronted by the ‘growing evil’ of the presence of blacks in port cities, he feared the consequences of inter-racial relations: an unwanted population of unemployable mixed-race children destined to a life of crime and prostitution. 53 He was by no means alone in voicing such concerns about mixed-race or (to use the Liverpudlian terminology) ‘half-caste’ children. As the intellectual fashion for eugenics developed in the post-war years, port cities like Liverpool came to the forefront of atention, laboratories in which to measure the baleful efects of miscegenation. In 1924 the Eugenics Education Society despatched Rachel Fleming, an associate of Professor H.J. Fleure, to Liverpool to undertake anthropometric measurement and assessment of ‘Anglo-Chinese’ children. Her initial fndings were unexpected: ‘I gather from Miss Fleming that the litle hybrid children seem rather precocious’, the general secretary of the Eugenics Society reported to Fleure. 54 Some of their number, indeed, were exceptionally talented, helped by Chinese fathers who

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‘ofen seemed most anxious to get the children to be at their best intellectually’. 55 Tese fndings contributed to the rapid rehabilitation of the Chinese, aided perhaps by the post-war relocation of some of the major drug dealers to Hamburg and Roterdam, where they diversifed from opium and morphine to heroin and cocaine (a substance yet to fnd a market in Liverpool) – and by plans (subsequently completed by Lufwafe bombing) to raze the old Chinatown area around Pit Street. 56 New explanations were profered for the ‘lure’ of the Chinese to English women: ‘A Chinaman who marries or keeps a woman does so for the purpose of sexual enjoyment and makes the best of her by leting her lead a life of idleness and luxury, he scrubs the foor and does the washing and loves to lavish luxuries upon her.’57 Father Primavesi, Roman Catholic priest of St Peter’s, Seel Street, was at frst horrifed by the number of his Irish parishioners marrying Chinese men, but soon changed his mind, explaining to a press reporter on assignment to Chinatown in 1928: ‘Te Chinese make good husbands, certainly beter than the blacks, and the children are intelligent and well cared for.’58 While based in Liverpool Fleming extended her studies beyond the Anglo-Chinese, making use of lists of ‘mixed families’ provided by Women Police Patrols (Fleming was based at the Women’s Police Control in Cases Street) and information provided by the Rev. J.H.G.  Bates of St Michaels, ‘the church of many nations’. While Bates, ‘a specialist in ethnology’, agreed that ‘the mating of the yellow races with the white is eugenically good, and produces a fne physical type,’ he shared Harris’s concern about the ofspring of ‘Anglo-Negro’ unions. ‘Te problem is an urgent one; more urgent than is generally realized’ he informed the Eugenics Society, drawing atention to deleterious consequences in both public health and private morals, when asked if he endorsed Fleming’s initial ‘pessimistic’ fndings: ‘Te Anglo Negro girl is in a deplorable state … Te moral question is one to be carefully understood: further my experience is that Anglo negro ofspring are generally T.B.’59 In a subsequent research paper, Fleming lamented the ‘sulky, half-shamed expression too ofen seen on the face of the adolescent half caste girl … Teachers and social workers are all agreed that the half caste boys can obtain work, but that girls with indications of “colour” are up against our social system’.60 In December 1927 Fleming was the main speaker at a meeting organised by the University School of Social Science to discuss the welfare of ‘half-caste’ children in the city, the genesis of the Liverpool Association

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for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children. An executive commitee, chaired by Professor Roxby of the School of Geography, launched an appeal for £2,000 of funds both to alleviate the condition of the children concerned and to pay the salary of a ‘well-qualifed social worker’ to ‘devote all her time to the fnding of possible solutions to the problem’. Monies received fell substantially short of the target but an appointment was made: Miss M.E.  Fletcher, a former student of the School of Social Science and currently a probation ofcer at Stoke-on-Trent, was employed to conduct the survey from October 1928.61 Published in 1930, her infamous Report on an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and other Ports, has been considered so reprehensible by most scholars as to be unworthy of serious academic scrutiny; however, it has recently been deconstructed and discredited with meticulous methodological and theoretical rigour by Mark Christian, section by section, using original chapter and sub-headings. For all its failings, the Report, Christian acknowledges, had signifcant contemporary (and enduring) impact: it ‘cemented the derogatory term “half caste” into the social perception of the city, along with previously held stereotypes about Black families and gave them credence via a seemingly “objective” and unbiased analysis’.62 Underneath the ‘pseudo-scientifc and biological racism’, the Report difered litle from the blend of sex, prejudice and economics favoured by other interested parties, not least Havelock Wilson’s seamen’s union in defence of its white members.63 To restrict the presence of ‘coloured men’ (and thereby lower the incidence of venereal disease, miscegenation and other social evils), Fletcher recommended (much to the approval of the National Union of Seamen): replacement of black fremen by white fremen on British ships; strict insistence on ‘round trip’ signing-on in West African ports; and toughening up of restrictions on black ‘alien seamen’, noting that those who claimed British status were ofen at most ‘British protected persons’ or in possession of passports issued by ‘native clerks on the West Coast of Africa to all coloured seamen who apply, without their claim being questioned’. In his laudatory ‘Foreword’ to the Report, Roxby took the mater further and questioned the value of temporary expedients short of the ‘total exclusion of negro labour on ships entering the port’. Roxby and Fletcher both drew upon the new eugenic binary orthodoxy, contrasting the virtue of the Chinese with the vice and ‘real social menace’ of the ‘negro’. ‘At an early stage it became apparent that no serious problem was presented by the Anglo-Chinese community or the

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Lascar seamen,’ Roxby noted, hence ‘atention was concentrated on the Anglo-Negroid population in Liverpool’: No question of race prejudices or discrimination is involved but the conclusion is clear that the present conditions under which coloured seamen from the West Coast of Africa enter Liverpool, constitutes [sic] a real social menace and are detrimental to the best interests of Blacks and Whites alike.

Fletcher’s verdict on inter-racial marriage with negro seamen – promiscuous, ridden with sexually transmited diseases, violent and contemptuous of their women – was damning, both for the partner and the ofspring (the ‘colouring and features’ of ‘half-caste’ Chinese children, she observed, ‘being far less distinctive than Anglo-Negroids, are not such a handicap’). Having chosen ‘a life which is repugnant’, white women ‘invariably regret their alliance with a coloured man … It is practically impossible for half-caste children to be absorbed into our industrial life and this leads to grave moral results, particularly in the case of girls’.64 According to Margaret Simey, a contemporary of Fletcher in the School of Social Science, the Report caused such bad feeling in the black community that its author was ‘stabbed and ran out of the city’.65 Having allowed Fletcher to use AWIM facilities, Adkin considered it politic to criticise the Report in public, while in private he agreed with Fletcher’s fndings – a stance which, Carlton Wilson observes, was ‘truly indicative of how hidden prejudice and discrimination operated in Liverpool’.66 Te infuence of the Report extended beyond Liverpool, as it found a champion in John Harris, one of Adkin’s main sponsors, who considered it an ‘extraordinarily able document’ with ‘the most impressive and authoritative detail’. His initial eforts to use the Report to promote a campaign to restrict black immigration into ports, however, were hindered by the temporary demise of the Liverpool Association (in the wake of local furore over Fletcher) and by the emergence of what Paul Rich terms as ‘middle opinion’ in the early 1930s, exemplifed by Harold Moody’s League of Coloured Peoples (LCP), the authentic voice of the small black middle-class elite in Britain.67 A few years later, Harris re-launched the campaign, stirred by events in Cardif, the initial focus (rather than Liverpool) of LCP domestic concern: there was racial confict at the South Wales port in 1935 following pressure from the National Union of Seamen to reclassify jobs on British ships as white, and a Fletcher-like

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survey conducted by the British Social Hygiene Council together with the British Council for the Welfare of the Mercantile Marine condemned ‘coloured men’ for ‘mating with our women’ and contaminating ports with prostitution, venereal disease and a ‘half-caste’ population. 68 Duly revived, the Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children and its honorary secretary, Harold King, warden of the University Setlement, worked closely with Harris in seeking legislation to restrict immigration. In no way moderated by the reaction to Fletcher, the ‘philanthropic racism’ of King and his wife continued to denigrate the local black population, ‘a sort of fotsam afer some commercial tide’: Te position of the foreigner in any country can be difcult, especially when he can hardly be assimilated to the population amongst which he resides. When he bears obvious racial marks, generally assumed to imply – sometimes with truth – lower standards of civilization, the position becomes acute. When a further complication is introduced in frequent marriage or association with women of the country, ofen of poor type, the difculties become more complex, well-nigh insuperable for their children … Tere is no doubt that the presence of increasing numbers of half-caste children inheriting disharmonious mental and physical traits, depresses very considerably the life of the Dockland population of Liverpool … even should they succeed in the future in discouraging coloured seamen from making their homes in our ports, the conditions of the last few years have lef a legacy which will exist for a long time.

Tanks to their work and that of the Association, the Kings took pride that ‘half-caste’ children were now recognised – in truth stigmatised – by the Juvenile Employment Bureau ‘as a special group needing diferent treatment from the ordinary boy and girl. Teir mixed parentage is in the modern industrial world a handicap comparable to physical deformity’. 69 When the LCP turned its atention from Cardif to Liverpool, King ensured it was denied any engagement with his Association. Some unrestrained correspondence ensued. ‘I need scarcely say that the word “Welfare” seems strange side by side with that most objectionable and insulting word “half-caste”’, Charles Collet of the LCP wrote to King. ‘[I]nformation which I have gathered previously, leads me to suspect very strongly that your work has for its aim “Te reduction of the number of half-caste children and of coloured people in the ports, if necessary by deportation?” I should feel very happy if you would deny this.’ Te LCP

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outlined its position in terms which continued to resonate with some parts of the British establishment: I wish to call your atention to the fact that these people whom it might be thought desirable to deport are British subjects and that it is both our work and our intention to fght any sort of discrimination against British subjects in this country on account of race or colour. I wish also to call your atention to the danger of very strong feeling which might result throughout the Empire if such an action were considered.70

King promptly wrote to Harris insisting that Collet’s atitude was ‘incomprehensible’ and his leter ‘very near to unpardonable’.71 What seems to have caused even greater annoyance, however, were the enclosures sent by Collet, copies of Te Keys, the LCP’s journal, with articles on Liverpool which made no reference to the Association but heaped praise on the work of Pastor Daniels Ekarte and the African Churches Mission. Having acquired deep religious faith through the missionary Mary Slessor, Ekarte worked his passage from Calabar, trusting to become a holy man in a ‘holy land’. He was soon disabused on arrival in Liverpool in 1915 when a minister of the cloth cut him dead in Bold Street: ‘Dare a Nigger speak to me in the street.’ 72 Along with other Africans in wartime Liverpool, he found work in an oil mill and a sugar refnery, then drifed into gambling before rediscovering his faith and purpose in life. He established the African Churches Mission in 1922, preaching in the open air (for which he was twice arrested for obstruction) and began visiting Africans on ships and in lodging houses and hospitals. In 1931 he moved into premises in 122–24 Hill Street, the Bishop of Liverpool presiding over the opening ceremony. Activities in Hill Street, ‘a haven of refuge for stranded Africans’, were publicised in a new magazine in what was to become a characteristic self-promotional style: Strangers in the midst of the white man’s country are not always tolerated with Christian charity. Tings are laid to their charge that they know not of. But Pastor Ekarte is a friend to the friendless. He atends the police court to intercede for those who get into trouble. He may pay a fne, or a lodging, or for medicine, even for a funeral. He is frequently in a sore strait between the call of necessity and his slender means.73

He wrote to Harris as secretary of the Welfare of Africans in Europe War Fund seeking funds for an extension of the premises and expansion

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of activities, but was refused.74 When atacked in the correspondence columns of the local press, he stressed not only his Christian faith but also his British credentials. ‘We are expecting British justice free of prejudice and not such as is meted out to aliens.’ 75 In particular this meant using every endeavour to ‘obtain reasonable hours and duty and fair wages for the seafaring workers, and to use every legitimate efort to provide for their safety’.76 Spiritual maters were always accorded priority. Before the opening of the Mission, as Ekarte informed the LCP, the lot of the coloured people in Liverpool was deplorable. Tey had no place of worship, and at many churches their atendance met with humiliating insinuations, evil glances, etc. from white worshippers. Consequently many began to lose their faith in religion, and to take to evil ways. To-day the existence of the Mission flls the gap.

‘Liverpool’s Coloured Centre’, the Mission, he explained in a leter to Te Keys, ‘ministers to the body as well as the soul. Tere is a social centre for recreation, and a canteen where destitute Africans are temporarily fed and sheltered, as far as our limited funds permit’. Welfare work extended far beyond distressed seamen and stowaways with British passports: Most important perhaps is our work among the children. Almost the entire juvenile coloured population of Liverpool is unemployed. We feel that if they could receive some measure of technical training they would have a beter chance of being absorbed into industry. Troops of Boy Scouts, Girl Guides and Brownies are atached to the Mission, through which an efort is made to impart some measure of training.77

It was this aspect of the Mission’s work that particularly impressed Collet and the LCP. At this stage, indeed, Ekarte defned the ‘chief aim’ of the Mission as industrial training for those pejoratively labelled as ‘half-caste’, in preparation for their return to Africa to promote colonial development: ‘Te large Continent of Africa, their Fatherland, ofers them unlimited openings; but as everywhere else, these opening are only vacant to people with specialised training and, to this end, has this Mission set itself the task.’ 78 King refused to accord the scheme any credence and wrote to Harris in confdential terms about its promoter: Strictly between you and I both I and the one or two other people in Liverpool who know Ekarte well think him an extremely dangerous

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Figure 3: ‘A haven of refuge for stranded Africans’, the African Churches Mission was established by Pastor Daniels Ekarte in 1922 and moved into new premises at 122–24 Hill Street in 1931 with the Bishop of Liverpool, very much the Englishman with hat in hand and umbrella at his side, in atendance.

person and this scheme of his is only the latest of a series of actions which have not eased the situation up here at all. He is, however, very plausible, unless one is forewarned.79

In a tetchy reply to Collet, King reported on a recent interview with Ekarte about the scheme: before I would have anything to do with it I should require proof of (among other things) the opportunities for those children which he claimed existed on the Coast; and said further that I should require to be convinced that they would not be going from a social situation which, admitedly bad, might easily be worse there.

Te leter concluded by noting that the Liverpool Association was about to be revised (although the LCP, to Collet’s annoyance, was excluded from the consultation process): ‘one of the changes which will be proposed is the dropping of the word “half-caste” to which you take exception, although why that should be more ofensive than “coloured” as applied to these children I do not know.’80

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Scholars have interpreted the re-naming as the Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Coloured People, followed by King’s departure from Liverpool, as a progressive change in direction, confrmed by the increasing infuence of D. Caradog Jones (chair of the executive commitee of the re-named Association) whose social surveys of Merseyside brought new breadth and scientifc rigour to the debate.81 Caradog Jones’s studies, however, relied as much on value judgement, articulated through binary oppositions, as on statistical sophistication. His purportedly ‘dispassionate’ analysis identifed what he termed ‘blots’ in the otherwise positive impact of migration into Merseyside by contrasting the lowly Irish (‘inferior’ in skill levels and much else besides to native-born residents) with the resourceful and orderly Welsh, and among ‘overseas’ migrants, the problem ‘negro’ (and abandoned ‘half-caste’ children) with the industrious and responsible family-oriented Chinese. Jewish migrants, some 9,000 strong, were an exemplary class apart, with the most inclusive and highly developed networks to encourage upward and outward mobility from the Brownlow Hill ‘gheto’ to the suburbs, the ‘Jewburbia’ (or ‘gilded ghetos’) of Childwall, Allerton and Woolton. Rather than registering an advance in understanding of race relations, Caradog Jones’s work marked a reversion to an older Liverpudlian concern: the Irish infux of unskilled labour. In the absence of controls, the ‘second wave’ of Irish immigration in the 1930s was leading the depressed local labour market further downward: It appears a litle incongruous that the Government and various estimable societies should have spent large sums of money, in emigrating people of a fairly high standard from this district, when no steps have been taken to restrict the entry of labour of inferior quality through the Port of Liverpool.

While the United States skimmed the cream through its quota system, Liverpool had to deal with an infux of unskilled migrants (57% of adult male Irish migrants were unskilled manual labourers as compared with 39% for the whole sampled population), prone to ‘particularly high percentages both for overcrowding and poverty’.82 A new political dimension entered the debate, the point of access for inter-war eugenicists. Following the establishment of the Free State, the ‘independent’ Irish were judged apart, a distinct race possessing hereditary and immutable characteristics diferentiating them from their nearest neighbour.83 Te ‘miscibility’ which had applied earlier in the

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hope of improving the Irish stock by Anglo-Saxon infuences, gave way to fears of ‘cancerous decay’ if the ‘necessity for racial segregation’ was not recognised. In a series of essays on ‘Te Irish Immigration Question’ in the Liverpool Review, G.R. Gair, an advocate of scientifc racial purity at a time of ‘real alien menace’, warned that the greatest feature of this alien menace lies in the immigration into Britain during the last one hundred years, of Irish of the Mediterranean stock. Tis is a defnite menace, not because these people are undesirable in their own habitat, but because they are in that of a Nordic race … Te unrest and lack of obedience to prescribed ideas in the one, and the great respect for communal institutions in the other are biological as well as purely cultural manifestations. 84

Although outside the United Kingdom, the Irish in the Free State remained British subjects: they were no more ‘alien’ in legal terms than the ‘coloured colonials’ domiciled in Liverpool. Dominion status placed the Irish within the ‘greater Britain’ of the ‘Old Commonwealth’ alongside Canada, Australia and New Zealand, the pride of the British political establishment.85 A scribbled covering note in a Home Ofce fle spelt out the constitutional position: Irishmen cannot be kept out of U.K. without legislation which would break down the traditional rule of U.K. that any B.S. [British Subject] can come in, whatever may be the practice of the Dominions. Irish should not be referred to as aliens. 86

Under pressure from local Evangelicals, however, the Bishop of Liverpool called upon the Home Ofce to intercede, to amend reciprocal repatriation agreements with the Dominions, as ‘steerage passengers are crossing to us at the rate of 6,000 a year, and many of them are adding to an already heavy burden of maintenance.’ ‘Tere is a good deal of trouble pending here,’ he explained in a subsequent leter, ‘and some of us are trying to confne it to broad economic lines, and to exclude as far as possible the old religious animosities.’87 Tis was the line adopted by his Anglican colleague, Canon Raven, in discussing ‘Te Irish Problem’ in a series of articles in the Liverpool Review. Raven drew atention to three recent critical changes in ‘public opinion’ in Liverpool: the onset of pessimism about economic recovery (‘that Liverpool would never recover was almost an axiom’); the return of strife and disorder (‘the religious and racial biterness for which our city has been unpleasantly notorious

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is undoubtedly increasing in violence’); and ‘the very widespread belief that our social progress is being hampered and our fnancial stringency increased by the infux of immigrants from the Irish Free State’: Our migration treaties with the Dominions are all unilateral. Tey can send back our nationals who become a charge on public funds, but we cannot do likewise. Consequently, there are a quarter of a million Irish in Liverpool, and they continue to come over every year for the higher dole. Ireland has discovered a way to make England support her surplus population.88

Politicians of all shades, from Pastor H.D.  Longbotom, leader of the Protestant Party, to the leading Labour Party spokesman (and former Communist Party member) Jack Braddock, called for entry controls and repatriation schemes to prevent migrants from the Irish Free State taking precious jobs at a time of mass unemployment and/or exploiting the more generous benefts system in England. A local councillor established an Irish Immigration Investigation Bureau (whose reports are now, alas, missing from the Record Ofce) to draw atention to the ‘illegal trafc in unemployment cards’ and to broadcast complaints ‘about local labour being supplanted by immigrants who get a job through Irish racial and religious clanishness [sic]’.89 ‘If we do have an Irish Republic as our neighbour, and it is found possible to return her exiled citizens, what a fne exit of ignorance and dirt and drunkenness and disease,’ J.B. Priestley mused as he contemplated the Liverpool-Irish ‘slummies’ of Paddy’s Market on his English Journey, in a passage blending old atitudes and new prejudices: … they have setled in the nearest quarter and turned it into a slum, or, fnding a slum, have promptly setled down to out-slum it. And this, in spite of the fact that nowadays being an Irish Roman Catholic is more likely to fnd a man a job than to keep him out of one … though I suppose there was a time when the city encouraged them to setle in it, probably to supply cheap labour, I imagine Liverpool would be glad to be rid of them now. Afer the briefest exploration of its Irish slums, I began to think that Hercules himself will have to be brought back and appointed Minister of Health before they will be properly cleaned up, though a seductive call or two from de Valera, across the Irish Sea, might help. But he will never whistle back these bedraggled wild geese. He believes in Sinn Fein for Ireland, not England.

For travelling voyeurs like Priestley it was a relief to leave the north end of the city for the ‘cosmopolitan’ south. Amid winter gloom he headed

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for an elementary school in ‘the queerest parish in England … in the very middle of Liverpool’s more picturesque and exotic slums, populated by the human fotsam and jetsam of a great old seaport’: All the races of mankind were there, wonderfully mixed. Imagine an infant class of half-castes, quadroons, octaroons, with all the latitudes and longitudes confused in them … We could see them down there, like a miniature League of Nations assembly gone mad … Although they had mostly been begoten, born and reared in the most pitifully sordid circumstances, nearly all of them were unusually atractive in appearance, like most people of oddly mixed blood … Looking at them, you did not think of the rif-raf of the stokeholds and the slaterns of the slums who had served as their parents: they seemed like the charming exotic fruits, which indeed they were, of some profound anthropological experiment.90

*** Anti-Irish feeling persisted as the political context deteriorated. Appalled by de Valera’s insistence on Irish neutrality, Liverpudlians were outraged when IR ‘terrorists’, opposed to the 1938 Anglo-Irish agreement, began a bombing campaign in the city. By this time, however, research by civil servants revealed that Irish migrants were hastening through Liverpool to more promising and prosperous areas. A mere 13.7% of migrants from Eire entering insured employment in Britain between 1 April 1937 and 31 March 1938 remained in the north-west while 53% setled in London and the south-east and 16.2% in the Midlands.91 A number of initiatives were undertaken to revitalise the local economy through much needed (if rather belated) industrial diversifcation. Pioneer industrial estates, created by the 1936 Liverpool Corporation Act, atracted some of the expanding ‘sunrise industries’ of inter-war Britain, while the national government decided to locate ordnance factories and other requirements of re-armament on Merseyside on the basis of its ‘relative strategic safety and manpower resources’.92 Until the outbreak of war itself, however, there was litle beneft for the resident black population. Published at the beginning of 1940, the report into Te Economic Status of Coloured Families in the Port of Liverpool, commissioned by the recently re-named Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Coloured People, marked a signifcant methodological advance on the survey undertaken by Fletcher a decade earlier. Based on a sample of 225 families registered under

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Unemployment Insurance Acts, material was collected by H.F. Prescod, ‘a native of British Guiana of West African descent’, working under the supervision of Caradog Jones and staf at the Social Science Department at the University of Liverpool, who provided comparative cross-reference to the Social Survey of Merseyside. Te conclusion was stark: ‘a change for the worse has taken place in the economic condition of the coloured population since the last survey was made ten years ago.’ Disproportionately represented in fgures for unemployment and receipt of benefts, these former seamen, mainly West African, were ill placed to beneft from any upturn in the labour market: Te men are unaccustomed to alternative trades, less skilled, and lack a knowledge of English: consequently they cannot readily ft into the normal social or industrial life. Tus, once they leave the specifc sphere of employment for which they were trained and by which they were enabled to reach this country, their opportunities are naturally restricted. It is not surprising, therefore, that a high proportion of coloured men are not self-supporting, and that being so, they cannot be generally accused of ‘doing others out of jobs’, though they add to our heavy expenditure on national insurance and public assistance. Te fact is that they seldom succeed in geting work on shore.93

A subsequent enquiry shortly aferwards by the Ministry of Labour into ‘the Placing in Employment of Coloured British Subjects; Treatment at Employment Exchanges; Training’ confrmed the fndings. Although there was ‘no trace of any evidence of uncivil treatment by Employment Exchanges’, the report acknowledged that ‘coloured people are the last to get employment’ and that ‘it is not the practice to accept coloured men for training.’94 Te demands of war, however, led to labour shortage, a situation which was to beneft new arrivals from the colonies rather than the resident black population, ‘coloured’ seamen (and their ‘half-caste’ ofspring) who had made the port their ‘domicile of choice’.

Notes 1 ‘Liverpool’s Coloured Colonies’, Liverpool Echo 6 June 1919. 2 Jacqueline Jenkinson, Black 1919: Riots, Racism and Resistance in Imperial Britain, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2009. 3 Liverpool Record Ofce: 352MIN/WAT 1/51, Minutes of the Watch Commitee, Head Constable’s Report, 17 May 1915.

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4 Ernest Marke, Old Man Trouble, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1975, p. 14. 5 For Ekarte’s arrival in Liverpool in 1915, see above p. 65. 6 Te Times 7 Jan. 1916. 7 Peter Fryer, Staying Power: Te History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto, 1984, p. 297. Reports in the press placed the blame on the black soldiers, see for example, ‘Disturbances by Black Troops’, Te Times 26 Sept. 1918. 8 Roy May and Robin Cohen, ‘Te interaction between race and colonialism: A case study of the Liverpool race riots of 1919’, Race and Class, 16, 2 (1974), pp. 118–19. 9 Diane Frost, Work and Community among West Afican Migrant Workers since the nineteenth century, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999, p. 79. 10 Andrea Murphy, From the Empire to the Rialto: Racism and Reaction in Liverpool 1918–1948, Birkenhead: Liver Press, 1995, p. 14. 11 ‘Liverpool’s Coloured Colonies’, Liverpool Echo 6 June 1919. 12 Neil Evans, ‘Across the Universe: Racial Violence and the Post-War Crisis in Imperial Britain, 1919–25’, Immigrants and Minorities, 13, 1994, p. 68. 13 Marke, Old Man Trouble, p. 25. 14 National Archives, Kew: HO45/11017/377969, Aliens, Repatriation of Coloured Seamen, etc, 1919–20: Lord Mayor to Colonial Secretary, 13 May 1919. 15 Jenkinson, Black 1919, p. 27. 16 Morning Post 12 June 1919. 17 See the extensive reports in HO45/11017/377969 and Colonial Ofce (CO) 318/352, West Indies, 1919. 18 Lucy Bland, ‘White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain afer the Great War’, Gender and History, 17, 2005, pp. 29–61. 19 Evans, ‘Across the Universe’, p. 74. 20 Marke, Old Man Trouble, p. 31. 21 See the press cutings in HO45/11017/377969. 22 HO45/11017/377969: ‘Liverpool City Head Constable: Encounters with the Coloured Population’, 10 June 1919. 23 National Archives, Kew: CAB24/82, Reports on Revolutionary Organisations in the UK (RRO), no. 9, 26 June 1919. 24 See the correspondence between the Home Ofce and the War Ofce, 11 and 12 June 1919 in HO45/11017/377969. 25 Superintending Aliens Ofcer, Liverpool, 11 June 1919, HO45/11017/377969. 26 Evans, ‘Across the Universe’, p. 78. 27 ‘Te Negroes’ Case’, Liverpool Post 11 June 1919.

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28 Lord Mayor to Colonial Secretary, 13 May 1919, HO45/11017/377969. 29 National Archives, Kew: T1/12465: Colonial Ofce. Payment of compensation to black British subjects for losses and injuries sufered in race riots in Liverpool. 30 Quoted in Jenkinson, Black 1919, p. 160. 31 ‘Colour riots. Te Bishop’s Appeal to Liverpool Citizens’, Liverpool Echo 21 June 1919. 32 ‘Repatriation of Coloured Men’, 19 June, and Minutes of Meeting at Ministry of Labour, 30 July 1919, HO45/11017/377969. 33 Home Ofce to Chief Constable, Liverpool, 17 June 1919, HO45/11017/377969. 34 See the lists in ‘Repatriation of Negroes’, HO45/11017/377969. Jenkinson, Black 1919, pp. 155–74 provides an extensive analysis of the repatriation scheme, including the brief change of policy towards white wives. In the absence of any precise number in ofcial fles of those repatriated from British ports, the best estimates range from 2,000 to 3,000. 35 Marke, Old Man Trouble, p. 34. 36 ‘Te Negroes’ Case’, Liverpool Post, 11 June 1919. See also Laura Tabili, ‘We ask for British justice’. Workers and Racial Diference in late imperial Britain, Ithaca, NY; Cornell University Press, 1994, p. 136. 37 Jenkinson, Black 1919, p. 118. ‘African Progress Union’, Te Times 19 Dec. 1918. 38 Te Times 4–9 and 11 Aug. 1919. RRO, 7 and 14 Aug. 1919. 352MIN/ WAT/1/56, Minutes of the Watch Commitee, 1, 9 and 19 Aug. 1919. 39 Tabili, British justice, pp. 113–34. 40 Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997, p. 113. 41 HO45/25404 Aliens: Colour problems and white slave trafc in Liverpool and other ports; police reports; correspondence with the Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children. 42 Tony Lane, ‘Te Political Imperatives of Bureaucracy and Empire: Te Case of the Coloured Alien Seamen Order, 1925’, Immigrants and Minorities, 13, 2 and 3, 1995, pp. 104–29. 43 Quoted in Tabili British justice, p. 125. 44 Rozina Visram, Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History, London: Pluto, 2002, pp. 231–32. 45 Tabili British justice, pp. 68–77. Frost, Work and Community, pp. 75–83. 46 Liverpool Record Ofce, Acc 4910: Material relating to Pastor G. Daniels Ekarte, deposited from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Methodist Recorder 29 May 1928. 47 See the special issue, edited by Frost, on ‘Ethnic Labour and British

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Imperial Trade: A History of Ethnic Seafarers in the UK’, Immigrants and Minorities, 13, nos 2 and 3, 1994. 48 Carlton E. Wilson, ‘Racism and Private Assistance: Te support of West Indian and African Missions in Liverpool England during the interwar years’, Afican Studies Review, 35, 1992, pp. 55–76. 49 Acc 4910: Adkin to Harris, 3 Jan. 1923. 50 Acc 4910: Adkin to Harris, 4 April 1923. 51 Acc 4910: Adkin to Harris, 30 April and 16 July 1923. 52 Wilson, ‘Racism and Private Assistance’. 53 Paul Rich, ‘Philanthropic Racism in Britain: Te Liverpool University Setlement, the Anti-Slavery Society and the issue of ‘Half-Caste’ Children, 1919–51’, Immigrants and Minorities, 3, 1, 1984, pp. 69–88. 54 Wellcome Library, London: SA/EUG/D.179: Eugenics Education Society: Race Crossing Investigation, 1924–27, Hodson to Fleure, 143 May 1925. 55 R.M. Fleming, ‘Anthropological Studies of Children’, Eugenics Review, 18, 1926–27, pp. 294–301. 56 HO144/22498: Dangerous drugs and poisons: Reports by Liverpool police on Chinese engaged in drug trafcking, 1923. Gregory B.  Lee, ‘Paddy’s Chinatown, or Te Harlequin’s Coat: A Short (Hi)story of a Liverpool Hybridity’ in his Chinas Unlimited: Making the Imaginaries of China and Chineseness, London: Routledge Curzon, 2003. 57 Report to Harris, 8 Sept. 1925 in HO45/25404. 58 Daily Mail 1 Sept. 1928 in HO45/25404. 59 ‘St Michael’s, Pit Street. Te Church of Many Nations’, Liverpool Diocesan Review, 1935, p. 589. SA/EUG/D.179, correspondence between Bates and Hodson, 1 and 8 Oct. 1927. Te Society had some difculty in fnding suitable accommodation for Fleming as the University Setlement was considered ‘just a litle bit spartan’. 60 Fleming, ‘Anthropological Studies of Children’. 61 Rich, ‘Philanthropic Racism in Britain’, pp. 71–72. 62 Mark Christian, ‘Te Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness, Journal of Historical Sociology, 21, 2008, pp. 213–41. 63 C. Holmes, John Bull’s Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988, p. 156. 64 M.E.  Fletcher, Report on an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and other Ports, with a Foreword by Professor P.M.  Roxby, Liverpool: Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children, 1930. 65 Cited in Christian, ‘Te Fletcher Report’, p. 222. 66 Wilson, ‘Racism and Private Assistance’, pp. 63–64.

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67 Paul Rich Race and Empire in British Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 135–40. See also Roderick J. MacDonald, ‘Dr. Harold Arundel Moody and the League of Coloured Peoples, 1931–1947: A Retrospective View’, Race, 14, 3, 1973, pp. 291–310. For Moody as ‘Britain’s Martin Luther King Jr’, see Stephen Bourne, Mother Country: Britain’s Black Community on the Home Front 1939–45, Stroud: Te History Press, 2010, ch. 1. 68 For the LCP’s investigations into conditions of ‘coloured’ seamen in Cardif, see the report in Te Keys, 3, 2, Oct.–Dec. 1935. See also Marika Sherwood, ‘Racism and Resistance: Cardif in the 1930s and 1940s’, Llafur, 5, 4, 1991, pp. 51–70; and Fryer, Staying Power, pp. 357–58. 69 Constance M. and Harold King, ‘Te Two Nations’: Te Life and Work of Liverpool University Setlement and its Associated Institutions 1906–1937, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1938. 70 Acc 4910: Collet to King, 28 Oct. 1937. 71 Acc 4910: King to Sir John Harris, 29 Oct. 1937. 72 Acc 4910: ‘My Biter Disappointment’. 73 Acc 4910: Black and White, Oct.–Dec. 1933. 74 Acc 4910: Ekarte leter, 21 April 1934. 75 Acc 4910: ‘Negroes in the South-End’, Daily Post 12 March 1934. 76 Acc 4910: ‘Te Aim or Object’, undated. See also the splendid biography of Ekarte by Marika Sherwood, Pastor Daniels Ekarte and the Afican Churches Mission, London: Savannah Press, 1994. 77 G.D.  Ekarte, ‘Liverpool’s Coloured Centre’, Te Keys, 4, 3, Jan.–March 1937. Ekarte’s work was praised in Te Keys, 5, 1, July–Sept. 1937, which included a photograph of the Pastor. 78 Acc 4910: ‘Our Problem’, undated. 79 Acc 4910: King to Sir John Harris, 29 Oct. 1937. 80 Acc 4910: King to Collet, 29 Oct. 1937. 81 Rich, Race and Empire, pp. 143–44. 82 D. Caradog Jones, Social Survey of Merseyside, 3 vols, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1934, (in particular vol. 1, ch. 3 ‘Te welding together of foreign elements’) and A Study of Migration to Merseyside, with Special Reference to Irish Immigration, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1931. 83 R.M. Douglas, ‘Anglo-Saxons and Atacoti: Te racialization of Irishness in Britain between the wars’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 25, 2002, pp. 40–63. 84 G.R. Gair, ‘Te Irish Immigration Question, 1–3’, Liverpool Review, Jan.– March 1934. 85 Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in post-war Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 18–19.

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86 HO 45/14634, Ireland: Immigration into the UK from the Irish Free State, 1926–28. 87 HO 45/14635, Ireland: Immigration into the UK from the Irish Free State, 1929–32, Bishop David, 10 and 15 July 1931. 88 ‘Te Irish Problem’, ‘Notes of the Month’ and ‘Irish Immigration into Merseyside’, Liverpool Review, May, June and Aug. 1931. 89 ‘Te Infux of Irish into Liverpool. Te Investigation Bureau’, Liverpolitan May 1939. See also John Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse: Te history of the Liverpool-Irish, 1800–1939, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2007, pp. 307–12. 90 J.B.  Priestley, English Journey, London, 1934; 1994 edn, pp. 240–49. Liverpool Diocesan Review 1935, p. 589 notes that anthropologists need not pay the expense of a voyage to Polynesia: ‘Te much criticised Liverpool tram for one penny will take you to St Michael’s, standing in lofy grandeur in a quiet square, and you have lef Liverpool, and are in the midst of a babel of tongues, where every other child has the curly hair of the negro, or the wide slanting eyes of the East.’ 91 Belchem, Irish, Catholic and Scouse, pp. 310–12 and 319–20. 92 Jon Murden, ‘“City of Change and Challenge”: Liverpool since 1945’ in John Belchem, (ed.), Liverpool 800: Culture, character and history, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006, pp. 405–06. 93 University of Liverpool, Social Science Department: Statistics Division, Te Economic Status of Coloured Families in the Port of Liverpool, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1940. 94 National Archives, Kew: Ministry of Labour, LAB 12/242: Enquiry into the placing in employment of coloured British subjects.

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Ch a pter thr ee

Wartime hospitality and the colour bar

Te ‘peaceful invasion’ of refugees, allies and friends, uniformed and otherwise, during the Second World War included signifcant numbers of ‘coloured’ colonials responding to the needs of the merchant marine, munitions factories and armed services. To mobilise the colonies for global war, Britain was obliged to reconsider the imperial mission, to move forward from ‘tutelage to partnership’ and thence towards colonial self-government. ‘If this process is not to be frustrated it is of the frst importance that those who come to this country from the Colonial Empire shall feel that here too the partnership is a fact and not a phrase,’ Te Times commented, noting with concern that ‘racial discrimination is not always easy to avoid.’ Hence the new commitee established by Lord Cranborne, the Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Colonial Peoples in the United Kingdom (ACWUK), had ‘a task of no small importance to discharge’: Te colonial students, seamen, and others who make these islands their temporary home are in a special sense representatives of their own lands; and it is a duty as well as an interest that they return with an abiding impression of the tolerance, seemliness, and good will of the English way of life.1

Te Second World War duly signifed the arrival of what Paul Rich has described as ‘a nationwide race relations situation, which became slowly embedded in the public consciousness’.2 Charted here in detail,

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Liverpool’s role in this process was pre-eminent, complex and contentious, punctuated by controversy over the local ‘colour bar’. Race relations on wartime Merseyside came to the fore following the arrival frst of 345 West Indian technicians and trainees, on a labourrecruitment scheme jointly organised by the Colonial Ofce and the Ministry of Labour, and then of allied US troops including the ‘coloured American Labour Corps’. It gradually became apparent that wartime accommodation, hospitality and recreation for the new ‘coloured’ arrivals – the responsibility of a new multi-agency organisation, linking the public and voluntary sector, the Merseyside Hospitality Council (MHC) – could not be provided in a discrete self-contained manner. Account had also to be taken of the long-term disadvantage and discrimination endured by the resident ‘coloured’ (mainly West African) population. Tere were residual indications of atitudes harking back to the days of the departed Harris and King: the Commitee for the Welfare of Africans in Europe adopted a resolution in 1940 calling for the repatriation of all Africans who were without visible support, in receipt of public assistance and unemployment benefts, ineligible for military service, or not students.3 However, the two leading agencies concerned with ‘coloured’ colonials, the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) and the recently formed Colonial Ofce Welfare Department, took a more positive approach: both established a presence in Liverpool during the war and extended their respective remits to consider the needs of long-term residents. Te priority for both remained colonial development, a project not to be hindered by adverse experience of race relations for those in Liverpool, whether temporarily or permanently. Planning for the post-war years included innovative proposals for ‘community’ provision for permanent residents, but these were accompanied by schemes for resetlement back in the colonies of some of their number (a category which extended from deportable undesirables to the upwardly mobile, those expected to remain grateful to the motherland for the skills, training and professional qualifcations acquired in wartime sojourn). Ambivalent and ambiguous from the outset, the new race relations had also to contend with local authorities who, in the name of ‘colour-blind’ impartiality, refused to modify policies or consider special needs.

*** Restricted to long-established householders, the report into Te Economic Status of Coloured Families in the Port of Liverpool had taken no account of

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the transient component of the ‘coloured’ community, those ‘dependent upon the acceptance of the conditions and rates of pay which govern the employment of the foating population and unatached coloured men’.4 Te increase in maritime trafc notwithstanding, the onset of war ofered litle prospect of improvement. Having refused to extend wartime bonuses to African crew taken on at below union rates from the large pool in Liverpool, Elder Dempster cut its labour costs further. With a rigour not previously applied, all African crew were henceforth to be engaged and discharged in West Africa, and then at rates paid not to the traditional sea-faring Freetown Kru but to ‘raw’ labour from the Warri tribe taken on at Lagos. 5 ‘Elders have taken the decision to base the employment of these men upon West Africa instead of Liverpool,’ Leonard Cripps, one of the Directors, explained in a self-righteous tone, insisting that, by re-domiciling Liverpool-based crew in West Africa, the Company was acting in accordance with previously expressed government wishes: As you know, for long enough the presence of free negro labour in Liverpool has been a source of serious social anxiety and War conditions have inevitably emphasised this evil. Negroes living within a white man’s economy must either have a depressing efect on the standard of that life or assume a false notion of their own Negro economy. 6

Te Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Coloured People wrote to the Colonial Ofce to question the logic of this policy and warn of the consequences.7 Disgruntled seamen on lower wages might ‘express their discontent in West Africa, or they may endeavour by hook or crook to secure domicile here’. In this later regard, the Colonial Ofce feared the change in policy would prove counter-productive, adding to the ‘setlement’, steadily growing in the inter-war years, of ‘some hundreds of African seamen who married white women and lived on the dole’, intensifying what an internal memorandum described as ‘a social evil’.8 Having failed to locate fles from the late 1920s to verify the Company’s claim, the Colonial Ofce dreaded to contemplate ‘what is to happen, afer the war, to those West Africans, domiciled in Liverpool, who may be unable to return to employment with Elder Dempster when they are no longer able to get war work in factories’.9 Other government departments ensured the implementation of the new articles, clamping down hard on any opposition. Championed by Pastor Ekarte, African seamen on the MV Abosso were among the frst to protest: ‘We have been told that this

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country is fghting on behalf of defenceless peoples. If so, we defenceless seamen are appealing to you to defend us from the tyranny of the Shipping Company.’10 Having dismissed the complaints, the Ministry of Labour warned that Ekarte, a long-term critic of what he termed the ‘refned serfdom’ of Elder Dempster,11 was ‘using his position as a cloak for subversive activities’, prompting the Ministry of Shipping to instruct MI5 to place the pastor under investigation. Seamen who continued to protest and strike were imprisoned with hard labour under the Essential Works Order.12 For those seeking shore employment, what was described as ‘suitable work’ was available in munitions factories, notably in the ‘danger buildings’ at the Royal Ordnance Factory, Kirkby, in ‘the preparation of trinitro-toluol, as the dark pigment in the skin apparently confers a large measure of immunity from the rash and other symptoms liable to afict white workers handling this explosive.’13

*** In the wake of pre-war disturbances in the Caribbean, there was a strong desire in ofcial circles to ensure the new arrivals from the West Indies, recruited to fll skilled labour shortages in munitions factories, would gain (and thus take back) a favourable impression of Britain.14 Furthermore, the LCP kept the scheme in public view, noting with unconcealed delight how ‘the urgent necessities of the war are combining to put a high premium on the skills and brains of coloured British subjects, and the quickening infuence of this is now having its efect in the Colonies.’15 ‘Like most West Indians’, John Carter, the LCP travelling secretary noted, the technicians ‘refuse to appreciate anything that savours of colour discrimination and are never inarticulate or ambiguous in voicing their disapproval of any atempt to institute barriers’.16 Tere was a widespread belief – implicit in the study of the technician scheme by the social psychologist Anthony Richmond, one of the foundation texts of the post-war academic discipline of race relations – that the ‘notorious “touchy or ‘chip on the shoulder’ atitude”’ of West Indians, ‘though formed in the Caribbean, would if anything escalate upon their arrival in Britain in reaction to discrimination, imagined or real’.17 Highly conscious of the sensitivities involved, the Colonial Ofce despatched an assistant welfare ofcer ‘to assist the Ministry of Labour in dealing with varied and urgent problems arising out of the arrival in Liverpool of a number of Jamaican artisans’. Without mincing

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words, the memorandum underlined the major area of concern: ‘One of the problems was to make such arrangements for the social life of these Jamaicans as would prevent their becoming “contaminated” by the rather unsatisfactory West African seamen population of Liverpool.’18 In an efort to insulate the new arrivals, most were placed in two specially segregated hostels, a policy subsequently questioned: West Indies House in Chatham Street, formerly the premises of Harold House Boys Club, and Colwel House in Bedford Street, originally intended as an annexe but run (unsatisfactorily from the start) as an independent unit. Although Alex Watkinson, the frst Warden at West Indies House, had ambitious plans to promote the hostel as an ‘amenity centre for all the West Indians on Merseyside’, the management of the facility was entrusted by the Ministry of Labour and National Service to the YMCA, an organisation, the LCP noted, ‘not altogether free from the taint of the Colour Bar’.19 In the hope of a more enlightened approach, the Colonial Ofce assumed direct responsibility for the Liverpool hostels along with two others in Manchester and Bolton for West Indian technicians working further afeld. An early inspection report submited to the ACWUK was not encouraging. Macdonald, the inspector, ‘sensed an atmosphere of discontent and unrest’ as the new warden – Watkinson’s replacement, the less competent Mawson – was fnding it hard to cope. ‘No doubt he has a difcult job,’ Macdonald conceded, ‘in some cases the type of resident he has to deal with is more “difcult” than those I met at the Manchester hostel.’ During the inspection, Macdonald was joined by Learie Constantine, the famous West Indian cricketer, appointed by the Ministry of Labour as welfare ofcer for the technician scheme, who ‘indicated that he also found some of the residents “difcult”’. 20 As reports of anti-social behaviour persisted, the Colonial Ofce considered a number of options for West Indies House. Tese included relocation away from the ‘not very desirable’ neighbourhood of Chatham Street to new premises in the suburbs, less institutional and more ‘home-like’ in its layout (with less damage to facilities and equipment by the ‘carelessness of the men’), but this was perforce rejected on grounds of cost; closure with the men billeted out in lodgings, but this was promptly ruled out since it constituted ‘a complete confession of failure’; and, fnally, removal and repatriation of the trouble-makers, increasingly seen as a necessity. ‘Te problems of West Indies House will not be solved,’ the Welfare Department of the Colonial Ofce concluded in March 1943, ‘until

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the undesirable elements among the Jamaican technicians have been weeded out and sent home’. 21 By this time enthusiasm for the trainee and technicians scheme, promoted as a means of improving colonial relations and development prospects, while also addressing short-term domestic labour shortage, was under severe strain. Te unfortunate anti-social behaviour of a small minority in West Indies House aside, early reports had waxed lyrical about the operation of the scheme. ‘We are witnessing on Merseyside, an important thing – the day-by-day elimination of racial discrimination,’ Arnold Watson, North West Regional Ofcer of the Ministry of Labour and National Service proclaimed: Tis is being achieved on the basis of jobs for all, aided by the behaviour and character of the West Indians themselves: they get on well with their fellow-workers of both sexes, and the workers on Merseyside seem to be atracted to them by their generosity, their gaiety and their colourful personalities.22

Subsequent reports, however, painted a very diferent picture, questioning the purported skills and deploring the behaviour of the many ‘bad hats’ among the migrant war workers.23 Learie Constantine regreted that ‘some rather imperfectly planned recruiting of labour had taken place in the West Indies … a lot of the men who came over were unskilled and entirely unused to factory conditions.’24 Richmond’s research uncovered some of the ways and means by which the early contingents ‘succeeded in blufng the authorities responsible for administering trade tests before embarkation’: Some had a rudimentary knowledge, and by discovering the nature of the tests succeeded in convincing the examiners of their skill; others actually persuaded a more skilled man to do the test for them in return for a suitable fee, and in the name of the would-be emigrant. As a result of this doubtful procedure a few of the so-called technicians arrived in this country without any engineering knowledge or skill at all. 25

Following an inspection visit to the Royal Ordnance Factory at Kirkby, Major General Orde Browne recommended the immediate repatriation of those who ‘should never have been sent here, and who will remain centres of discontent and ill-feeling as long as they remain’. As well as the troublesome in the factories and the anti-social in the hostels, he also expressed concern about those West Indians who displayed a ‘preference

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for greater freedom from any supervision’: free spirits who chose to lodge in ‘undesirable conditions’ in Liverpool’s ‘established coloured quarter’, the ‘African’ (or ‘less reputable’) areas of the city, characterised by poverty, ‘dubious forms of livelihood’ and ‘racial antipathy’. Merseyside had been selected for the technician scheme because the area was ‘relatively familiar with the idea of coloured workers’, but Orde Browne now rued the decision: ‘Some regret must be felt that Liverpool was of necessity the centre for employment for these men specially brought over; the selection of some other city, without the evil background and tradition of Liverpool, would have avoided much trouble.’26 Looking back on the scheme from the early 1950s as debate over immigration intensifed, J.L.  Keith, head of the Welfare Department at the Colonial Ofce, cautioned against any further exercise in ‘controlled migration, i.e. selection locally for jobs in the United Kingdom’. Te West Indians brought over during the war had lacked any feeling of responsibility and initiative and continually demanded beter conditions and wages and put intense pressure on the Colonial Ofce to achieve their aims. Most war workers were badly selected and of inferior quality to the average migrant of to-day and a high proportion were undesirables. 27

As questions were raised about West Indian new arrivals, reassessment began of the resident West Africans. Despatched north when the frst batch of technicians arrived, Ivor Cummings, one of Keith’s assistant welfare ofcers (previously based in Aggrey House), decided to acquaint himself with conditions among Liverpool’s resident ‘coloured’ population.28 Trough contact with Ekarte, ‘the bridge-head of the Africans in Liverpool’, he quickly learnt of the grievances of West African seamen, and made a personal (but fruitless) appeal to Elder Dempster to consider raising wage rates. Of Sierra Leone descent himself,29 Cummings came to a ready understanding of the West African sense of accentuated discrimination as the West Indians, it seemed, gained favourable treatment: frst in the proposal by the Ministry of Shipping to establish a pool of West Indian seamen on standard British rates of pay; and then in the technicians scheme as the new arrivals secured an expatriation allowance, their own special welfare ofcer (Constantine) and higher-paid jobs in the munition factories. Te West Africans, he reported, ‘were feeling that a great deal is being done for the West Indians, especially the technicians, and that they have been lef in the

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cold’. To make maters worse, the technicians ‘considered themselves to be superior to the Africans, more especially as they had been specially favoured by Government in the payment of expatriation allowance’. Even when working alongside each other in war work, grievances persisted: ‘Te Africans complained that the West Indians refused to have anything to do with them in the factories, and when they are working at the same bench they refuse to be matey.’30 Cummings’ damning reports on the Royal Ordnance Factory, Kirkby – confrmed by Miss Elliot, the National Service Ofcer, who was ‘very critical about the bad treatment of Africans in this particular factory’ – convinced Keith that the ‘West Africans have particularly been at a disadvantage.’ Hyde, a former merchant seaman from the Gold Coast, looked afer the welfare interests of the 140 or so fellow West African workers at the factory, but, unlike Pringle, his West Indian counterpart, he was not able to commit himself full-time to welfare work and was not given an ofce. Tanks to the eforts of Constantine, however, both Hyde and Pringle were appointed as representatives on the Whitley Council – ‘the frst time any branch of the Whitley Council has admited into its ranks any persons other than men and women of the United Kingdom’ – but moves were soon in place to deny them ‘full membership’. Despite being ‘good workmen’, African workers were not considered eligible for skills training and up-grading, while West Indians were able to exploit the wider skilled labour shortage. ‘Tere seems to be litle doubt that a number of the West Indians are for this reason purposely being unsatisfactory in order to secure their discharge in the hope of fnding beter paid work elsewhere,’ Orde Browne reported. As the factory moved towards over-production and the possible discharge of staf, Cummings feared for the worse. While skilled West Indians would be able to secure alternative employment, the West Africans not only faced unemployment but also being ‘dereserved’ and thus liable to be conscripted. ‘Te conscription of these people into the Army will cause a great deal of racial and political unrest in the ranks of the Liverpool coloured population,’ Cummings warned.31 Looking beyond the workplace, Cummings considered that tension and unrest were most intense where long-term community factors were involved, as in the ‘feud between the Liverpool born Africans and the inmates of West Indies House’. A separate section of the Economic Status report had highlighted the ‘Problem of the Half-Caste Adolescent’, the disadvantaged young men of this second generation of ‘Liverpool Africans’, driven into blind alley occupations to a greater extent than

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their white compatriots. Tey were now losing out, Cummings observed, in sexual competition with the ‘privileged’ new arrivals: the West Indians, Keith underlined in a marginal note, were ‘inclined to take away the Africans’ women’. Given the ‘great deal of unrest in Liverpool’, there was an urgent need, Cummings concluded, to make welfare provision not just for transient ‘coloured colonials’ – merchant seamen and war workers – but also for the resident Liverpool born Africans. At the very least, he suggested, the Colonial Ofce should support Ekarte’s work at the African Churches Mission as he ‘is closely in touch with those born in Liverpool, and he visits them in their homes and talks with their parents. I think therefore that we should do all we possibly can to help him in his work, and to strengthen his hands’. ‘Te number of Africans in Liverpool must exceed 1,000,’ he reported to Keith, ‘and I am convinced that we ought to have a proper club and hostel for them and I regard this support which should be given to Mr Ekarte as a stepping stone to a much larger and beter project.’32 A series of small payments was made to Ekarte ‘for welfare purposes’ by cheques drawn on the Sierra Leone War Charities Fund and sent to R.B.  Paul, the Port Welfare Ofcer (former managing director of West African Newspapers Ltd), but Keith questioned whether the Colonial Ofce should consider adding hostel and club facilities to the African Churches Mission: I am anxious that there should be somewhere in Liverpool a really good centre for coloured merchant seamen and for other coloured people who are visiting or living in Liverpool. I have every sympathy with Ekarte’s work but I rather doubt whether apart from giving him a certain amount of encouragement and support it would be wise to build on his organisation. 33

Tere were a number of concerns about Ekarte, including Hyde’s complaint that the pastor was trying to undermine his welfare work at the Royal Ordnance Factory, 34 but the real difculty was Ekarte’s insistence on the priority of religion. ‘I don’t know whether Mr Ekarte would join us in the larger project because he seems bent on the continuance of his spiritual mission,’ Cummings reported: Whilst I fully appreciate his Christian views, I think that his spiritual activities would very much hinder the club and welfare work which we ought to carry out in the Liverpool area … Mr Paul and I spoke to several of the West African technicians who work in the R.O. factory at Kirby

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[sic] and they said they needed a club but that any such institution should have a bar. I don’t think that Pastor Ekarte would associate himself with any institution which sold alcoholic beverages!!35

While encouraging an extension of its domestic remit, Cummings remained commited to the essential priority of his department: colonial development through ‘guided social engineering’. 36 In the absence of provision at the munition factories, he suggested the Colonial Ofce should introduce its own training scheme (an expansion of that suggested earlier by Ekarte for ‘half-caste’ children) to ‘harness the nomadic African manpower in the North West region’ prior to returning to West Africa to undertake work of national importance: I am clear in my mind that the real solution to the great Colonial social problems which concern us in Liverpool, Manchester, Cardif and other places, will greatly eased [sic] by the re-setlement of African peoples in West Africa where they could obtain proper and adequate employment. It seems to me that in a small beginning such as I venture to suggest we might try, that is by training small batches of people already here with a view to sending them back to West Africa, that from this stage we might be laying the foundations for a really progressive and large scheme. 37

Having canvassed opinion in London and Africa, the Colonial Ofce decided not to adopt the proposal. Tose returned to Africa, Orde Browne warned, ‘would demand the same rates as they had in Liverpool … something like four times the highest wage that they can obtain in Nigeria in normal times’: Tey are already inclined to think that they ought to be beter treated in Liverpool, and they will present a sufciently difcult problem afer the war; in existing circumstances it would be disastrous to introduce such an element of discord into West Africa. 38

Te reports submited by Cummings, advocating social and welfare provision for the resident population, together with plans for the resetlement of some of their number, exemplifed the ambivalence and ambiguity of race relations in the 1940s. With limited resources at its disposal, the Colonial Ofce chose to concentrate on the most immediate wartime need: the provision of decent hostel accommodation for colonial merchant seamen temporarily in port, otherwise restricted to disreputable boarding houses and the increasingly overcrowded Elder Dempster hostel (or ‘slave camp’ as it was described) in Stanhope Place. 39

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Figure 4: Te black community has reclaimed its history, making it visible through memorials such as the plaque in Falkner Square commemorating the contribution of black merchant seamen during the Second World War who ‘held their course’. Owing much to the eforts of community activist Joe Farrag, the plaque, marking the ‘Respect Due’, depicts the Fort Concord on which his father ‘went down’.

In September the Colonial Ofce secured Treasury approval to acquire and adapt the hostel: Te need for a good centre for these seamen and for other coloured people visiting and living in Liverpool has been most urgent and the Colonial Ofce now proposes to provide amenities for these people in the form of a well-equipped hostel and social centre.40

It was nearly two years, however, before the much-needed revamped hostel opened as Colsea House. In the interim, other merchant seamen were able to enjoy the facilities at a range of hostels and clubs. Established by the Ministry of Labour and subsequently managed by the Merchant Navy Welfare Board, Plimsoll House, Gambier Terrace, was ‘the City’s “Ritz” home for Seamen’.41 European allies such as the Belgians and the Dutch had decent hostels

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of their own and were also accorded a warm welcome at the British Council House in Basnet Street.42 Recreational facilities at the Indian Seamen’s Club in Paradise Street, administered by the Mersey Mission to Seamen, impressed the High Commissioner; his criticism of the lodgings, however, was considered unfair by the Port Welfare Commitee as ‘some of the expensive facilities provided were not being used to the extent they should … and steps were being taken to train the men in the use of modern cleansing appliances.’43 Following its move from Park Lane to Bedford Street North, the Chinese Seamen’s Welfare Centre included a club supported by the MHC where the Chinese could avoid the ‘enormous prices at their own cafes’ and, hopefully, cure their addiction to gambling and opium smoking.44 Far superior to any forces canteen, the city-centre Ocean Club, ‘the largest club of its kind in the world’, was ‘opened continuously day and night to all members of the British Merchant Navy and to members of merchant navies of foreign states with which the King is not at war’.45 However, Chinese, Indian and African seamen were frequently refused admission. ‘Ofen times we were not encouraged to go to this place because racial prejudices could be openly displayed there,’ a seamen from Freetown testifed: ‘Rather we were encouraged to go to an African Club known as the Joker under the pretext that we would feel uncomfortable in a white environment.’46

*** Te extent of discrimination in ‘colour bar’ Liverpool worried some members of the MHC as they prepared to receive the technicians. ‘As many West Indians were coming over to take part in the war efort it was very important that their impressions of this country should be favourable,’ J.B.  Bryans of the Gordon Smith Institute for Seamen maintained. ‘As conditions were it would be the opposite.’ Te MHC, however, dismissed the suggestion of any accentuated Liverpool factor and declined to consider any local or hasty initiative over the ‘colour’ issue: the secretary was simply instructed to contact the Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Coloured Peoples and the University Cosmopolitan Club to arrange some ‘private hospitality’.47 At the British Council House (or Allied Centre as it was also known), the British Council made some token social gestures: a tea party for a select group of sixteen West Indian technicians was hosted by Miss Redfearn of the Council of Social Service and seats were made available on British

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Council coach tours to Chester, Loggerheads and other beauty spots – but litle else was ofered for colonial ‘British subjects’.48 Te priority for the British Council was hospitality, recreational and cultural provision for the ‘peaceful invasion’ of foreign refugees, allies and friends, uniformed and otherwise.49 Visited by a host of European dignitaries, including General de Gaulle, Dr Benes, Jan Masaryk, General Sikorski, the King of Norway, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and ‘the heads of all the Allied countries’, 50 the British Council House was intended primarily to ‘give foreign merchant seamen an alternative to the public house and the street corner as a meeting place, and some interests in order to occupy their minds proftably whilst they are in port’. 51 Te main draw, it seems, was the canteen, although to the dismay of the Dutch and Belgians it opened without frst obtaining a beer licence. Even so, the canteen, stafed by 150 volunteers under the supervision of a sub-commitee of the MHC, including the principal and staf of the Calder College of Domestic Science, had an immediate benefcial impact, ‘drawing the men away from most undesirable places’. 52 Profts from the canteen provided a useful income stream for the MHC, enabling it to undertake activities at the Centre (and elsewhere) beyond the competence – or desire – of the British Council, which, as its assistant chairman explained, ‘cannot give invitations to meals, provide canteens or “welfare” services generally’. 53 Te Council, indeed, kept to a narrow brief, symbolised by festivities at the New Year’s Eve party in 1941, described by Norman Suckling, one of the wardens: ‘we gave a prize for anagrams, organised musical chairs and were “frst-footed” by a Dutchman from the East Indies whom I selected as the darkest man in the room.’54 When allied US troops arrived in Merseyside in 1942, including the ‘coloured American Labour Corps’ camped in segregated quarters on the outskirts of Liverpool at Woolfall Heath, Huyton (prior to a move further out to Maghull), the British Council organised a gala ball at the Allied Centre to welcome the (white) ofcers. Sydney Jones, the Lord Mayor, took the opportunity to evoke the city’s vaunted cosmopolitanism, hailing Liverpool as ‘the link between the old and new world’. 55 Almost immediately, however, the Atlantic connection gave cause for domestic concern: reports were received of a ‘troublesome problem’, as ‘large numbers of quite young white girls, also women of the prostitute element’ had ‘started to haunt the camp’ at Huyton. Te presence of the Americans, Sonya Rose has noted,

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added the issue of race to apprehensions that wartime conditions were causing women and girls to lose self-control and were puting the moral fbre of the nation in jeopardy … fun-loving, sexually expressive women and girls threatened the sense of unity that was imagined to be the essence of Britishness in wartime. 56

As black US troops came to be stationed across the country, commentators called for their restriction to port cities in order to contain the ‘social evil’. ‘Colored troops should be moved out of rural areas and concentrated in ports like Liverpool,’ James P.  Warburg of US Information Services in Britain reported following a conversation with Arthur Sulzberger of New York Times: rural populations, which have no experience with foreigners, let alone colored people, particularly the girls, do not know how to take the negroes and, as a mater of fact, are very much atracted by them … In the ports … where people are used to all kinds of foreigners, including negroes, there is not so much danger. 57

Te Churchill cabinet rejected proposals by the Secretary of War, James Grigg, for the voluntary segregation of black troops to isolate them from British dance halls, public houses and women, 58 but Miss Redfearn was able to report (with approval) to the MHC that the Lord Mayor of Liverpool ‘was taking steps to make the particular area out of bounds to civilians’. Trough its regional ofcer, the British Council approached the US Padre and Welfare Ofcer ‘to provide something for the coloured American Labour Corps’. ‘It will not be a very big efort, but something,’ Charles Wilmot, the regional ofcer, reported. ‘Really the problem cannot be tackled satisfactorily without some lead and general guidance from U.S. Headquarters and elsewhere.’59 Films, games and books were duly despatched to the camp and seats were ofered on organised bus outings, but the British Council raised no objection when the US authorities insisted on a ‘whites only’ policy in the new American room at the Allied Centre. As the English Speaking Union representative on the MHC explained, ‘it was not the duty of English people to teach the U.S. Army how to treat its coloured men.’60 As a welcoming gesture, I.O.  McLuckie, warden of the University Setlement and member of the MHC, ‘undertook to try and collect a list of coloured girls who would be dancing partners for the Corps’, on the understanding that a ‘trial dance’ would be held not in Basnet Street but ‘in the York House Boys’ Club near the University Setlement, where a

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number of these girls lived’.61 When approached by the Chinese Seamen’s Welfare Commitee, however, the British Council agreed to organise dances with ‘English partners’ at the Allied Centre provided other Allied men would be able to atend.62 Ironically, it was the white US troops who brought along ‘the wrong type of girls’ to dances in Basnet Street, prompting the introduction of a rule restricting ‘lady partners’ to ‘women in uniform to avoid the refusing of admission to undesirables’.63 Beyond the confnes of the Allied Centre – where segregation still prevailed in the American Room despite strident leters of protest from Harold Moody, president of the LCP, and a parliamentary question by Reginald Sorensen64 – the behaviour of white US troops brought new tension to race relations in Liverpool. Teir presence, John Carter reported to the LCP, ‘has very much aggravated Colour prejudice. Tough local whites are willing and very ofen anxious to be sociable to the coloured troops they are deterred from doing so owing to the mischievous slanders spread by the white troops’.65 Abandoning its former complacency, the MHC began to monitor and then condemn instances of colour discrimination in local dancing halls, pubs and other public places of entertainment. Te frst instances of violence were internal US afrays, such as the ‘major fracas’ in August 1942 outside the Eagle and Child, Huyton, when ‘negro’ troops, having been denied access to the Progress Dance Hall, came under atack from ‘U.S. white troops resenting Coloured troops associating with local females at local dance halls and in local public houses’.66 Te impartiality of the police was called into question in an ugly scene in Lime Street, where ‘coloured American troops’ with local girls happily on their arms, came under atack from white American sailors and soldiers, until the police intervened to escort the girls away.67 Polite and well-mannered, black American troops were ofen favourably contrasted to their white compatriots, but, as Sonya Rose notes, they became racial ‘others’ when it came to sexual relations with white British women.68 It was not long before the violence and discrimination spread. Much to the concern of the Colonial Ofce, the Jamaican technicians were soon to feel its force. Weapons were drawn in a violent fracas provoked by a white American who forcibly separated one of the Jamaican technicians from his white dancing partner at the Grafon Dancing Hall in October 1942. Tenceforth, the LCP regreted, ‘all coloured peoples, not in uniform, have been barred from that hall’.69 Other venues followed suit: among those denied admission were J.E.D.  Hinds, sub-warden at the

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West Indian hostel, and Maximo Middleton, a Jamaican technician and member of LCP.70 Te most notorious case was that of George McGuire Roberts, an electrician in a war factory, who, having been refused admission to the Grafon Dance Hall on account of his colour, returned to the hall proudly wearing his Home Guard uniform but was again denied entry. Angered by such treatment, he stayed away from the Home Guard and was duly fned £5 for absence without reasonable excuse. Some months later, the fne was reduced to one-farthing by the Recorder, much impressed by Roberts’ evidence that ‘he stayed from Home Guard parades because he had been insulted while wearing the uniform. Tere was no colour bar in the West Indies.’71 As Peter Fryer has commented: ‘What particularly upset many West Indians was that, while the racial discrimination practised in the American army was open and admited, the colour bar they experienced in Britain was ofen hypocritically masked by a show of welcome’.72 Given the ‘delicate problems in connection with the relations between coloured persons and the American troops’, and the ‘sheer scale of numbers’ of colonial technicians and seamen in Liverpool, Keith applied to the Treasury in April 1943 for funding to establish a permanent Welfare Ofcer post in Liverpool. ‘We cannot entirely dissociate ourselves from the welfare of the permanent coloured community in Liverpool,’ he insisted, in reinforced rehearsal of Cummings’ earlier argument: Although it has been our aim to steer clear of the political aspects of colour bar problems in Liverpool, it is not possible for us to do so entirely, and in any case, it is desirable that we should keep in close touch with them.73

As Keith was aware, the LCP had already decided to confront the ‘colour’ issue head on, announcing that Liverpool, ‘the most difcult City in the Kingdom for us to tackle’, was to be its ‘main point of atack’ in seeking ‘the break-down of the Colour Bar’.74 Before the war the LCP had worked with Ekarte to strengthen its presence in Liverpool, ‘a town where there are many coloured people and where race antagonism is very strong and has sometimes found violent expression’.75 During the war, there was signifcant progress, frst through recruitment in West Indies House and then, on the occasion of Moody’s visit to Liverpool in July 1942, for the eleventh anniversary of Ekarte’s African Churches Mission, the formation of a Liverpool branch. Chaired by Dr Hastings Banda, the frst student

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from Nyasaland to graduate in medicine, the executive commitee included Ekarte (as representative of ‘the Coloured Population of Liverpool’), and Pringle and Hyde from the Royal Ordnance Factory.76 Alongside the branch (which soon sufered the loss of Dr Banda on his appointment as Assistant Medical Ofcer for Tynemouth), the LCP liaised with local voluntary, welfare and religious groups to establish a British Commitee, primarily to promote the well-being of the technicians, ‘to help these men who have come thousands of miles across the sea both in the educational and recreational spheres’. S.J.  Baker, from the School of Geography at the university, served as secretary as well as representing the East-West Friendship Commitee and the Liverpool Association for Welfare of Coloured Peoples; other members included Mawson from West Indies House; Pearson, warden of the British Council House; Mrs J.R.  Malcolmson of the Women’s International League; Miss Edith Wilson of the Liverpool Group of the Holiday Fellowship; and a representative of the Congregational Church. Within the Commitee there was considerable concern at the ‘snubs’ the technicians encountered not only in dance halls and pubs but also in churches, where, in some instances, they were denied communion – Moody, a man of deep Christian conviction, deplored the fact that ‘local Churches appear to have done nothing whatsoever to help meet their need.’ It was not long, however, before the LCP directed atention and resources away from wartime visitors to the resident ‘coloured’ population. Tackling long-term discrimination and disadvantage in Liverpool, indeed, became one of the LCP’s ‘major war and peace eforts to improve race relations and break down all barriers’.77 Having come to realise that ‘we cannot improve race relations by “talking” merely,’ the LCP decided to station its general secretary, John Carter, a barrister from British Guiana, in Liverpool in autumn 1942 with instructions to ‘investigate conditions and present a “Practical Scheme” of social reform’. Designed primarily for the ‘large resident coloured population, which has been “under the cloud” ever since the last war’, the project sought to take advantage of current full employment: Tey have been treated as outcasts, been despised and looked-down upon and in some ways have naturally reacted to this treatment. We cannot hope to remove colour prejudice in Liverpool, if we continue to neglect these people. Now that they are all in work, they will be able to help themselves, but they must be given a lead. Tis we mean to do.78

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Having liaised with members of the British Commitee, the Bishop of Liverpool and Alex Watkinson of the Anglo-Negro Fellowship (which remained primarily concerned with social and friendly contacts with the technicians), Carter set to work on a scheme to provide a club ‘to cater for all sides of their life, the religious, the educational, the social, the recreational, and the political’, aided by funds collected at cricket matches arranged by Learie Constantine: Our desire is to give our people there a place of which they can be proud, which they will feel to be their own, which they themselves can take a pleasure and satisfaction in running, and which will, in every way, be a cultural and uplifing centre for all our people, and especially for the children. We are expecting to receive a good deal of support in the launching of this centre from the Welfare Commitee recently set up by Lord Cranborne and from local Liverpool interests, but quite defnitely we desire that this place shall be run by voluntary subscriptions so that the League of Coloured Peoples will have the major say in the direction thereof.79

Carter’s plans, incorporating ideas from proposals for a community centre in Cardif by Kenneth Litle, a pioneer fgure in academic promotion of race relations (Richmond’s mentor and coincidentally the son of a Liverpool ship-broker), were given a full airing at the LCP AGM in Liverpool in March 1943. Te decision to hold the AGM outside London was bold and symbolic. ‘We do not hesitate to say that this is the biggest thing ever undertaken by Coloured People in Britain,’ Moody declared, ‘and we are determined that it shall be the very best.’ Te British Commitee took charge of the arrangements for the arrival and accommodation of 39 delegates and 250 members representing 12 centres and 13 countries. 80 At a civic reception for the delegates, the Lord Mayor duly eulogised Liverpool as ‘a cosmopolitan city, where representatives of many races found a home’: ‘Rest assured that we are doing all in our power to make these residents happy and contented, and we shall be only too pleased to take up anything that may be suggested for their assistance.’81 Lord and Lady Leverhulme entertained the delegates at the British Council House with a concert of folk-tunes at which ‘coloured artists gave a recital of spirituals’.82 LCP delegates, however, did not reciprocate in kind: under the banner ‘A Charter for Colonial Freedom’, visiting speakers chose to lambast their hosts at various fringe events. ‘Liverpool has had the

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reputation of being the worst city in regard to its treatment of coloured people,’ declared Miss Doris Morant from Jamaica at Ennerdale Road Presbyterian Church, Wallasey; Africans in Liverpool, Irene Cole from Sierra Leone protested in a speech at the Central Hall, are debarred from ordinary places of amusement and from other public places, too. Insidiously you have been trying for years to instil into the minds of these men that they are inferior and have no place in this country. Yet their land keeps your home fres blazing. 83

Te centrepiece of the AGM itself was Carter’s iteration of plans for the proposed community centre ‘in a respectable and fairly accessible part of Liverpool to cater for the educational, recreational and spiritual requirements of British Colonial people’ to be run on voluntary lines free of ofcial restrictions but welcoming ofcial support; under the direction of a ‘Coloured warden of some distinction, assisted by a mixed commitee of Coloured and White residents’; and intended mainly for the ‘coloured’ community’ but not segregated as white members would be welcome.84 ‘We must make it quite clear that we are not planning to build up Harlems, either in Liverpool or Cardif or anywhere else,’ the report in the News Leter emphasised: ‘We are not aiming at segregation in any form whatsoever. Our one aim is to remove completely the Colour Bar and any stigma at present atached to our people, now resident in special areas in certain cities.’ With this in mind, there was to be a particular efort to ‘tackle the problem of our children in Liverpool. Tis is essential, if we are to build upon a new order for our people, and to make a positive contribution to the break-down of the Colour Bar’. 85 In order not to be out-paced by the LCP, government bodies and voluntary agencies stepped forward with various ‘community’ schemes of their own. At the Colonial Ofce, the ACWUK set to work on its ‘Liverpool Scheme’: priority had perforce to be accorded to the welfare of ‘our colonial seamen and other war workers at the Port’, but on the understanding that there would be ‘room for another scheme providing a community and cultural centre to function side by side with our scheme without any overlapping of interests’.86 Afer protracted (and expensive) refurbishment, the new facility for African colonial seamen, Colsea House, would also ‘cater at least to some extent’, Keith explained to the Treasury, ‘for the social and recreational needs of the large coloured population of the Docks area of Liverpool whose interests have been sadly neglected in the past’.87 Raised to the standard of Plimsoll House,

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with no trace of the infamously spartan Elder Dempster facility which it replaced, the new hostel, Charles Owen informed the MHC, ‘would take the form of a club giving more scope to activities with help from the British Council and the Merseyside Council for Hospitality. Tey would probably have to make use of the resident West African population to strengthen the centre as a nucleus and background’. 88 Having previously served as education ofcer at the British Council House, Owen, the frst Colonial Ofce Welfare Ofcer for Liverpool, personifed the shif from wartime hospitality to community provision for colonial visitors and permanent residents alike. Te most ambitious plan specifcally to address the needs of the resident population developed out of a series of meetings convened by the Bishop of Liverpool (no longer preoccupied with the Irish presence). Discussions began at Church House during Carter’s stay in Liverpool and involved the President of the Liverpool Free Church Council, the Liverpool Round Table and various local voluntary agencies, all concerned about ‘a social problem which has grown chronic with time’. In January 1943 the Bishop wrote to Keith to report on progress and canvass support for a scheme addressing ‘the social, cultural, and recreational needs of the resident coloured population’: In our discussions the needs of the coloured people visiting the Port, primarily the West Indian technicians, were considered, and strong representations were made for the establishment of an institution situated in the centre of the City, which, it was felt, would more adequately cater for their needs. Whilst we are willing to support the idea of such a parallel centre, provided suitable central accommodation can be found, we feel very strongly that the needs of the resident population are paramount, and we are anxious to concentrate primarily on the establishment of a suitable Community Centre for them. Naturally the amenities of the house would be available for all coloured people, whether resident or otherwise.89

Speaking at the ‘Charter for Colonial Freedom’ meeting on the eve of the LCP AGM, the Bishop drew atention ‘to the large numbers of coloured folk, British citizens, who had made their homes in Liverpool’: We have not yet given them the welcome we all want to give them. I am afraid they are met with that horrible thing, colour prejudice … he hoped it would be possible, with the help of the Colonial Ofce, to establish a community centre for coloured families in Liverpool which might be a

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focus of their own life and aford them the opportunity to meet and get to understand their white friends.90

Further details of the scheme were outlined by McLuckie, secretary of the Bishop’s Commitee, as it was now known, at the Central Hall in May. Convened by the Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Coloured People, this was a follow-up meeting to the LCP AGM, billed as ‘a frank and friendly discussion of the problems experienced by coloured people resident in Merseyside’. Contributions from the foor were concerned less with the lack of social and recreational facilities than with discrimination in housing and employment: B. Okonkwo of the Negro Welfare Centre condemned difculties in obtaining accommodation for fellow West Africans in respectable neighbourhoods; Hilton Prescod, researcher for the 1940 survey and a long-term Liverpool resident, having lef his native British Guiana 25 years previously, insisted it was essential to ‘undermine the idea that the sea provided the only suitable occupation for coloured men’ if post-war unemployment were to be avoided. Te proceedings, ‘a modest step in the right direction’, were brought to a close by R.A. Reeves, the Rector of Liverpool, who called for a radical change in atitude to race relations.91 By this time, Keith was in negotiations with the Treasury to secure a grant of £3,000 to allow the Bishop’s Commitee to purchase St Margaret’s Home, Upper Parliament Street, Park Way, a location approved by the Bishop, being ‘close to the area where, for some considerable time to come, the majority of coloured people will have their homes’. Keith explained: We have come to the conclusion that for political reasons, it would be most desirable for the Colonial Ofce to take an active part in the initiation of the scheme, by the purchase outright of the freehold property and premises, so that we could hand them over to the Bishop’s Commitee as the Colonial Ofce’s contribution. We feel that our participation in a clear and obvious way by donating the building would be much appreciated within the Colonies and over here as a token of our sincere interest in coloured and Colonial people.

He assured the Treasury that he had already secured the approval of our Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Coloured People in the United Kingdom, who agree with us about the need for action in this regard as a necessary corollary of the work we are doing for Colonial visitors to this country, such as the seamen, technicians and others.

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As Keith’s department was saving £3,500 by shelving plans for a Moslem Seamen’s hostel, the Treasury raised no objection.92 Led by Keith’s ‘enlightened liberalism’,93 the Colonial Ofce Welfare Department recognised the need to extend its domestic remit. ‘Many of these coloured residents’, the ACWUK noted, have lost contact with their Colonies, but a number of them go backwards and forwards to the Colonies on ships, and the way they are treated in this country has repercussions in the Colonies, particularly in the feld of racial relations … Te coloured community in the United Kingdom is not divided strictly into ‘visitors’ and ‘residents’ and it would be quite impossible to dissociate the one from the other in any plans for Colonial welfare.94

However, Keith was acutely aware that his department lacked any budget or designated authority for United Kingdom residents. While some of the welfare work could be undertaken by the voluntary agencies supporting the Bishop’s scheme, drawing upon training and experience acquired in similar projects such as the University Setlement and the David Lewis Institution, the scale of the operation required input from public authorities. ‘Tis coloured community numbers over 5,000 persons, and the juvenile population is well over 1,000,’ he noted, underlining the priority to be accorded to children of school age and adolescents: ‘Most of these children are the ofspring of marriages contracted by African seamen on a very low level.’ As juvenile welfare was ‘not strictly within our feld’, Keith looked to the Board of Education and the local education authority to take responsibility for this crucial aspect of the community scheme.95 In a damning indictment of ‘children’s welfare’, Carter’s report for the LCP had underlined the underperformance of coloured children, a telling point which had prompted the Bishop and the Colonial Ofce into action: It is to be regreted that only a mere handful of coloured children have been able to atend the secondary or technical schools in Liverpool. Tis increases their difculty of fnding employment afer school age and necessarily restricts them to work of an unskilled nature … Out of school these children seem to be excluded from most of the youth centres. It is difcult to say whether this is to be atributed merely to colour, or to presumed low social associations. However, when one appreciates the normal atitude of the bourgeois element in Liverpool,

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it will be clear that this exclusion could have resulted from either reason stated above.96

Te local education authorities, however, were impervious to such condemnation. When approached by Keith they responded in complacent and dismissive manner, combining an insistence on strict ‘colour-blind’ policy with continued embrace of the otherwise discredited atitudes of the Fletcher Report towards ‘half-caste’ children. Resenting implicit criticism and faddish intrusion into their domain, they invoked a spurious impartiality to hinder progress towards any special needs provision at the proposed community centre. Keith asked specifcally about Liverpool when he sent a request to the Board of Education for information on ‘Colonial Youth Centres for the beneft of coloured children and young people in seaport towns in this country who are British subjects’. In order to prevent unnecessary duplication, he wished to establish whether there were already centres to help children qualify for secondary school and make the best use of opportunities thus acquired, to cater for their recreational life so as to equip them as healthy and respectable citizens and ‘to help break down the colour bar and the inferiority complex’. ‘Our information about Liverpool is somewhat scanty,’ he admited: … we know there is a relatively large coloured population in the Scotland Road area of Dockland and around St James’s Place where we are seting up a seamen’s hostel and social centre for visiting colonial seamen. Tere is an African Mission run by Pastor Ekarte – the African Inland Mission in Hill Street – which gives parties and religious instruction, but it does not, so far as we know, provide any solid recreational training. Te children are mostly of mixed parentage, and possibly number fve or six hundred or even more, and although we know they atend the local Elementary School, together with other children from the area, we have no knowledge of any special provision of social and recreational training or that there are Youth Clubs and Organisations provided by the Local Education Authority or the Voluntary Organisations within the area.97

Te responses by C.F.  Mot, the Director of Education and Squire, a local HMI, gave details of the 529 ‘coloured children’ on the rolls of Public Elementary Schools, broken down into ‘pure’ and ‘hybrid’ categories (the later being the overwhelming majority), and scatered – as a consequence of bomb damage – across 45 schools. Te largest numbers were in St James’s Council School (142), Harrington Council

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School (55), Granby Street Council School (40), St Saviour’s C.E. School (35), Notre Dame R.C.  School (33), St Patrick’s R.C.  School (30) and Vine Street Methodist School (28). At this level, ‘coloured children’ were ‘more or less absorbed into the ordinary school population and in many cases seem even to receive special kindnesses from both teachers and scholars’. Tereafer, there was no suggestion of any special provision which would infringe the strict impartiality of the local authority: ‘In Liverpool no child of whatever colour is “ofcially” given special help to enable it to qualify for Secondary School education’. Teir failure to progress was not surprising as ‘they are mostly half-castes and appear to come from homes in which, according to competent investigators, their home life is of the lowest order.’ To reinforce the point (and to underline its long-standing nature), atention was drawn to the ‘very able investigation’ carried out by Miss M.E. Fletcher, which demonstrated that ‘the problem mainly arises among half-caste children whose fathers are of African origin … No similar problem appears to arise in connection with men of either Chinese or Indian origin.’ Tereafer, as they ‘pass from school life to youth and adult life, there is a distinct reluctance, or inability, on the part of these people to enter into the normal work-a-day life of the British people’. Staf at the Juvenile Employment Bureau, indeed, were ‘ofen bafed by what appears to be lack of ambition and a readiness to accept inferior forms of employment’. ‘I do not wish to convey the impression that more could not be done,’ Manson, the chief HMI, concluded on a tetchy note, ‘but rather that, while much earnest thought has been given here to these problems (there is defnite resentment at the recent suggestion that Liverpool is indiferent to them), they only serve to show how deep-rooted these issues are and that more rather than less earnest and skilled enquiry is necessary before we can arrive at satisfactory solutions’. Having dismissed the case for special provision by the authority, Manson also questioned the rationale of the Bishop’s proposals. ‘Tere is a marked division of opinion regarding the wisdom of segregating these coloured people in organisations of their own,’ he observed, adding somewhat begrudgingly that ‘if this project goes forward no doubt some assistance might be forthcoming from the Board.’98 While public authorities dallied, the combined forces of Liverpool’s third sector came together to launch a major campaign for the necessary funds. A leter signed jointly by the Lord Mayor, the Bishop of Liverpool, the Roman Catholic Archbishop, the President of the Free Church

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Council, the Vice-Chancellor of the University and Lord Leverhulme announced a meeting at the Town Hall in October 1943 to launch an appeal with a target of £5,000. Keith came up from London and moved the resolution in favour of the proposed Community Centre, henceforth known as Stanley House, named in honour of the Colonial Secretary, Colonel Oliver Stanley. Leverhulme was appointed President of the Commitee, Constantine as Vice-President and McLuckie as Secretary. Due recognition was accorded to the Colonial Ofce for its grant of £3,000 to purchase the property, to the LCP for a capital grant of £250, and to the Save the Children Fund (with whom Carter had developed close links) for an annual grant of £200 ‘for the frst fve years of the Centre’s life, to be devoted specifcally to children’s work’. Although the centre would operate on a club basis with a steady income from members’ payments, the income stream would not prove sufcient for ‘the cost of decorating, equipping and maintaining these premises, and making provision for an adequate staf’, hence the request for ‘generous help to secure a capital sum of £5,000, to be known as the “Building and Maintenance Fund,” and a minimum annual subscription list of £500’. With 35 rooms and a large yard, ‘it was no “poky back-street experiment”’, McLuckie explained: Stanley House was a fne building, and could be confdently expected to bring coloured people and their white friends into happy contact to the advantage of both … the whole aim was to provide our coloured people with a commodious focus for their social life instead of leaving them to drif.99

Te appeal for funds drew upon a variety of discourses to elicit support as long-established paternalist notions merged with wartime understanding of active citizenship. Leverhulme chose to underline a sense of wartime obligation: donation to Stanley House provided ‘an opportunity of recognising the part which the coloured people have played in this war … on active service, in the Merchant Navy and in war production, and of helping them in the days to come when the trafc of war will have given place to the trade of peace’.100 Te language of community and citizenship (with its implicit determination to safeguard against sexual immorality and juvenile delinquency) came to the fore as atention turned to forwardthinking post-war planning and a ‘new avenue of civilisation’: One of the most urgent social problems of the present time is the welfare of the large number of coloured men, women and children of Merseyside,

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particularly those of African origin, whether resident for a long period in our midst or visitors serving Great Britain in the factories or on the High Seas. We are anxious to assist these people in developing a fuller and more progressive way of life, which will enrich both themselves and the community in which they are living, and which, by special atention to the welfare of coloured children, will lay in them the foundations of good citizenship.101

Here the appeal to progressive civic republicanism drew upon the spirit of Merseypride, the prized local pre-eminence in social provision, a point emphasised in the promotional pamphlet, Te Twain Shall Meet. Stanley House, Merseyside. A Community Centre for Coloured People and their white fiends: Te people of Merseyside have been partners in many important and successful social experiments which have proved valuable information for those who plan the future welfare of the community. It is in such tradition that this great Port is to be one of the frst to have a Community Centre for coloured citizens and their white friends – Stanley House.102

Under headlines proclaiming: ‘Liverpool Leads: “Black and White” Centre: Efort to End Colour Bar’, the local press enthused that ‘by opening this centre, Liverpool would break new ground, for nothing on the same scale has been atempted elsewhere.’103 Appropriating the fner points of McLuckie’s rhetoric, the national press applauded the project ‘to furnish the coloured community in the port with a commodious non-political, and non-sectarian focus for their social life instead of allowing them to drif’.104 In an efort to extend beyond the traditional boundaries of the voluntary and philanthropic sector, the Commitee hoped to engage with agencies within the ‘coloured’ community. Te initial appeal for funds made favourable reference to ‘an organization of coloured people, known as the “Negro Welfare Centre”, with premises at 188 Grove Street, Liverpool 7, which is already carrying on useful work in the general interests of the coloured people’. Tere was a suggestion that the Commitee and Centre should merge, but this was rejected, a precursor of subsequent tension between ‘white’ paternalism and ‘black’ independence. However, in recognition for the Centre’s support in promoting the appeal, the Commitee hoped, ‘should funds permit, to assist this and other organizations concerned with the welfare of coloured people on Merseyside’.105 To Keith’s dismay, the Centre immediately applied for fnancial assistance

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– and took ofence when none was forthcoming. Te Commitee, Keith insisted, should ofer no more than moral support: there should be no diversion of resources from the Stanley House Fund (unless and until it went into surplus), or any duplication of efort. ‘I think I should explain that we would rather steer clear of these eforts such as the Negro Welfare Centres in Liverpool and Manchester,’ he noted as he outlined his own department’s position: If fnancial assistance were forthcoming from the Colonial Ofce to these places, it would be in the form of ad hoc grants of a relatively small sum. At the moment I am doubtful whether grants from public funds would really be justifed, as the activities of the Liverpool and Manchester centres are somewhat nebulous and may very well in time overlap with those of other organisations.106

Unlike the LCP, which occupied an ‘important middle position in English race relations’,107 the Negro Welfare Centre in Liverpool was regarded (rightly as it subsequently transpired) with caution and suspicion in some liberal and philanthropic circles. Tere is some evidence that it operated outside established channels: when it opened in June 1943 neither Ekarte nor Constantine was present, although the Bishop was there.108 Shortly aferwards, Jack Pearson, Warden of the British Council House, visited the Grove Street premises, in response to a request for assistance: Te rooms which were furnished mainly by West Africans were not very cheerful, and it was pointed out that the membership included 480 coloured people, the annual subscription being 7/6d. It was felt that it was necessary to make further enquiries about this Centre before giving any defnite promises for help.109

John Carter, by contrast, was unrestrained in his praise, reporting that the Centre’s activities were ‘mainly welfare work among less fortunate brothers, including stowaways for whom they provide clothes, bed and board’.110 Subsequent evidence, as gathered in the post-war years both by the police and by George Padmore, the Pan-African intellectual and journalist, noted that Eddie DuPlan, a leading fgure at the Centre, was also involved in running ‘dubious botle parties and night clubs in Liverpool and Manchester to which, during the war, coloured GIs brought their lady friends’.111 On instructions from Keith, Owen acted as diplomatic intermediary in talks which defused some of the tension with the Centre but also revealed

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disappointing progress with the Stanley House project. ‘I came to this conclusion this evening that McLuckie is becoming rather anxious about the future of his scheme,’ Owen reported gloomily.112 A furry of activity followed, involving the British Council and various voluntary agencies, as McLuckie sought to rekindle enthusiasm with another launch-style event in the Philharmonic Hall and a publicity campaign, highlighting the three essential aims, in answer to the charge of segregation raised by some speakers at the LCP AGM in 1944: 1. To provide a suitable centre where coloured folk, both Colonials and resident people of African origin, or descent, shall be in a position to invite white friends to join with them in the various activities proposed, but where coloured people shall cease to hold a minority position, but shall be in the majority. 2. To promote the social and cultural well-being of resident and visiting coloured people, whether half-castes or pure blooded, and to give them extended opportunities of fting in happily in the British social system. 3. To promote friendly relations between coloured peoples of diferent origins (e.g. West Africans and West Indians), and to break down the barriers of class-consciousness, educational superiority and snobbery amongst coloured people.113

Response to the fund-raising appeal remained disappointing, compounding the various other problems, hindrances and obstacles with which Keith had to grapple: legal difculties over the transfer of the lease of St Margaret’s Home; complex governance issues raised by the Board of Education, who objected to the proposed incorporation of Stanley House as a limited company rather than a trust; and then, once this was setled, the composition of the Board of Trustees as by this time Dr David, the Bishop of Liverpool, had retired.114 Momentum drained away, but one aspect of the scheme managed to open before the war ended: the Stanley House nursery. For future broadcast to Jamaica and Africa, the BBC recorded the ofcial opening in April 1944 of the day nursery for 21 ‘coloured’ children at 17 Falkner Square, former Barnado premises purchased through the generosity of E.A. Lynch, a keen supporter of the Stanley House scheme.115

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*** As Stanley House became mired in difculties, the initiative in wartime race relations passed to the British Council at the Allied Centre and the MHC. While retaining its European allied focus, the British Council took increasing interest in the well-being of Chinese seamen, having been alarmed by reports of deplorable boarding houses, widespread gambling and drug taking. Dances, flm shows, lectures and excursions were duly arranged not only at the Allied Centre but also at the Welfare Centre in Bedford Street North: profts from the MHC-run canteen at Basnet Street helped to fund a ‘considerable extension to the “cultural” facilities’ at the Welfare Centre, ‘to prevent the place becoming purely a spot for drinking and assignations with undesirable women’.116 Te British Council was drawn into wider racial issues when the Chinese became involved in riots with West Indians and West Africans in the autumn of 1943. Pearson, the warden, chaired a commitee which sought to broker inter-ethnic peace and fellowship. Te Chinese-West Indian-West African Commitee, which rotated its weekly meetings between the Allied Centre, the Chinese Seamen’s Welfare Centre and the Negro Welfare Centre, included Owen (the hard-worked Colonial Ofce Welfare Ofcer), representatives from the Ministry of War Transport and the Ministry of Labour, along with DuPlan from the Negro Welfare Centre, Pastor Ekarte from the ‘Negro Church’, S.E.  Teh, Secretary of the Chinese Seamen’s Union and C.Z.  Chen from the Chinese Seamen’s Welfare Centre. To the approval of British Council head ofce, Pearson arranged ‘inter-race games tournaments and joint flm shows’. Atendance at the table tennis match, perhaps predictably, was almost exclusively Chinese. Afer some West Africans were entertained at the Chinese Welfare Centre, the Commitee noted that ‘the Chinese had done all in their power to ease the situation though the West Africans had not been so co-operative.’ It was later reported that ‘those West Africans responsible for the trouble had not been represented at any of the functions … Mr Pearson said the West Africans had more money than the Chinese and the ensuing results caused friction near the dock area.’ Owen trusted that maters would soon improve once Colsea House, the much delayed hostel for West African seamen, was fnally open.117 Te Chinese, however, remained under critical scrutiny. ‘Te fuctuating foreign population of Liverpool presents a grave menace to young girls,’ the local press warned in March 1945, when the annual report of the

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Liverpool Women Police Patrols drew atention to the number of young teenage girls ‘generally to be found in the company of Chinese seamen’.118 When the British Council approached Lascar merchant seamen to ofer cultural and recreational support they encountered some resistance from those who ‘considered the Indian Moslem seamen to be in their own province’. Having contacted the local Lascar Welfare Ofcer, M.J. Bukht, ‘about possible help by the Council for Moslems’, Suckling reported that ‘he seemed a litle chary of puting opportunities too quickly in my way – was he thinking mainly of the colour bar, or merely not impressed by the experience of the Allies?’ Te Port Welfare Ofcer took a similar stance when the suggestion was made for a Moslem Welfare Commitee along the lines of that at Cardif: ‘Paul, the Seamen’s Welfare Ofcer, does not welcome this move as he is jealous of his own position and fears that the suggested Commitee may impinge upon his sphere of infuence,’ Wilmot recorded. ‘He is a rather odd person with a particular bee in his bonnet about coloured people.’119 Undeterred, the Council provided special flm shows and English lessons, but was forced to protest when the Indian seamen held a trade union meeting in the British Council House.120 In the later stages of the war, the British Council and the Mersey Mission to Seamen provided recreational equipment for Indian seamen marooned at a large camp (run and fnanced by the Shipowners’ Commitee) at Maghull, unable to aford the journey into Liverpool. In the absence of sufcient funds for a new hut, the activities thus catered for took place in a large hut formerly used as a mosque.121 Te broadening of the British Council’s activities was readily apparent at a special ‘Colonial evening’, chaired by the Bishop at the Allied Centre, which atracted ‘more or less equal numbers of West Africans, West Indians and English’.122 A new welcome was also extended to ‘coloured’ US troops, although in their case, as Pearson noted, ‘the number was comparatively small though those who came mixed well with the Allies as did coloured people of other races.’123 Just as the British Council House became more open, however, the colour bar was applied with ever more rigour elsewhere in the city. When the MHC received complaints from the director of one of the city-centre facilities for American ‘negro’ servicemen provided by the American Red Cross, that ‘coloured men had been barred from so many places in the City that the opportunity for them to mix with British people of the right kind was becoming non-existent,’ they decided to appoint a working party, chaired by Owen, to investigate the extent of the problem.124 At the same time, the

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Colonial Ofce sought a full-scale report from the Liverpool police on the ‘closing of a number of dance halls to coloured people in Liverpool’, including the Grafon Rooms, Rialto Ballroom, Aintree Institute, Burton Chambers and Vale House. Te American authorities, the Chief Constable reported, had ‘taken no part in the mater’: ‘In all cases, the decision to refuse admitance to coloured people has been made by management for protection of their clients and their own interests.’125 On receipt of this report, Keith invited members of the MHC to a meeting in London. In his leter of acceptance, Leverhulme noted the disappointing outcome of discussions between the MHC’s own working party and the dance-hall proprietors: ‘no practical proposal to bring pressure to bear on these people to accept coloured people in their dance halls and restaurants could be reached’. Te proper line, he suggested, ‘would be for the Colonial Ofce to agree to provide a centre with dance facilities similar to that at the Allied Centre for coloured people where both they and white people could mix on their own ground’.126 Te discussions which followed were punctuated with objections similar to those hindering progress on the Stanley House project: the refusal of authorities to abandon ‘colour-blind’ policy to favour a specifc group and the concern of other agencies that any ‘special’ club provision might prove counter-productive, reinforcing the feeling, as Keith feared, ‘that coloured people were again being segregated’.127 At MHC meetings, ‘the most debatable point concerning the question of a centre similar to the Allied Centre was the fact that having a club of their own coloured people would be more than ever discouraged from visiting other places which could tend rather to segregate them.’128 As the war moved to a close, the MHC concluded that the best way forward was simply to make use of a new room at the British Council House, to be called the Empire Room (although some on the MHC suggested British Commonwealth Room would be more appropriate) which would be open to coloured Colonial people as well as other representatives of the Dominions or Colonies. In this way the men would automatically feel that they were welcomed in the Centre as a whole. It was felt that this might not succeed but at all events it would prove a gesture representative of the policy of the Commitee and the British Council.129

Fortunately, by this time further discussions between the MHC and the dance hall proprietors – doubtless aided by the reduction in numbers of ‘both coloured Americans and Americans generally’ – led to the lifing of

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the ban frst by Reece and Sons, then the Grafon Rooms and the Rialto. ‘Te Commitee had worked to achieve the lifing of the ban on behalf of coloured people and it was now up to them to play their part,’ the MHC noted in November 1944, hoping that they might now abandon their ‘back-street’ clubs and ‘shebeens’.130 ‘Acute problems such as those arising from colour prejudice have been setled,’ the MHC recorded with pride (and undue optimism) in its annual report for 1944–45.131 With the end of the war, the MHC seemed to have served its purpose, just as takings from the British Council House canteen, its main income stream, declined dramatically.

*** As the war came to an end, atitudes to race relations in Liverpool were ambivalent and ambiguous, causing such an increase in workload for the Colonial Ofce Welfare Ofcer that L.S. Achong was appointed as Owen’s assistant.132 Alongside continuing endeavours to ensure the opening of Stanley House for the beneft of the resident population, much efort was spent in making arrangements to efect the repatriation, willingly or otherwise, of ‘coloured’ colonial wartime workers and seamen. Although yet to open, Stanley House was regarded by the ACWUK as a fagship project for the post-war world in which there would be a continuing role for a similar body to themselves: the educational and other public authorities responsible for such community centres ‘would continue to need the help and stimulation from any Colonial welfare organisation which may carry out the work begun by the Colonial Ofce’.133 A sub-commitee, appointed by the ACWUK to consider post-war plans, advocated the establishment of a ‘non-ofcial’ organisation, working in harness with voluntary agencies, to cover all aspects of domestic colonial afairs from seamen’s hostels, clubs and community centres (such as Stanley House) to student welfare.134 Ever conscious of his own department’s lack of budgetary provision or administrative responsibility in the domestic arena, Keith recommended ‘the creation of “an organisation something on the lines of the British Council” to deal with Colonial welfare’. While keen to assume peacetime responsibility for colonial students, the British Council (true to its remit at the Allied Centre) had no wish to take on wider ‘welfare’ commitments. Belatedly invited to join the ACWUK, Nancy Parkinson, Secretary of the Home Division, was ‘rather disquieted’ by the failure of the Colonial Ofce to sit down

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with the Council to ‘thrash out’ their respective post-war responsibilities, noting however that all on the Advisory Commitee agreed ‘that Liverpool is the most difcult place both as regards seamen and the coloured community resident in Liverpool’. Having long agonised over ‘the difculty of defning a clear line of demarcation between the functions of the Home Division and the Welfare Department of the Colonial Ofce’, Sir Angus Gillan advised Parkinson to ‘bring all our guns into action’ against Keith’s proposal: I think we should take the opportunity of making a strenuous efort to get well in on the Students [sic] side of the business as regards both the academic and welfare prospects. On the other hand the weakness of our position is that we probably do not want to get too deeply involved in the purely welfare aspects of seamen’s hostels and such like.135

While involved in various discussions over post-war welfare responsibilities for colonial residents, the Welfare Department was also working in close connection with the Ministry of Labour on what the ACWUK acknowledged was ‘one of the most important tasks we have to tackle … the disposal and the post-war training of the relatively large number of Colonials who have come over here to assist in the war efort’.136 Redundancies among West Indian trainees at the Rootes factory in Speke towards the end of 1944 brought the problem into sharp focus. Having acquired skills ‘narrowly related to the Aircraf industry’, they were difcult to place in alternative employment. Furthermore, as Arnold Watson reported, ‘the West Indians are, as a whole, immobile in that we are confned, when seeking another opening, to an area where there is hostel accommodation.’137 Although the war was not yet over, the Ministry of Labour decided to bring forward plans for the ‘difcult task of demobilizing the West Indians’: As they are British subjects we cannot force them to return, but it would be undesirable to encourage them to remain in this country. We should, therefore, take immediate advantage of every expression in favour of repatriation as the longer the men stay here, the less ready they will be to go.138

To facilitate the process, Owen sent out questionnaires to the war workers from his ofce in Old Hall Street: Do you wish to return home as soon as you can be released from your present employment?

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Do you wish to remain in employment in this country until the end of the war or for as long as your employer requires your services? Do you wish to remain in this country for some form of post-war training?

While waiting for responses, complex negotiations took place over fnancial arrangements, reminiscent of the inter-departmental wrangling which preceded the introduction of the repatriation scheme afer the First World War. As an inducement to accept repatriation, the expatriation allowance would continue to be paid until the date of arrival at the port of embarkation in the home colony (and this time it was agreed to pay the passage of wives for those who had married during their stay on Merseyside). Te allowance would terminate, however, for ‘freelances’ who chose to remain in the United Kingdom – those who refused repatriation – from the time the vessel they were ofered arrived in the colony. As for the training option, the Colonial Ofce agreed to fund continued payment of the allowance afer training terminated until repatriation took place. Given the overall build-up in demand for training during the war, however, opportunities for colonial workers were severely limited and, afer the experience of the West Indian scheme, carefully veted. Even so, training was by far the preferred choice of those few who responded to Owen’s questionnaire.139 Despite Constantine’s eforts to ease the process and ensure the workers a decent return, repatriation did not run smoothly. Tose who were among the frst to return ‘found on arrival that there was nothing done for them, and have writen back to express their doubts and cynicism’. Shortly afer the war ended, Constantine forwarded a leter from thirteen technicians in a hostel in Parkfeld Road who for some while had ‘displayed an anxiety on the line of employment in Jamaica, when they return, which has never been satisfactorily allayed’. ‘We feel we should be sent to a job or if possible priority should be given us, and not sent in the felds of unemployment chokeful of experience with distress and poverty covering us due to the patriotic sacrifces we have made at this time most vitally needed,’ the leter began: ‘Remember we have no unemployment beneft old age pension or dole at home, we must live on our merits. Quite a lot of promises have been made but to us none fulfl [sic].’140 In a reprise of the kind of language heard afer the First World War, they also wrote to the Secretary of State for the Colonies:

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We have served this great country to the best of our ability in order that the greatest empire in the world should be preserved. We think it is only fair that work should be provided for us so that, with that same determination, we would win the peace … All we want is some assurance of employment when we get home.141

Te end of the war, and the change in the labour market, would add further to the ambivalence and ambiguity in race relations in Liverpool. As plans and preparations moved on from the technicians and trainees to the merchant seamen, repatriation was to be reinforced by deportation while at the same time eforts continued to provide a model post-war community facility for the resident ‘coloured’ community.

Notes 1 ‘Colonials in Britain’, Te Times 24 Sept. 1942. For the essential imperial dimensions of the war, although generally remembered in ‘Eurocentric manner’, see Ashley Jackson, Te British Empire and the Second World War, London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006, p. 7. 2 Paul Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 175. 3 Carlton E. Wilson, ‘Racism and Private Assistance: Te support of West Indian and African Missions in Liverpool England during the interwar years’, Afican Studies Review, 35, 1992, p. 72. 4 University of Liverpool, Social Science Department: Statistics Division, Te Economic Status of Coloured Families in the Port of Liverpool, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1940, pp. 11–12. 5 CO 859/76/14: Recruitment of West African seamen. See also Diane Frost, Work and Community among West Afican Migrant Workers since the nineteenth century, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1999, pp. 83–84. 6 CO 859/40/2: Treatment of coloured people by Elder Dempster Shipping Company, Cripps 20 Sept. 1940. Elder Dempster stoutly defended its position in terms of domestic concerns and colonial development in ‘Employment of African Seamen: A criticism and a reply’, Supplement to the West Afican Review, Sept. 1940, p. 87: ‘For some time past it has been impressed upon the Shipping Company by the authorities that all possible steps should be taken to maintain the domicile of its West African employees in homes in West Africa rather than in Liverpool with a view to limiting the social problem inevitably created by large numbers of Africans having their homes in Liverpool … Te Company’s policy has been embarked upon with the object of eventually benefting [sic]

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the African crews because it is hoped that by maintaining their domicile in West Africa it will be possible to make them part of the industrial organization there which the Shipping Company is at present developing. It is hoped that these men by their experience in the ships will form the nucleus of useful employees in the Company’s engineering workshops in West Africa.’ 7 CO 859/76/14, leter 13 Feb. 1940. 8 CO 859/40/2, opening memorandum. 9 CO859/76/14, opening memorandum. 10 LAB 12/242, 8 and 14 Aug. 1940. 11 ‘It is incredible to think that while a Nation like the British Empire is hard engaged in fghting for freedom and liberty, these refned serfdoms should prevail,’ Ekarte to Ronald Kidd of the National Council for Civil Liberties, 11 Feb. 1941, in Liverpool Record Ofce Acc 4910: Material relating to Pastor G. Daniels Ekarte; also quoted in Colin Holmes, John Bull’s Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988, p. 161. 12 CO 859/40/2. See also Marika Sherwood, ‘Strikes! African Seamen, Elder Dempster and the Government, 1940–42’, Immigrants and Minorities, 13, 1994, pp. 104–29; and Ray Costello, Black Salt: Seafarers of Afican Descent on British Ships, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012, ch. 10, which provides a number of individual examples of the indignities sufered and the heroism displayed by black seamen on British ships during the Second World War. 13 CO 876/17: Welfare of Colonial People Advisory Commitee: Memoranda 1942–43, Orde Browne inspection report, 22–25 Sept. 1942. 14 Anthony H. Richmond, Colour Prejudice in Britain: A study of West Indian workers in Liverpool, 1941–1951, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954. 15 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1941. 16 League of Coloured Peoples, Twelfh Annual Report, 1942–43, p. 13. 17 Marcus Collins, ‘Pride and Prejudice: West Indian Men in Mid-TwentiethCentury Britain’, Journal of British Studies, 40, 2001, p. 410. 18 CO 859/40/2, opening memorandum. 19 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1941 and May 1942; CO 876/17: Welfare of Colonial People Advisory Commitee: Memoranda 1942–43, Hostels. Post 6 Oct. 1941. See also Marika Sherwood, Many Struggles: West Indian workers and Service Personnel in Britain (1939–45), London: Karia Press, 1985, p. 63. 20 CO 876/17, Note on tour of Merseyside hostels, 20 Oct. 1942. Constantine was based initially in the Liver Building. 21 CO 876/17, 31 March 1943.

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22 Arnold Watson, West Indian Workers in Great Britain, London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1942, pp. 23–24. 23 CO 876/36: Bishop of Liverpool’s scheme for community centre: Stanley House, 1943, memorandum for Secretary of State – prior to this meeting with Dr Mary Blacklock, a Liverpool-based member of the ACWUK and critic of conditions in the hostels. 24 Learie Constantine, Colour Bar, London: S. Paul, 1954, p. 146. 25 Richmond, Colour Prejudice in Britain, p. 29. 26 CO 876/17, Memorandum of visit, 22–25 Sept. 1942. 27 CO 1032/119: Employment of coloured people in UK: Bill to restrict immigration of British subjects from overseas, 1954, printed memorandum, Te Problem of Colonial Immigrants. 28 CO 859/40/2, opening memorandum. For Aggrey House, see Paul Rich, ‘Te Black Diaspora in Britain: Afro-Caribbean Students and the Struggle for a Political Identity 1900–1950’ in his Prospero’s Return? Historical essays on race, culture and British society, London: Hansib, 1994, pp. 129–52. For a brief biographical sketch of Cummings, see Stephen Bourne, Mother Country: Britain’s Black Community on the Home Front 1939–45, Stroud: Te History Press, 2010, pp. 25–27. 29 Although of impeccable British-birth, middle-class origins (Dulwich College educated) and senior status in the Colonial Ofce, Cummings was subsequently to encounter racial discrimination in colonial Nigeria on account of his being black. See John Flint, ‘Scandal at the Bristol Hotel: Some thoughts on racial discrimination in Britain and West Africa and its relationship to the planning of decolonisation, 1939–47’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 12, 1983, pp. 74–93. 30 CO 859/76/10: African Churches Mission and Nursing Home, 1941. 31 CO 876/44: Natives of West Africa in UK: Possible employment in West Africa, ‘Welfare of Colonial People in the UK. Labour from the Colonies for War Purposes. Conditions at the Royal Ordnance Factory, Kirkby. 32 CO 859/76/10, memoranda from Cummings. 33 CO 859/76/10, Keith to Paul, 18 Nov. 1941. For details of further payments to Ekarte, see Marika Sherwood, Pastor Daniels Ekarte and the Afican Churches Mission, London: Savannah Press, 1994, pp. 101–03. 34 CO 876/44, Cummings 3 June 1942. 35 CO 859/76/10. 36 Rich, ‘Te Black Diaspora in Britain’, p. 9. 37 CO 876/44, Cummings, 25 Sept. 1942. 38 CO 876/44, Orde Browne, 2 Oct. 1942. 39 CO 859/40/2. 40 CO 876/17, J.L. Mahoney, 16 Sept. 1942. 41 Evening Express 16 June and Post 30 June 1942.

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42 Post 3 Sept. 1940 and 11 March 1942. See also, John Belchem, ‘Te British Council in wartime Liverpool: Cosmopolitanism, colonialism and the colour bar’, Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire, 161, 2012, pp. 1–24. 43 Post 11 April and 7 July 1942. 44 Evening Express 22 Oct. 1942. Liverpool Record Ofce: Acc 2603/1, British Council: Merseyside Branch. 1. Merseyside Council for Hospitality Executive Commitee Minute Books, 20 Dec. 1941, 30 May and 20 June 1942. 45 Echo 11 May 1943. 46 Quoted in Tony Lane, Te Merchant Seamen’s War, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1990, pp. 161–62. 47 Acc 2603/1, 10 and 31 Jan. 1942. 48 Acc 2603/1, 31 Jan.–30 May 1942. 49 Belchem, ‘Te British Council in wartime Liverpool’. 50 Liverpool Post 10 Feb. 1942 and 23 April 1951. 51 BW 2/236: Opening of British Council House, Liverpool April 1941, Sir John Chancellor to Lord Derby, 19 Oct. 1940. 52 BW 2/240, undated notes for Secretary General. Liverpool Post 9 April 1941. 53 BW 2/236, Sir John Chancellor to Lord Derby, 8 Nov. 1940. 54 BW 3/3: Northern region: Liverpool ofce reports 1942–46, report for week ending 31 Dec. 1941. 55 Liverpool Post 21 April 1942. 56 Sonya O. Rose, ‘Sex, Citizenship and the Nation in World War II Britain’, American Historical Review, 103, 1998, pp. 1147–76. 57 Warburg to Elmer Davis, 1 Sept 1942 quoted in Graham Smith, When Jim Crow met John Bull: Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain, London: I.B.  Tauris, 1987, p. 190. Smith, pp. 198–99 also quotes a member of a military police batalion in Liverpool who did not mince words: ‘Honey you should see how the “old women” like to go around with the negroes here. Perhaps they like to go around with them because they have immense Penises’ (US censored mail 1–20 Sept 1943). 58 Christopher Torne, ‘Britain and the black G.I.s: Racial issues and AngloAmerican relations in 1942’, New Community, 3, 1974, pp. 262–71. 59 BW 3/3, 1 Aug. 1942. 60 Acc 2603/1, 10 Oct. 1942. 61 BW 3/3, 1 Aug. 1942. 62 Acc 2603/1, 9 June 1943. 63 BW 3/3, 8 and 15 Aug. 1942. 64 Acc 2603/1, 7 Nov. 1942. League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Jan. 1943.

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65 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1942. 66 National Archives, Kew: Home Ofce Papers, HO45/25604War: US Forces personnel stationed in the UK: Possibility of friction between white and coloured troops, Chief Constable, Lancs, 23 Aug. 1942. 67 HO45/25604, Constable 78A report, 26 July 1942. 68 Rose, ‘Sex, Citizenship and the Nation’, p. 1155. 69 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1942. 70 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, March 1943; and HO45/24471 Police: complaints by coloured immigrants, 1941–50. 71 Te Times 2 and 10 Aug. 1944; League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Sept. 1944; and Richmond, Colour Prejudice in Britain, p. 90. 72 Peter Fryer, Staying Power: Te History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto, 1984, p. 363. 73 CO 876/37: Representative of Welfare Department, Liverpool: Appointment, 1943, Keith to Chance, 9 April 1943. 74 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1942. 75 League of Coloured Peoples, Annual Report, 1937–8. 76 As well as Hastings Banda, subsequently frst President of independent Malawi, who stayed in Ekarte’s Mission on arrival in Liverpool, other future leaders of independent African nations visited the Hill Street premises, including Jomo Kenyata of Kenya and Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, see Sherwood, Pastor Daniels Ekarte, pp. 80–84. 77 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1941, Aug., Oct. and Nov. 1942, and Annual Report 1942–3. 78 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1942. 79 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Oct. and Dec. 1942. 80 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, March 1943. 81 Post 22 March 1943. 82 BW 3/3, 21–27 March 1943. 83 ‘Colour Bar Blots’, Post 22 March and ‘Te Colour Bar’, Post 23 March 1943. Stephen Bourne considers that the Charter ‘foreshadowed the resolutions of the 1945 Pan-African Congress in Manchester’, Mother Country, p. 19. 84 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Dec. 1942 and Annual Report, 1942–3. 85 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Oct. 1942 and March 1943. 86 CO 876/17, ACWUK no. 38, 21 Jan. 1943. 87 CO 876/36, Keith to Chance, 20 May 1943. 88 Acc 2603/ 1, 29 Jan. 1944. 89 CO 876/36, Bishop of Liverpool to Keith, 5 Jan. 1943. 90 ‘Te Colour Bar. Condemnation by Dr David’, Post 23 March 1943. 91 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, July 1943.

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92 CO 876/36 correspondence between Keith and Chance, May 1943. 93 Holmes, John Bull’s Island, p. 204 praises Keith as ‘one particularly bright beacon of light’. 94 CO8676/17, ACWUK 25 Sept. 1943. 95 CO876/36, Keith to Chance, 20 May 1943. 96 CO 876/36 contains a full version of Carter’s report. 97 ED 124/104: Youth Centres for Coloured Children. Liverpool 1943–44, Ward to Manson, 22 Feb. 1943, enclosing correspondence from Keith. 98 ED 124/104, Mot, 2 April; Squire, 29 March; and Manson, 8 April 1943. 99 ED 124/104, Stanley House, Merseyside, Sept. 1943; CO 876/36; and fle of press cutings on Stanley House in Liverpool Record Ofce. 100 ‘A Message to Merseyside Citizens’ in Stanley House cutings fle. 101 ED 124/104, Stanley House, Merseyside, Sept. 1943. 102 Te Twain Shall Meet. Stanley House, Merseyside. A Community Centre for Coloured People and their white fiends, pamphlet in Stanley House cutings fle. 103 Post 10 Oct. 1943. 104 ‘East Meets West in Liverpool. Centre to Break Down the Colour Bar’, Te Times 19 Oct. 1943. 105 ED 124/104, Stanley House, Merseyside, Sept. 1943. ‘Mr John Carter’s Northern Tour’, League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1943. 106 CO 876/36, correspondence between McLuckie and Keith, Oct. 1943. 107 Rich, ‘Te Black Diaspora in Britain’, p. 137. 108 BW 3/3, 30 May–5 June 1943. 109 Acc 2603/1, 18 Sept. 1943. 110 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, Nov. 1943. 111 George Padmore to Walter White, 29 April 1947 in Liverpool Record Ofce, Acc4910. Te post-war police report sent to the United States Embassy, described DuPlan and his associate and fnancial backer, the West African Jimmy Taylor, in critical terms, having established the Negro Welfare Centre ‘ostensibly to look afer coloured people but which was nothing beter than a proft-making lodging house at which coloured men were charged high prices and received very litle in return. Te welfare was DuPlan and Taylor’s own’, quoted in Sherwood, Pastor Daniels Ekarte, p. 57. 112 CO 876/36, correspondence between Keith, Owen and A,M. Khachadourian, Nov.–Dec. 1943. 113 Quoted in Richmond, Colour Prejudice in Britain, pp. 92–93. See also League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, April 1944; Echo 22 Sept. 1944. 114 CO 876/36. 115 League of Coloured Peoples, News Leter, June 1944. 116 BW 3/3, 18 April 1942–5 June 1943.

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117 BW 3/3, 31 Oct.–11 Nov. 1943; Acc 2603/1, 13 Nov. 1943–8 Jan. 1944. 118 ‘Sex Problem of Liverpool Streets. Girls who “Pick Up” Foreigners’, Post 16 March 1945. 119 BW 3/3, 15 Feb. and 2 May 1942. 120 Acc 2603/1, 11 Dec. 1943. 121 Acc 2603/2, 24 March–23 June 1945. 122 Acc 2603/1, 16 Dec. 1944. 123 Acc 2603/1, 11 Dec. 1943. 124 Acc 2603/1, 4 March 1944. 125 HO 45/24471, Police, 11 April 1944. 126 Acc 2603/1, 8 July 1944. 127 Acc 2603/1, 30 Sept. 1944. 128 Acc 2603/1, 8 July 1944. 129 Acc 2603/1, 30 Sept. 1944. 130 Acc 2603/1, 28 Oct. and 25 Nov. 1944. 131 Acc 2603/2, Te Merseyside Council for Hospitality. Fourth Annual Report, p. 4. 132 BW 2/298, ACWUK no. 63. 133 CO 876/17, ACWUK, 25 Sept. 1943. 134 BW 2/298: Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Coloured People 1942–48, ACWUK, Feb. 1944. 135 BW 2/298, memos 12 May and 16 Sept. 1943; and CO 876/69 Welfare of colonial people in UK: Advisory Commitee 1942–45, Parkinson to Keith, 27 July 1944. 136 BW 2/298, ACWUK, no. 62. 137 LAB 26/134: Coloured colonials demobilisation, 1943–49, Watson 6 Dec. 1944. 138 LAB 26/134, memorandum W.965/53, 27 April 1945. 139 LAB 26/134 correspondence Keith and Owen. 140 LAB 26/134, Constantine 17 Aug. 1945. See also Constantine, p. 148: ‘With the war ended, the West Indians were repatriated, and I saw the majority of them back home before I lef my job.’ Constantine, however, was angered by the mean treatment of the men on board ship. 141 LAB 26/134, enclosed in Richards to Constantine, 28 Sept. 1945.

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C h a p t e r fou r

Repatriation, reconstruction and post-war race relations

Te main agencies promoting the ‘middle opinion’ on race relations (to use Paul Rich’s terminology), had concentrated their wartime eforts on Liverpool, extending their respective remits to consider the needs (and reassess the character) of the long-term resident ‘coloured’ population. Tis advance into the domestic domain notwithstanding, colonial advance remained the priority for both the LCP and the Colonial Ofce Welfare Department, a project premised on economic development and gradual difusion of political power to groups of ‘“moderate” and amenable nationalist opinion’.1 ‘Although many V-days had passed, they were waiting for the V N-day when the Negro could go to bed, knowing that his batle had been won,’ S.U. Morris declared at the ‘Coloured People’s Plea to Churches’ meeting at the British Council House in autumn 1945, convened by the LCP to encourage all Merseyside churches to allow one of its members to preach from their pulpits: ‘Te British Government’s policy of training the colonial peoples for self-government was all right as far as it went. Te trouble was, he said, fnding the criterion of ftness for self-government.’2 Promotion of harmonious political relationships in colonies moving towards independence was the key concern, but there was a simultaneous need – in Liverpool at least – to consider how best to progress from wartime temporary accommodation to the ‘absorption’ or ‘integration’ of black ‘residents’ from the empire and commonwealth. (‘Alien’ Chinese were once again deported without hesitation or question.)

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Eventually opened in 1946, the fagship Stanley House project seemed to ofer inclusion for black Liverpudlian residents within the post-war construction of Britishness. However, other initiatives by the Colonial Ofce Welfare Department, such as vigorously promoted repatriation schemes and stricter regulation of stowaways, indicated that there was no desire for any increase in numbers of ‘dark strangers in our midst’. 3 Te increasing inward fow of ‘coloured’ colonials – readily apparent in Liverpool before the fabled arrival of the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948 – was neither encouraged nor welcomed. A re-afrmation of pre-war defnitions of imperial citizenship, the British Nationality Act of 1948 maintained an open door for all British subjects from the Empire and Commonwealth, but there was a marked preference for post-war labour market needs to be met instead by ‘alien’ workers from Eastern Europe, recruited on the basis of their ‘presumed genetic similarity’. Despite the labour shortage and anxiety about a declining birth rate, there was a signifcant migratory outfow of white ‘British stock’ to reinforce the integrity and standing of the Empire and Commonwealth, considered crucial (across the political spectrum) to the nation’s continuing (but illusory) world power status. Amidst what Kathleen Paul designates as the ‘demographic incoherence’ of the post-war years, racism took an ‘indigenous’ and violent turn in the ‘danger spot’ of Liverpool. As afer the First World War, the transition to peace was painful in Liverpool: while other areas experienced labour shortage, post-war Liverpool returned to high levels of unemployment, leading within a few years to the designation of Merseyside as a development area. Against this adverse economic backdrop, St Clair Drake’s feldwork, undertaken in 1947–48, confrmed that Liverpool had usurped Cardif, acquiring the unenviable reputation as the major ‘problem community’ in British race relations.4 In the afermath of ‘race’ riots over the 1948 August bank holiday, the Standing Inter-Departmental Commitee to Consider the Problems of Coloured People in the United Kingdom ‘recommended that steps should be taken to reduce the aggregations of coloured people in the seaports’. 5 Liverpool remained at the very forefront of concern about race relations in the post-war years and into the 1950s as new forms of black organisation emerged, more militant than either the middle-class LCP or Ekarte’s spiritual mission. Te removal of 25% of colonial seamen from the shipping register prompted a vehement response among the resident black community, spearheaded by the Communist-infuenced

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Colonial People’s Defence Association (CPDA). Te Communist Party, indeed, was to accord special atention to Liverpool, the ‘key city’ in ‘the joint struggle for Colonial rights at home and abroad’. Although encouraged to move on from depressed Liverpool, there were fears that new arrivals from the West Indies might hasten back: ill-suited to life in industrial areas, they would soon drif into the ‘aggregations of Colonials’ in seaports like Liverpool, living of generous benefts and compounding ‘the special social problems which result from their presence’.

*** For Pastor Ekarte the immediate post-war priority was to make provision for unwanted wartime ‘brown babies’, numbers of whom were lef on the doorstep of his Mission.6 Having enlisted the support of George Padmore and Learie Constantine in a fund-raising commitee, Ekarte sought to ‘collect funds to establish a “Booker-T-Washington Home” for the children of coloured American soldiers, Africans, West Indian soldiers and technicians brought to this country by the Ministry of Labour.’ 7 Other agencies recognised the need for urgent action. Staf at Stanley House Nursery informed the Ministry of Health that the ‘main problem was the placing of coloured children, particularly those who are illegitimate, whose mothers cannot look afer them’.8 Aware of the national dimensions of the problem, the LCP called upon the Ministry to assist Ekarte given the implications for post-war race relations: Agencies at present at work seem to be able to deal with the white babies, but are either unable or unwilling to deal with the coloured ones. Herein we detect the grave possibility of an aggravation of the Colour Bar, just at a time when so much is being done to help to abolish this curse.9

In the absence of any special public provision (on either side of the Atlantic), a number of children continued to be housed in cramped and unsuitable conditions in the Hill Street Mission while the Booker T.  Washington Commitee sought in vain for appropriate premises for the 100 or so ‘coloured children’ from all parts of the country that Ekarte wished to accommodate. Undeterred, Ekarte became ever more ambitious in his plans with the children’s home serving as the foundation for a US-style black infrastructure of education and training. Children at the home, he explained to a Ministry of Health Inspector on a visit to the Mission, would atend the local elementary school and sit the

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scholarship examination. Tose who did not pass were to be transferred to a residential school where they would be given technical training ‘to ft them for some progressive employment’: He talked to me about the coloured people of America; how they established themselves, built schools, training colleges and universities, and were now able, more or less, to hold their own with white people … In efect he would like to establish in this country a coloured population such as exists in America and the establishment of a large nursery would be the foundation of the scheme he has in mind – a scheme which envisages the seting up of training schools, colleges and Universities for coloured people.10

Te plans, however, were to collapse in failure and embarrassment, despite initial support from such black celebrities as Joe Louis and Paul Robeson (whose free concert in Liverpool in May 1949 atracted vast crowds). Te children housed at the Mission in loving but squalid overcrowded conditions were fnally removed by the Home Ofce in 1949. An atempt to raise funds in the United States, prior to the shipment of babies, led to misunderstanding and misrepresentation, with exaggerated claims about the numbers involved and alleged high-profle subscribers. Having been sent as an envoy by Ekarte in 1947, the dubious fgure of Eddie DuPlan ‘returned as empty-handed as when he went over’.11 In talking to Ekarte in 1946, the Ministry of Health Inspector was struck by his anger at the treatment of the Liverpool ‘coloured population’ in the post-war context: Pastor Ekarte talked very biterly about the treatment of the coloured adolescent child and adult population in Liverpool. He stated that the majority of them are now out of work “now the war is over they are no longer required”, and that even when they are in work the wages are so low that a married man is unable to support a family … I suggested to Pastor Ekarte that as he was so interested in the social welfare of the coloured population that there were sufcient problems known to him in his immediate surroundings which might be tackled without or before bringing 100 children from all over the country into the Merseyside area to add to the difculties, but there was no response to this.12

Te anger is not hard to understand. Interviewed shortly before the war ended by WASU Magazine about his post-war plans, Ekarte reminded the West African students of his biter disillusionment on arrival in

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Liverpool during the First World War and the horrifc experience of the subsequent race riots: I’m not quite sure what the atitude of the British Government would be towards Africans and peoples of African descent who’re domiciled in this country. My plans will, to some extent, depend upon that. I remember what happened at the end of the last war – I mean the riots which broke out in many parts of Britain between Englishmen and Africans. I can still picture in my mind’s eye the terrible shooting and torture that took place. I sincerely hope that sort of thing isn’t going to be repeated.13

Te atitude of the government soon became apparent in a series of deportation and repatriation schemes, although initially Africans were not the target.

*** Te frst group to experience the hardening of atitudes in ‘whitewashing Britain’ were Chinese merchant seamen who had already experienced considerable denigration and discrimination during the war years. A close watch had been kept on the local branches of the National Chinese Seamen’s Union, formed in July 1942, and of the Chinese Communist Party, but, as was made clear in the reports from Scot Johnson, the Chinese-speaking Liaison Ofcer appointed by the Ministry of War Transport, the main anxiety was not political or industrial subversion but the profigate and dubious behaviour of those with too much money in their pockets and too litle concern for their obligations within the seamen’s pool.14 Tere were fears that ‘the germ of disobedience and idleness’ would spread, undermining the fnal stages of the war efort when crews were needed for the Far East campaign: ‘the man who does not wish to go to sea either because of fear or because he wishes to gamble or trade in the black market, keeps out of the way of those seeking seamen.’ One company, Anglo-Saxon Petroleum, had 150 men ‘of-pay’ in early 1945, ‘most of whom have been ashore for periods of three months or thereabouts, but a few since 1942 and 1943 and in one case since 1941. Tese later men have disappeared underground’. Overall, the Ministry of War Transport estimated that there were 600 ‘of-pay’ and ashore, including two or three hundred ‘hardened ofenders’, responsible for ‘most of the rackets in the Chinese community in Liverpool i.e. opium, gambling, black market etc.’ When the war fnally ended and

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Figure 5: Overshadowed by the Edwardian imperial grandeur of the former Mersey Docks and Harbour Board building on the Pier Head, the recently installed memorial to the ‘alien’ Chinese seamen who gave their lives during the Second World War, or were hurriedly deported thereafer, leaving their wives and children beref, serves as poignant reminder of one of the more despicable aspects of post-war reconstruction in Liverpool.

the Chinese coast became ‘open again’, the authorities promptly ‘set in motion the usual steps for geting rid of foreign seamen whose presence here is unwelcome’.15 Brandishing a set of suitably shocking statistics, ofcials from various departments met in the Home Ofce in October 1945 to work out the details of a mass repatriation – or rather deportation – scheme. According to these fgures, the number of Chinese in Liverpool had increased during the war from some two or three hundred to 2,000, half of whom were now sufering either from VD or TB; 560 had lef the Chinese Seamen’s Pool; and within the last three years, there had been 1,000 convictions for opium smoking and 350 for gaming. It was also noted that 117 had British-born wives, most of whom ‘were of the prostitute class and would not wish to accompany their husbands to China’. Immediate compulsory deportation was proposed for a dozen

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or so Chinese gangsters, brothel keepers and opium trafckers, ‘highly undesirable Chinese who have been marked down for some time for deportation when possible’. Given the lax discipline that had prevailed in the seamen’s pool, however, this drastic approach was not considered justifable for those ‘surplus’ seamen who had failed to report to the pool, had been convicted for ‘unimportant gaming or opium ofences’ or were simply in breach of their landing conditions. To avoid legal problems, it was decided that the local Immigration Ofce would ‘vary’ their landing conditions by requiring them to leave by a specifc date (‘the theoretical sailing date of the frst ship’), with Deportation Orders being issued (conveniently signed and despatched in advance to Liverpool by the Home Ofce) for those who failed to comply. ‘Te number of Orders may be considerable,’ a Home Ofce ofcial noted, ‘but it is hoped that once it has been shown that the Government means business evasion will not be atempted’.16 Over two hundred Chinese seamen were sent back in the frst tranche, which the Home Ofce considered ‘a good start’ while expressing concern about ‘how many missing men have still to be traced … working irregularly in such places as restaurants and laundries’. By summer 1946, some 1,362 men had been repatriated as passengers to the Far East and 3,569 had signed on Articles for discharge in the Far East. In a fnal local sweep, a two-day intensive search of ‘approximately 150 Pool boardinghouses, private boarding-houses and private houses’ undertaken by the Immigration Ofcer accompanied by a member of the Liverpool Police Special Branch, just ffeen ‘out of order or deserters from the Pool’ were uncovered, whose landing conditions were promptly ‘varied’: In order to spread the net as widely as possible I have, within the last few days, circulated all Chief Constables throughout Great Britain. Pool deserters and other Chinese seamen engaged in unauthorised shore employment have been located as far afeld as Hereford and Greenock and when the operation is completed within the next few days I shall be satisfed that every possible step has been taken to secure a maximum repatriation of Chinese.17

Te mood of self-congratulation was dented, however, by a high profle publicity campaign mounted by wives of the Chinese seamen. Led by Marion Lee, a ‘defence association’ drew atention to the plight of the 150 or so women, with an average of three children each, who found themselves ‘lef to live on public aid, charity and the help of our families’.

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‘We are British women, not foreigners,’ Mrs Lee explained to the News Chronicle, ‘but we have nothing ahead of us except enforced deportation to a foreign land to which we do not want to go.’ While disputing some of the fgures, the Home Ofce acknowledged that the wages now ofered to Chinese seamen are so much less than the war time rates, that it is now impossible for men married to British born women to maintain their wives and families in this country and this factor may be interpreted as enforced repatriation.

In an efort to limit adverse publicity, various pragmatic options were explored for those married since the introduction of the ‘repatriation scheme’. Tere could be no blanket reprieve or reversal of policy, however, as was explained in a leter to local MP, Bessie Braddock, who took up the wives’ case: Some of the men who have married since 1.9.45 have probably already been repatriated and it might embarrass the Immigration Ofcer, Liverpool, the Police and the shipping companies concerned, in their eforts to complete the repatriation of Chinese seamen, if we suddenly decide to allow the men who had married between 1.9.45 and 5.7.46 to remain here.

Having restricted the number of cases where sympathetic treatment might be appropriate to just 57, the Home Ofce hoped for the co-operation and good will of other departments, whether the men would be allowed to sign on British articles or undertake shore employment. ‘Te whole problem bristles with difculties,’ an internal memorandum noted: If some Chinese seamen are permited to sign British Articles the men on Eastern Articles will have a grievance and some of the shipping companies who employ Chinese seamen to a large degree, may have their source of cheap labour jeopardised as a consequence.

In its fnal recommendation, however, the Home Ofce trusted that it would not be beyond the powers of the Ministry of Transport through the Shipping Federation to place 57 Chinese seamen in employment in British ships … I am not sure that the possibility that the signing on British Articles of a comparatively small number of Chinese seamen would result in some shipping companies having their source of cheap labour placed in jeopardy ought to weigh too heavily on us.

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‘Probably the best solution would be to permit all satisfactory Chinese seamen married to British born women who do not desire repatriation to take up shore employment,’ the Home Ofce concluded, ‘but there may be opposition from the Ministry of Labour and National Service.’18 Once the controversy over Chinese deportation died down, the authorities turned their atention to ‘coloured seamen and stowaways’ from the colonies. Having welcomed the general improvement in race relations since the end of the war, the Colonial Ofce admited that ‘less visible progress has been made in Liverpool than elsewhere’ as conditions were ‘not improved by the continual infux of seamen, bona fde and otherwise plus stowaways, many of whom appear to be unemployable’.19 Furthermore, as the Ministry of Transport subsequently catalogued, there was a general deterioration in employment prospects among both established and unestablished colonial seamen, partly because of the existence of a number of coloured men claiming to be seamen, but who were undesirable for reasons of inexperience or indiscipline; partly because of the post-war reduction in the number of coal-burning ships, on which the majority of coloured seamen serve as stokehold crew; and partly because of the general fuctuations in employment within the shipping industry.

Hence the decision in 1947 ‘to “wood” the registers of all those coloured seamen for whom there was no likelihood of employment, especially men with doubtful records, stowaways, deserters and one trip seamen’. Many ‘undesirables’ were ‘eliminated’, but, as the ofcial fle recorded, ‘the atempt to remove genuine seamen from the registers as redundant excited complaints of colour discrimination in Cardif and Liverpool and this part of the Scheme could not be carried out.’ Within a couple of years, however, the Ministry of Transport tried again, hoping to enlist support from consuls and shipping masters as ‘the problem of unemployed Colonial seamen in the UK has reached serious proportions.’20 Large numbers of ‘single voyage’ seamen were choosing to remain in Liverpool and other ports, either having arrived on articles which contravened the requirement for a repatriation clause or else waived their repatriation rights in the hope of obtaining ‘beter opportunities of employment’. ‘Most of these men have been disappointed in their hopes of fnding employment in the UK and have therefore applied for relief,’ the Ministry of Transport reported with some anxiety: ‘Tis involves a considerable drain on public funds and the enforced idleness of the Colonial seamen

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in a country with unfamiliar social conditions has inevitably led to difculties which have always been embarrassing, and have now become serious.’21 Confronted by this infux, the local Advisory Commitee of the Colonial Welfare Department in Liverpool gave approval to a scheme to discharge some 25% of colonial seamen from the shipping register, leaving them with the option of shore employment or repatriation. Te vehement response to this ‘industrial persecution’ of colonial seamen among the resident black community led to the formation of the militant, soon Communist-infuenced, CPDA. Markedly diferent in tone from the LCP, it gave voice to local anger, outrage and incredulity that the Advisory Commitee, which normally existed for the welfare of colonials would resort to recommending their mass discharge from the employment, thus on the one hand depriving them of the means of earning a living and on the other forcing them to choose between existing on grants from the National Assistance Board and repatriation. 22

As the Colonial Ofce no longer had funds available to repatriate colonial seamen, all cases had to be referred to the National Assistance Board. Afer complex inter-departmental negotiations, however, Charles Owen, the Colonial Ofce Welfare Ofcer in Liverpool, was allowed to use local discretion and secured agreement from Elder Dempster to carry West African repatriates on Conveyance Orders. ‘Quite apart from the diference between normal passenger rates on the one hand and Conveyance Order rates on the other,’ J.E.  Tomas reported approvingly to the Ministry of Transport, ‘there is the additional advantage that, so many of the West African candidates for repatriation are, for the most part, not the sort of people shipping companies seek in fare-paying passengers, it would be useful to have the means of geting this type away.’23 By this time, the Colonial Ofce had started to close its hostels for colonial seamen, ‘segregational institutions’ which, Tomas insisted, were no longer justifed or required. ‘At sea, it is commonplace for English and colonial seamen to serve together and it is clearly undesirable that they should be segregated when ashore,’ Tomas avowed, noting that the Merchant Navy Welfare Board were confdent that ‘bona fde colonial seamen could now be accommodated in ordinary seamen’s hostels.’ Increasingly expensive to maintain, the Colonial Ofce hostels had become refuges for non-seamen and/or community centres, an

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unnecessary duplication in Liverpool following the opening of Stanley House. ‘It is not really the function of the Colonial Ofce to provide accommodation for men from the Colonies who have decided to setle down in this country,’ Tomas explained, ‘and we are satisfed that the closing of the hostels will not create any serious problems of accommodation.’ Te end of ‘segregation’, however, was not to interfere with the operation of the racial labour market. When Colsea House closed in June 1950, Tomas thought it possible that Messrs. Elder Dempster may wish to take over the hostel as they are not anxious that their seamen, who earn much less than seamen on United Kingdom Articles, should be brought into close contact with the general run of seamen in Liverpool. 24

With Keith still at the helm of the Welfare Department, glimmers of enlightened liberalism remained in the Colonial Ofce. Reconstituted in 1946 with a new acronym (ACWCUK), the Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Coloured People, accorded priority to the repatriation of war workers and colonial servicemen, but Keith ensured that domestic issues were not ignored.25 A confdential report on ‘Colour Discrimination in the United Kingdom’, drawn up by his department in response to the campaign by the Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society for legislation to ban discrimination, rehearsed the (subsequently of-repeated) complications, difculties and drawbacks of a legal approach to the ‘colour problem’. However, as a mater of urgency, it called for discussions with the Ministry of Labour and National Service to encourage broader employment opportunities to take account of the changing complexion of the resident ‘colonial’ population: … it should be borne in mind that there are permanent communities of coloured Colonial people and their families in Great Britain; that they must have work; and that the time is past when men-folk will be content with irregular sea-going employment or, in the case of women, employment in domestic service. Many of the children of mixed unions have received secondary schooling and will rightly demand an opportunity of employment in accordance with their standard of education.26

Education, not legislation, remained the preferred option in the Colonial Ofce, but Keith was to give an increasingly sympathetic ear to those advocating legal intervention.

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Championed in Parliament by the Labour MP Reginald Sorensen, the campaign for anti-discrimination legislation gathered pace following further evidence from Liverpool of a colour bar in licensed premises, a lingering legacy of the war years.27 In July 1947, A.B.  Wellesley-Cole, a student member of the University Socialist Society, contacted Bessie Braddock and Sorensen, providing details of how he and two distinguished guests from Freetown (one of whom was both a Legislative Councillor and a JP) had been denied drink in the smoke room of Princes Park Hotel. Further research by the student revealed that a similar restriction applied to parlours in other pubs and that two pubs did not admit ‘coloured’ people into any part of the premises. Te Home Ofce gave short shrif to the complaint, upholding the right of licensees to restrict entry where orderly behaviour was the concern. During the war, ‘coloured men and their women friends’ had use of the parlour, the manager explained, but owing to their conduct and the fact that fghting broke out frequently amongst themselves, he had frequently to seek the assistance of the police … in the interests of the good conduct of his house, he placed a ban on the use of the parlours by coloured men and since then no further trouble has arisen.

While insisting that the police were by no means pro-active in such maters, the Chief Constable considered the manager to have acted within his rights: A good deal of difculty is experienced here in dealing with the large coloured population but in no case have the police advised licensees that discrimination should be shown against them. Te responsibility for the maintenance of order in licensed premises must rest with the licensee and I should be very loath to interfere with the licensee’s discretion in a case of this sort.

Te Home Secretary sought to put the mater to rest, suggesting to the leader of the Liverpool Labour MPs that it was ‘one of the cases to be found in all circumstances of life, where decent and law abiding citizens sufer from the faults of a minority’.28 A meeting of the inter-departmental sub-commitee on colour discrimination duly decided against drafing any legislation to prohibit discrimination in hotels and pubs. Keith, however, was by now convinced of the need for some form of legal initiative, if not in the leisure and recreational sector then in another area where discrimination was rife: accommodation.29

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Keith appointed a sub-commitee to examine the possibility of legislating against restrictive covenants (in other words racial clauses) in leases, which, he averred, ‘would be a gesture much appreciated by colonials here and overseas’. Having consulted with the Lord Chancellor and Atorney General, the Home Ofce dismissed the idea out of hand as ‘any legislation to prevent colour discrimination would be unenforceable and wholly inefective.’30 For similar reasons, the Home Ofce sought to block Sorensen’s private members bill to outlaw colour discrimination in either accommodation or employment. ‘In our view legislation designed for this purpose is both undesirable and impracticable,’ the Home Secretary was advised: Te atitude to diferences of colour is a mater of personal opinion, which cannot be regulated by law, but only by education in the wider sense of the word. It is questionable whether colour discrimination is so rife in England as to cause concern. 31

While the Home Ofce brushed the colour issue aside, Keith would not let the mater drop, particularly given the likely adverse consequences in the colonies of increasing reports of ‘indigenous racism’ (to use Stuart Hall’s terminology) in post-war Britain. 32 Here he was mindful of reports received from the Colonial Information Policy Commitee, whose existence and activities were usually kept secret. Without wishing to encroach on the responsibility of the ACWCUK in the ‘actual task of looking afer Colonial people in this country’, the Commitee decided to express its ‘great concern’ about discrimination. Te Home Ofce, it regreted, seemed oblivious of the ‘deplorable efect on publicity overseas which could be brought about by the return to their own country of coloured people who had been badly treated here’. By drawing atention to the communist peril, particularly in the African colonies, the Commitee trusted to convince the Home Ofce of the need to tackle colour discrimination, as Keith had advocated: It was accepted that when Colonial visitors received bad treatment in this country on account of their colour (e.g. exclusion from hotels etc) this tended to make them susceptible to Communist doctrines, and also gave rise to very unfavourable publicity in the Colonies themselves. Hence, so long as such treatment continued, it remained pro tanto more difcult to conduct successful anti-Communist propaganda in Africa … It should probably sufce if the Commitee in due course presented to senior Ministers the picture of Communism in Africa and their proposed

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counter-measures, at the same time emphasising that anti-Communist propaganda could never fully succeed so long as Africans and other coloured people sufered disabilities in this country. 33

At the same time, Keith took the initiative in establishing a Standing Inter-Departmental Commitee to consider the problems of coloured people in the United Kingdom, excluding students and visiting Colonial seamen. Tese later categories apart (the acknowledged responsibility of the Welfare Department), the Colonial Ofce, as Keith underlined at the preliminary meeting, neither held nor wished to acquire domestic executive powers, and should not be asked to take charge of the permanent colonial population: Te establishment of the later as a permanent segregated minority population under the protection of the Colonial Ofce, would be most undesirable. It would go clean against the idea, which it is highly important to establish, that the Colonial people are in no sense aliens and are entitled to treat this country as their home. 34

While concerned to ensure fair treatment of the resident colonial population – the Colonial Information Policy Commitee warned that otherwise they too might fall ‘under Communist infuence’ – Keith was by no means an advocate of an increase in their numbers. Te ACWCUK noted with concern the arrival of some 100 Jamaican passengers (as well as 11 stowaways) on the SS Ormonde at Liverpool in the spring of 1947: Tese men, whose average age is about 30, said that they had heard of the acute man-power shortage in the United Kingdom, and as unemployment was rife in Jamaica they had decided to come to England. Unfortunately, most of them are under the impression that as in war-time, high wages can still be earned for unskilled work. Tose who have wives and families to maintain in Jamaica will fnd it very difcult to earn sufcient to maintain themselves here and send money home. Very few of the men are skilled. 35

A few months later, Keith reported to the ACWCUK on his visit to the West Indies. Already convinced that ‘the manpower position in the United Kingdom cannot readily be solved by importing labour from overseas,’ he was now adamant that ‘H.M.G. should not undertake the additional responsibility of organising a scheme of recruitment from the West Indies, the success of which would be very doubtful

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in present circumstances, and failure in which would cause acute disappointment.’36 Although most of the fare-paying West Indians who arrived on the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948 managed to fnd work and (as the ACWCUK noted with relief) ‘setled down reasonably well’, 37 the inter-departmental Working Party on the Employment in the United Kingdom of Surplus Colonial Labour, established in the autumn, echoed Keith’s concerns. Where regulation and control ensured the efcient deployment of alien (and hence readily deportable) European Volunteer Workers on essential work, colonial workers were deemed ill-suited to labour market needs and life in industrial areas: it was feared they would drif into the ‘aggregations of Colonials’ in seaports like Liverpool, living (as British subjects) of generous NAB benefts, and compounding ‘the special social problems which result from their presence’: Colonial workers who found life lonely and unatractive in certain of the industrial areas (where there would be insufcient vacancies to enable groups of coloured workers to be employed together) would drif to the seaport towns where a coloured community exists, and would there aggravate existing over-crowding beside increasing the burden on Public Funds as a result of their inability to fnd employment in such areas … We have no doubt that the most undesirable thing which can happen is that large numbers of new coloured workers should be forced or encouraged to go into these areas. 38

Underlying these concerns was the steady, seemingly unstoppable, fow of stowaways into Liverpool. Stowaways arrived in Liverpool at the rate of at least ten a week: an article in the Echo in April 1948 reported that 514 had been detained in the previous year with at least as many having landed undetected. ‘Jet black, thick lipped men from the African bush, and brown skinned, slim youngsters from Jamaica’, these ‘Coloured Stowaways’ all had ‘two things in common – a British passport and a determination to reach this country, for one reason or another’: Most of them are youngsters between the ages of 16–24. Tere are university graduates, farmers, ofce boys, stenographers, labourers, skilled mechanics, and just to be up-to-date, spivs. Some come because they think it is easy to get work here, and times are hard in Africa and Jamaica. Others come because they think there is easy money to be picked up here … they can all stay provided they are British subjects.

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Most of the article catalogued the concomitant problems of welfare dependency, squalor and immorality: Some drif down to that maze of streets which runs down to the docks where Indians, Chinese, Malays, Africans all live in rambling boarding houses and one room tenements drawing 34s. a week from the Public Assistance. A few who fall sick or home-sick, return home disillusioned. Some fnd their way to the Colonial Ofce Welfare Departments, where eforts are made to fnd them work. Tis is not easy. Many of them are unskilled and Merseyside has an unemployed army of its own of 25,000, mostly unskilled workers, and some employers are still loath to employ coloured men. But the biggest problem is provided by the odd one or two who live of the immoral earnings of young white girls … It is these spiv-stowaways who have earned a bad name for the others – young men who have come here with the genuine desire to work, believing they have a beter chance here in democratic England than they have at home.

Tucked away at the end of the article were a couple of brief case studies of the sort of coloured men who are making good – not afraid to work or to study. Tey don’t make the headlines. Quietly and efciently they are geting on with their job, taking their place in the life of the community in the country which gave them a chance. 39

Confronted by the growing numbers of stowaways, Dame Mary Smieton at the Ministry of Labour advocated an inter-departmental initiative to provide segregated hostels in industrial areas where labour was needed, to encourage the new arrivals to move away from the seaports and acculturate themselves to urban-industrial life: Te enquiries which we have made and the discussions we have had show quite clearly that there is a colour prejudice, and that it is most ferce, naturally enough, in places where there is already unemployment amongst white people, and Liverpool is, or course, the danger spot, both because the biggest problem is there, and because there is heavy unemployment.

She failed to secure support, however, even within her own department, where J.G.  Stewart, in a revealing combination of arguments, frst dismissed the salience of colour but then warned against a proposal which

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might encourage further ‘coloured’ immigration. ‘Te special problems of unemployment and unsatisfactory living conditions in Liverpool’, he opined, ‘is, afer all, hardly a colour problem as such’: … it is equally possible to fnd considerable numbers of white people whose employment record is deplorable, and whose living conditions are equally bad. No doubt the social problems in those areas deserve atention, but I doubt whether the coloured men have any stronger claim for special atention than the white men who live in similar conditions … the more one devotes special atention to the problem, the more one is in danger of intensifying colour prejudice, and aggravating the problem which one is trying to cure. Unlike many social evils, colour prejudice is one which is ofen best met by ignoring it.

Te provision of special hostels, he feared, would encourage a further fow of coloured workers from the colonies, the very thing which would run the danger of increasing colour prejudice generally in the country. All the Departments interested are agreed that, so far as possible, we should discourage further immigration of coloured colonial workers.40

As atitudes began to harden, Keith’s department drew up a list of proposals designed both to discourage further arrivals while seeking to tackle, not ignore, colour discrimination at home. To pre-empt any atempt at legal restriction on entry, a number of tightening-up proposals were recommended concerning repatriation procedures and the treatment of stowaways. Te ‘provision of funds to permit the early return of destitute Colonials to their respective Colonies’ would relieve the British taxpayer of ‘the burden of maintaining Colonial drones’.41 What was required was reciprocity: the stricter rules governing repatriation into the United Kingdom (by which passports were surrendered until the cost of repatriation had been refunded) needed to be applied to repatriation fom the country. ‘It is not considered that many of the men concerned would be in a position to refund the cost,’ Tomas noted, ‘but at least they would be unable to get out on further journeys’, thereby closing the loop-hole by which some of those repatriated at public expense had returned to the United Kingdom as fare-paying passengers or stowaways. ‘Tere is no new theory involved,’ he assured Owen, ‘nor can it be recognised as a measure aimed at coloured people’.42 Applying a similar reciprocal logic, the Liverpool Police were among the frst to suggest the introduction of

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the same entry requirements (including deposits of £50 for those unable to ‘shew that they are proceeding to some fxed employment’) as applied to persons from Britain seeking to enter the Colonies and Protectorates: ‘such a course, if applied here, would eliminate the immigration into this Country of the “wastrel” element among the coloured people.’43 As regards stowaways, Keith, and all concerned, considered it time to revert to previous regulations by which refusal to land was the norm, a policy relaxed in 1942 amidst labour shortage in the wartime merchant shipping industry.44 With numbers of new arrivals growing, Keith reiterated that ‘it should not be assumed that the Colonial Ofce is the proper authority to look afer their reception, accommodation, employment and general welfare.’ ‘Te Colonial Ofce has no executive powers whatever in the United Kingdom,’ he reminded the Standing Inter-Departmental Commitee to consider the problems of coloured people: Te task of looking afer the permanent population of the United Kingdom, irrespective of the race or country of origin of individuals, is a mater for the particular Departments which are specially charged with, and equipped to deal with, the various branches of public administration in this country. Te Colonial Ofce should certainly look afer the interests of Colonial people, but it can do so beter by advising other Departments which have the responsibility and the executive powers, than by atempting to break into their respective felds and to set up overlapping or rival organisations.45

Having ofered to advise the Ministry of Labour on the provision of hostels in industrial areas, he looked for their support in relieving his department of its unofcial (but much used) function (particularly in Liverpool where the labour market was less buoyant than elsewhere) as ‘an employment bureau’: Te suggestion for a separate Labour Exchange for Colonial workers has been put forward from time to time. Te Colonial Ofce would see no objection to this provided it was clearly understood that this did not mean that all Colonial workers would have to report to such an Exchange and no other. Tat would undoubtedly be interpreted as discrimination. If there were such an Exchange, it is suggested that it should operate as an ‘extra’.46

Te Ministry of Labour, however, having taken advice from the Chief Constable, decided against any special provision in Liverpool on

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account of the ‘considerable feeling between the coloured and the white population there about anything that savoured of discrimination against one or the other’: Tus if special steps were taken to provide employment for the coloured people a fairly large number of white unemployed would feel strongly. On the other hand, if nothing were done at all, the coloured population would feel that they were being victimised at the cost of other British subjects … anything done by Government agencies would have to be done discreetly.47

For these reasons, the Ministry also declined to appoint ‘coloured colonials’ to their staf to assist in placing ‘coloured colonials’ in employment. ‘It would tend to encourage the segregation of coloured workers from white, which we are anxious to avoid,’ Hardman explained to Keith: In addition, in areas such as Merseyside where there is comparatively heavy unemployment and racial feeling is very easily infamed it is important that there should be no obvious grounds for criticism that the coloured worker is being given preference over his white skinned compatriot.48

*** Racial tension erupted in Liverpool in three nights of disturbances over the August bank holiday weekend in 1948. As unemployment took hold in the post-war years, there had already been demonstrations against the alleged preferential treatment accorded to ‘alien’ workers from Eastern Europe in the labour and housing markets.49 ‘How do the people of Liverpool feel when they see these Poles with their new uniforms, very well be-medalled, struting about our streets,’ L.  McGree demanded at the TUC in 1946, ‘when our boys from Burma, heroes from Arnhem, pilots from the Batle of Britain, have to take their wives and families and go squating?’50 Ten, in 1947, extensive anti-Jewish riots, provoked by reports of the hanging of two British troops in Palestine, quickly spread from dockland to Smithdown Road, Brownlow Hill, Paddington, Wavertree Road and across the city, soon descending (in time-honoured Liverpool fashion), ‘into general hooliganism, not particularly directed against Jews or Jewish property’. 51 No less violent, the ‘race riots’ of 1948 were contained within ‘that part of the city where there is a large coloured

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population – an area embracing St James Place, Upper Parliament Street, Wesley Street, Park Place and Upper Stanhope Street’. 52 Ethnic cafés (other than those run by Somalis and Arabs) were the frst trouble spots, followed by subsequent incidents in and around Colsea House (most of whose windows were smashed) and outside a ‘Colonial club’ on Upper Parliament Street, with a range of weapons being deployed, including knifes, iron bars, knuckledusters and ‘coshes’. In an extensive analysis of the events, Anthony Richmond noted how the police took action which they thought would bring the disturbances to a close as quickly as possible – which, in their view, meant removing the coloured minority, rather than atempting to arrest the body of irresponsible whites who were involved.

Another factor accounted for the disproportionate number of blacks arrested, some 50 or so compared to around ten whites: ‘on most occasions the white men involved took to their heels at the sight of the police, but the Colonials tended to remain to fght it out with the police themselves.’ Richmond was given a detailed frst-hand account of the court appearance of one group of defendants, mainly West Indians, including former technicians (turned band leaders and musicians) and demobbed RF personnel in dapper zoot suits, along with a West African student and a few ‘undersized, long-haired’ white youths who ‘appeared to be sub-normal’. 53 Both the LCP and the Manchesterbased Pan African League contributed to funds for the legal defence, a campaign co-ordinated by the local Colonial Defence Commitee, the short-lived forerunner of the CPDA. 54 In an efort to mend community relations, E.  Nichols, the First Assistant Chief Constable, atended a meeting called by ‘coloured people’ at Stanley House. ‘Tere isn’t any colour question in Liverpool at this moment,’ he averred, as he sought to isolate the trouble-making minority: Tere are those among you who will atach themselves to anything which will justify themselves in lawlessness. Tey exist in any community, white, black or yellow … You have to move from your congregation those people who are not adding lustre or credit to it, whether they are coloured or white, wherever they come from … You have a status in this city, and you will rise or fall according to the standards you set.

Te law-abiding, he insisted, would be accorded proper protection, ‘even if I have to take every policeman in the city and put him in this

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area’. Te message was given a black infection by community leaders, including S. Bennet, a welfare ofcer at a Speke factory who chaired the proceedings: Te principal reason why we have called this meeting is to urge you to keep calm … If we go about with knives, guns, botles, throwing stones, shouting about the street, we are only asking for trouble … I want you to be proud of your colour. I wouldn’t be any other colour if I could be born again. But this fghting must cease. We must explain our case to the British people. 55

When the Colonial Ofce circulated other departments with a frst draf of a memorandum for consideration by the Labour Cabinet in 1950 on steps to discourage further inward migration, it chose to exclude any reference to the riots at Liverpool. Te memorandum, they explained to the quizzical Home Ofce, was not intended to give the impression that ‘everything is all right and that there is no law and order problem’, but, since they would be concentrating ‘on the administrative steps to prevent the infux of further people, we need not stress the law and order aspect’. In order not to fan fames, the paper sought to establish a sense of perspective. Special one-of factors accounted for the recent spate of arrivals: troopships which carried demobilised ‘coloured’ RF personnel back to the West Indies had perforce ofered discount deals to gain as many fare-paying passengers as possible for the return voyage. Much stress was accorded to the tightening of regulations on stowaways, since this was the type of measure currently required: ‘it should be made clear’, the paper concluded, ‘that the problem was not one which called for desperate remedies’. 56 Even so, as the Cabinet minutes recorded, ministers raised the question ‘whether the time had come to restrict the existing right of any British subject to enter the United Kingdom?’57 Grifths’ memorandum also considered the position of the resident ‘coloured’ population. While noting that it would be ‘a wrong policy to treat the colonial residents as a class apart from the community in general, though it must be recognised that they do need special guidance’, the recommendations fell short of Keith’s approach. Tere was no further suggestion of government intervention to tackle ‘colour prejudice’: ‘there was no reason to believe that either legislation or administrative action could proftably be undertaken for this purpose.’ Te remit of the Welfare Department was cut back in line with wider Colonial Ofce priorities: ‘the limited resources available for welfare work among coloured people

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in this country should be concentrated on the welfare of students, since there was a much greater dividend to be reaped from this’. As for the ‘coloured’ majority, concentrated in internal seaport ‘colonies’, dispersal was still the best option: ‘in spite of certain administrative advantages which resulted from coloured people being grouped together in “colonies”, it was probably preferable, on general grounds and from the employment point of view, that they should be dispersed.’58 Following the riots, various agencies sought to discover more about the Liverpool ‘colony’. Earlier feldwork conducted by the Social Science Department at the University, using ‘friendship and rejection tests’, suggested that amongst children discrimination and diferentiation occurred between those of diferent clothing standards rather than between ‘white and coloured’. 59 Amongst adults, as subsequent investigations revealed, the ‘colour bar’ prevailed. Most of Robert Kee’s investigative journalism for Picture Post in July 1949 into the question ‘Is there a British Colour Bar?’ took place in the ‘shabby residential South End of Liverpool’, home to a ‘coloured colonial’ population of some 8,000. Te accompanying photographs (see images 6, 7 and 8) by Bert Hardy (with their emotive captions) sought to capture the ‘invisible’ bar that operated to telling efect in rented accommodation, employment and leisure. ‘Te Stowaway Sees His Dreams Begin to Crumble’ depicted the sorry fgure of a recent arrival from West Africa: He stowed away from Lagos to realise his dream of working in the “Mother Country”. Te police gave him Service clothing, the Colonial Ofce gave him temporary lodging, the Assistance Board gave him £2 a week. But no one in Liverpool can give him a job. Te danger is that he may drif.

‘Social Segregation Tat Can Lead to Trouble’ drew atention to Berkley Street, where ‘coloured people’ clustered for ‘defensive security’ only ‘to brood on grievances, real or imaginary, and grow biter’. Another image (not reproduced here), ‘Unestablished Seamen Sit Hoping for a Ship in a Seamen’s Pool Canteen’, underlined the deleterious change in the post-war labour market: ‘Tey view life simply. In the war, when voyages were dangerous and Britain needed men, they could always get a ship. Now they need a job, but Britain has no ships for them.’ In his text Kee noted a double sensitivity to colour discrimination amongst those who had thought of Britain as ‘home’, drawing atention (not for

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the frst time) to the particular psychological impact on arrivals from the West Indies: Not only do they sufer the natural humiliation of being resented for a purely personal characteristic: a deep emotional illusion is being shatered for them as well. Tis is particularly true of the West Indians, who no longer have the tribal associations and native language which can still provide some fundamental security for the disillusioned African. Te West Indian disillusioned with Britain is deprived of all sense of security. He becomes, quite understandably, the most sensitive and neurotic member of the coloured community, and may be inclined to drif into bad ways.60

Reports from the Ministry of Labour confrmed the bleak picture. ‘Te outlook for coloured men in Liverpool is very poor indeed,’ the North-West Regional Ofce reported in July 1949, ‘and this seems to have been appreciated by the recent immigrants from the West Indies, who, with very few exceptions, made a bee-line for other parts of the country’. While new arrivals moved on in search of work, established residents remained.61 To the dismay of the Ministry of Labour, even those with litle or no chance of gainful employment chose not to consider voluntary repatriation. B.  McGuirk, manager of the Leece Street Employment Exchange, estimated that 200 registered for shore employment and 100 for sea employment were ‘extremely unlikely’ to obtain regular work, but ‘we cannot say for this reason their presence in this country is undesirable.’ Only a mere handful could be duly categorised for compulsory repatriation.62 In June 1950, the Colonial Overleaf Figure 6, Figure 7, Figure 8: In July 1949 Picture Post sent Bert Hardy to Liverpool to provide images for an investigative article, ‘Is there a British Colour Bar?’ Hardy’s photographs sought to capture the ‘invisible’ bar that operated to telling efect in rented accommodation, employment and leisure. ‘Te Stowaway Sees His Dreams Begin to Crumble’ showed the plight of a recent arrival from Lagos and his disappearing dream of working in the ‘Mother Country’: ‘Te police gave him Service clothing, the Colonial Ofce gave him temporary lodging, the Assistance Board gave him £2 a week. But no one in Liverpool can give him a job.’ ‘Social Segregation Tat Can Lead to Trouble’ depicted life in Berkley Street, where ‘coloured people’, denied accommodation elsewhere, clustered for ‘defensive security’ to ‘brood on grievances, real or imaginary, and grow biter’. Not included in the article, ‘Shore Leave’ was an altogether happier image, a reminder of the style Afro-Caribbean seamen brought to café life in Liverpool during their time ashore.

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Ofce interviewed 210 colonial seamen: 98 from Sierra Leone, 60 from Nigeria, 18 from Gold Coast, three from Gambia, 11 from Trinidad, ten from Jamaica, seven from Barbados and three from British Guiana. Predominantly African, they were also long established in Liverpool (102 having married local women): 56 had arrived between 1909 and 1919, 36 between 1919 and 1929, 46 between 1929 and 1939, 58 during the war years 1939–45, and only 14 since the end of the war. Repatriation did not appeal as most had been ‘away from Africa for years and have ceased to keep in touch with their relatives and friends’. Tey remained seamen to the core, although some were unlikely to go to sea again on account of their age and health. Shore employment was disparaged, ‘but if they are handled carefully they may be persuaded into accepting work ashore. Numbers of them however would, without hesitation, leave shore employment immediately if they thought there was any chance of work at sea’.63 For those genuinely seeking work ashore, there was the obstacle of the colour bar, prevalent in all industries, McGuirk reported, other than ship-building and ship-repairing. Constantine had hoped that sport would remove the barrier: ‘Coloured colonials who played cricket regularly in Liverpool and district made useful social contacts which ofen resulted in them being ofered employment by Firms who were formerly averse to employing coloured labour,’ he reported to the ACWCUK: ‘through sports, doors otherwise closed would be opened to colonials.’64 McGuirk’s reports, a gloomy picture of continuing poor prospects on Merseyside, pointed to an increased incidence of discrimination on the shop foor. ‘Local employers are not over keen to engage coloured people, largely because of the atitude of existing workers,’ he reported in May 1951: ‘we have had numerous complaints that coloured people have been discharged for trivial reasons when the actual reason, if it had been made known, was the reaction of the workers to the presence of coloured labour.’65 While still refusing to consider special measures for ‘coloured’ workers seeking employment, the Ministry of Labour requested that McGuirk collect separate statistics on a strictly secret and confdential basis. ‘From some points of view we are a litle afraid of these fgures,’ the North West Regional Ofce reported: Liverpool, in particular is subjected from time to time to considerable pressure for information – the redoubtable Mrs Braddock has called on the Manager several times – and it has always been our practice to take refuge in the stock Hansard reply that as no distinction is made between

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coloured and white applicants at our Exchange, separate statistics are not maintained. If it became known that statistics could be extracted, our Liverpool Manager would be considerably more embarrassed than he is at the moment.66

Other investigations deployed various means to get at fgures otherwise concealed by the ‘defnite ofcial policy of “non-diferentiation” between whites and blacks doubtless with the option of avoiding the “colour-bar” question’. Noting that this policy was ‘implemented with implicit obedience by all Government departments’, a Special Branch ofcer in the CID relied on various informants (including ‘a most reliable and knowledgeable person who is in a particularly suitable position to advise on these maters’), to draw up a lengthy confdential report on the ‘Coloured Population in Liverpool’ in April 1950.67 Te report calculated that there were 6,000 West Africans in Liverpool, the great majority of whom had arrived as seamen from Nigeria and Sierra Leone, and to a lesser degree from Gambia and the Gold Coast, and that some 500 of this number were currently in receipt of National Assistance. Having ‘become entangled with white women of the lowest type’, they sought shore employment as fremen in factories or as general labourers. Most of the 1,500 West Indians, of whom 250 were on National Assistance, had arrived from Jamaica and Trinidad under the wartime technicians scheme and had chosen to remain. Afer the recent ‘systematic “clearing out”’, only 300 Chinese were lef in Liverpool, mainly those resident prior to 1939 along with some 170 or so who had arrived since then, married British women and been allowed to remain on Secretary of State conditions. Tere were 400 Indians and ‘Pakistanians’, most of whom, having signed on Asiatic articles, had deserted in Liverpool and other ports in the United Kingdom: ‘the proportion of Indians to Pakistanians sailing as Lascars is given as approximately 1 to 9.’ Tere were already indications that they – like new arrivals from the West Indies – were moving away from Liverpool and its poor employment prospects, ‘gravitating’ to Birmingham and the Midlands. Ten there were 1,000 ‘others’ listed as ‘coloured’ (of whom 250, including 200 Arabs, were on National Assistance): 100 Maltese; 100 Cypriots; 200 South Africans; 200 Somalis and 400 Arabs. A lengthy section of the report sought to establish whether there was any veracity in of-repeated claims that ‘coloured’ applicants were ‘paid more National Assistance than white persons’. Prior to the introduction of the National Assistance Board in 1948, fgures were readily available

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as the Public Assistance Commitee used to recover any amounts paid out in relief grants to ‘coloured’ men from the Colonial Ofce. Afer the National Assistance Act, however, no such distinction was made: the National Assistance Board are most particular that there should be no suggestion that the fact that a person is coloured is taken into account in any way, or even noted in their records, in estimating the amount of assistance to be paid to him.

Trough his confdential contacts, the Special Branch ofcer was informed that ‘in practice, coloured men ofen get considerably higher rent allowances than white persons’: It is said to be not unusual that where a white man may make a claim for 7/- or 8/- per week rent allowance to pay for a room, coloured men living in the same locality will almost invariably apply for 25/- or even more per week, and produce rent books purporting to shew that such amounts are being paid by them as rent. Tey all tell the ofcers handling their cases the same story. Being coloured, they say, they are charged very high rents, and cannot obtain cheaper accommodation.

Tere was even some suggestion that this ‘rent allowance loop-hole’ was something of a scam with (otherwise unlikely) collaboration between white landlords and black tenants: It is the private opinion of one of the leading National Assistance Board ofcials in this Region, that coloured men make arrangements with their landlords for the later to mark the rent books, purporting to shew that a much higher fgure than actually paid, has been received as rent. It is thought that the “surplus” amount received from the National Assistance Board in consequence of this manoeuvre, is then divided between the tenant and the landlord. So far, however, there has been no concrete evidence that this sort of thing is going on.

Te most critical section of the report, however, was not concerned with possible welfare scams but with events at Stanley House, which, the ofcer asserted, provided damning evidence of the ‘lack of a sense of social responsibility on the part of the coloured people here’. Finally opened on 7 September 1946 by Miss Atlee, the Prime Minister’s sister, Stanley House soon acquired a dubious reputation – and substantial debts.68 ‘Tere was frequent trouble at “Stanley House”, ofen of a type that necessitated police atention,’ the Special Branch ofcer noted: ‘Te place had to be closed down, but before this step had to be taken, those

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running the place had accumulated an overdraf of some £2,000 or more.’69 Anthony Richmond’s analysis of the ‘chequered history’ of Stanley House – ‘notorious as a place of vice; prostitution; drug peddling and violence’ – drew atention to generational, ethnic and socio-economic divisions within the ‘coloured community’. Te most persistent ‘unruly behaviour’ was caused by ‘a small group of very maladjusted Liverpool-born coloured youths, who strongly resented the Colonials and the American Negroes, who tended to come in large numbers’. Unable to shake of its reputation, Stanley House was soon shunned by those who might otherwise have served as leaders and role models: … the ‘beter class’ West Indians tended to regard the coloured community centre as a place primarily for the less well educated and adjusted coloured people. Te community centre (and the south end generally) was regarded as a symbol of non-assimilation, segregation, and inferiority and was spurned by the ambitious Colonial endeavouring to gain acceptance in beter class areas of the city.70

In reports to Keith at the Colonial Ofce, Charles Owen was scathing of the ‘general weakness and inexperience’ of the Council in charge of the project in its early years. Te ‘frst period’ of the history of Stanley House ‘was marked by mismanagement and inefciency’, whether judged on fnances (with a defcit each year since 1945, leading to the closure of the day nursery in 1948), management (characterised by laxity in observing the requirements of the Articles of Association), membership (where numbers had doubled from 300 at the opening, but most of the 600 were in arrears at the time of closure in 1949), or activities (predominantly dancing ‘which, of course, provides the Council with its own special problems to solve’).71 Following the closure in August 1949, Owen was appointed chair of a commitee (which included the Bishop of Warrington) ‘with the object of trying to “sort things out”, and to commence with, it was thought most unlikely that the place would ever be opened again in its former capacity’. Indeed, conversations soon ensued with the Liverpool Seamen’s Welfare Centre ‘with the object of the later organisation taking over “Stanley House” entirely, and converting it to a residential hostel for Indian Seamen’. When the ‘coloured section’ of Owen’s Commitee objected, they secured a three-month respite to see what they could do to re-establish the Centre without any involvement from the white members. Stanley House re-opened in December 1949 with a ‘new commitee consisting entirely

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of coloured people’. ‘I am informed confdentially that Mr Charles Owen has expressed the opinion that this “trial” would not be a success,’ the Special Branch ofcer reported: ‘it appears that the coloured commitee’s only idea of geting money with which to run the Centre, is by organizing and running dances.’ 72 Te appointment of John Fraser, a ‘middle-class’ West Indian with social science training, as warden in March 1950 led to a broadening of cultural activities and beter discipline at the dances (which at one point had to be discontinued for a month on account of disturbances). Shortly thereafer, there were moves towards greater stability with the appointment of the experienced local politician Alderman J.J.  Cleary, Deputy Lord Mayor, as chairman of Stanley House Council, and new arrangements with the City Corporation for a portion of the premises to be rented and used as a nursery school together with a general grant of £200. Even so, Stanley House was unable to shake of its reputation as – at best – a ‘jive centre’.73 Appointed in February 1951, a Commitee of Enquiry (whose members included Anthony Richmond) decided not to survey the past except to record that it is their considered opinion that, owing to the present reputation the House has earned, a radical change is necessary … so long as a complete break with the past is made, the House can be made to fulfl a constructive purpose in the neighbourhood.

Te premises were to be closed again to allow major structural change (aided by a grant from the Carnegie Trustees), prior to a re-launch with a broader General Council (a Moslem religious leader was to be invited on to the body) and (it was hoped) a much larger (and representative) membership: Te guiding principle which has governed all our discussions has been that instead of accepting as immutable the fact that racial barriers exist, Stanley House should take a positive step in assimilation by creating a Centre in which all peoples, irrespective of colour, class or creed, may fnd friendship and hospitality; and that by implication the logical step will be to widen the membership with that principle in mind.74

At this point, Keith decided that Owen should withdraw while keeping an eye on events from a distance: In my opinion it would be far beter if he played a less active part in the afairs of Stanley House as there is always the danger that if the Colonial

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Ofce is represented on the Commitee of Management, we might be associated with policy questions that run counter to the policy of the Department.

‘We have done all we can to help this organisation to get on to its feet and it seems unnecessary for us to continue to take part in the management,’ Keith wrote to Owen in November 1951 (by which time Fraser had resigned as warden and been replaced by a white Englishman): ‘our continued representation might lead to misunderstandings.’ 75 As it was, activist groups among the black population kept their distance from Stanley House: unwilling to function under the eyes of white people, as D.R. Manley’s research was to demonstrate, ‘most of these small groups, including a large portion of the “natural leaders” among the Negroes, functioned outside its orbit.’ 76 A few weeks later, Keith reluctantly concluded that it was time to remove funding for Owen’s post at Liverpool. A necessary fnancial retrenchment, closure of the Liverpool Ofce, in line with the recent re-designation of the Welfare Department as the Students Department, was justifed by Keith’s mantra: ‘the Colonial Ofce must not atempt to duplicate the functions of the normal social services in this country in regard to colonial people other than students who are domiciled here.’ Liverpool, he conceded, remained a ‘special case’, but the timing was now propitious and appropriate to remove the (expensive and) exceptional provision: … the closing of the Ofce will be keenly felt by the Colonial community on Merseyside who even if they do not have recourse to it very frequently like to feel that they can do so if necessity arises. It would, for example, have been quite impossible to close this Ofce about eighteen months ago when there was considerable unemployment among Colonial seamen. Tis unemployment has declined to a very large extent and the agitation which was fostered by the unemployed seamen and their friends in Liverpool has died down.77

While Owen himself was philosophical about the turn of events, a strong local campaign was mounted to keep him in post, co-ordinated by Graham White MP, chair of the ‘now dormant Welfare Advisory Commitee’ and Bessie Braddock, whose constituency covered areas in which ‘many Colonials reside’. Recent animosities were laid aside as the CPDA and the Merseyside West Indian Society contacted White to register their protest, underlining

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the value of the Liverpool Ofce not only for its service to colonials ‘coming in and going out of the United Kingdom through the port’, but also for its eforts ‘to establish cordial relationship between coloured and the rest of the community’. ‘Leters which I have received from Colonial people themselves indicate that they deplore and resent the closing of the Ofce,’ White wrote to Lord Munster in ominous tones: it is essential, in a population of some 8,000 Colonials with an unfortunate history, that there should be someone in Liverpool occupying the position such as Mr Owen holds, who can deal with troubles as they arise and prevent small difculties from becoming big.78

Bessie Braddock ‘admited that the right solution in the long run was for the coloured people to make use of the Social Services which were provided for the general body of people in this country’, but made clear to Lord Munster that the difculty was that at present many of the coloured colonial people were unwilling to do this. Tey wanted one particular person to whom they could turn who was able to help them by puting them in touch with the various diferent Departments concerned (for example, National Assistance Board, Ministry of Labour, Passport Ofce, etc.).79

Colonial Ofce ofcials acknowledged the strength of such arguments, but insisted a fully stafed Liverpool Ofce could no longer be justifed. Fortunately, the City Council stepped forward, ofering to cover Owen’s salary on the understanding that others would supply the ofce space and fund the running costs. Keith was delighted: We have always felt that the welfare, accommodation and employment of the permanent coloured community in Liverpool were much more the direct concern of the local authorities than of the Colonial Ofce, and this sign of special interest of the Corporation in these problems is much to be welcomed.80

However, Keith’s hopes that the British Council would provide Owen with the necessary ofce space at the British Council House were promptly dashed. Although some had hoped for a post-war re-launch of the Allied Centre as a United Nations Centre, the British Council continued to set the agenda, while making the building available ‘for all other bodies whose aims are to promote goodwill between Great Britain and

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the rest of the world, whether by hospitality, cultural or educational bonds’. 81 ‘Coloured’ colonials, including the West Indian technicians who remained in the city, were still welcome – a particular highlight was a gif presentation to Learie Constantine on the termination of his role as Welfare Ofcer for the technicians in order to resume his legal studies. 82 Tere was a programme of monthly socials consisting ‘partly of songs, partly of dances, where the guests to meet the Colonials will be drawn from voluntary helpers, University students and members of the British Association interested in the welfare of coloured peoples’. 83 Jamaican members of the RF stationed nearby occasionally popped into the British Council House before visiting their technician compatriots in the city and heading of to football matches and dances. ‘Tese men seem happy to mix with the people in the Centre,’ Pearson reported, ‘but do not appear to have any desire to join in activities organised specially for them’. 84 Increasingly, however, the British Council House turned its atention to the needs of colonial students, ‘the aristocrats of the coloured community’, as Robert Kee described them. 85 With the war over and decolonisation ever closer, students acquired a new prominence, prompting intensifed rivalry between the Colonial Ofce and the British Council. Pearson submited lengthy reports to the ACWCUK, demonstrating what was on ofer in Liverpool: Te Centre is open seven days a week until 10 p.m. and ofers all students many facilities of a social, cultural and educational kind. In all these Colonial students are treated on a basis of absolute equality with all the other overseas and British people using the Centre. 86

In stressing its cosmopolitan credentials, the British Council trusted to out-trump the Colonial Ofce. ‘What was really at issue’, a confdential memorandum to the Deputy Controller of the Home Division advised, ‘was that Mr Keith thought that Colonial students should receive special segregated atention, whereas the British Council policy is to treat Colonial students like other overseas students, and mix them in’.87 Te argument prevailed: from the beginning of 1950, welfare responsibility for all visiting students, including Colonial students, passed to the British Council.88 In other major university cities, the Council took charge of student hostels formerly run by the Colonial Ofce, but in Liverpool Pearson

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had to look for private accommodation. ‘Colour Prejudice is Acute in Liverpool’ the press reported as eight hotels refused to take coloured students, on the grounds of their being mainly frequented by ‘commercial travellers who would not tolerate coloured people’.89 In a speech revealing his own prejudices, Pearson atributed this colour bar to those who stigmatised ‘Colonial coloured people’, even the student elite, by association with ‘the worst elements of the coloured residents in this country’. Within the confnes of the British Council House, the student – ‘the best example of his own people, having been awarded a scholarship by his government’ – was to be protected from contact with the ‘problem’ colonial. Hence the prompt rejection of the request for ofce space for Owen. ‘Liverpool do[es] not feel that it is desirable for the categories of people with whom Mr Owen would be dealing to come to the Centre,’ Parkinson, Controller of the Home Division, replied to Keith: We have found that it really is important to keep the work for Colonial students separate from the problems of other Colonial categories … From local knowledge it appears that many of the people with whom Mr Owen would be dealing, and particularly the difcult cases, would not be desirable users of the Centre, and once they had been there they might feel they had a right to go at other times, and all sorts of problems would arise.90

Ofce space was subsequently made available in the University Setlement as part of a new package arrangement by which the Colonial Ofce agreed to contribute £300 per annum with the City Council passing its annual grant of £1,000 to the Liverpool Personal Service Society to employ Owen and defray his expenses. While addressed to the specifc needs of Liverpool, this new confguration foreshadowed what Paul Rich describes as a national policy of ‘benign neglect and a shifing of responsibility for the immigrants’ reception and eventual assimilation onto the voluntary sector and local authorities’.91 With the favourable conjuncture of the re-opening of the re-structured Stanley House, the pioneering third sector coming to the fore in the local Colonial Welfare Commitee, and a welcome upturn in the labour market, race relations in Liverpool looked set to enter a new chapter in the 1950s.

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Notes 1 Paul Rich, Race and Empire in British Politics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986, pp. 5–9. 2 Daily Post 13 Sept. 1945. 3 Chris Waters, ‘“Dark Strangers in Our Midst: Discourses of Race and Nation in Britain, 1947–1963’, Journal of British Studies, 36, 1997, pp. 207–38. 4 Randall Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration in Post-War Britain, Oxford: Oxford University Press , 2000, ch. 2; Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press , 1997, chs 1–3; and John St Clair Drake, ‘Te “Colour Problem” in Britain: A study in social defnitions’, Sociological Review, new series, iii, 2, 1955, pp. 197–217. 5 BW 1/61: Colonial Ofce Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Colonial People, 1947–49, ACWCUK, 12 Sept. 1948. 6 Tis account draws upon material in Liverpool Record Ofce Acc. 4910: Material relating to Pastor G.  Daniels Ekarte; and Marika Sherwood, Pastor Daniels Ekarte and the Afican Churches Mission, London: Savannah Press, 1994, ch. 5, ‘Te Mission becomes a children’s home 1944–49’. 7 Acc 4910: ‘Te 1945 Leter for Constructive and Building Programme of the Booker-T-Washington Children’s Home’. 8 Acc 4910: G.M. Wansbrough Jones, memo, 14 July 1945. 9 Acc 4910: Harold Moody, LCP, to H.M. Minister of Health, 15 May 1945. 10 Acc 4910: Report of R.  Whiteway, Woman Inspector, N.W, Region 10, Ministry of Health, 7 May 1946. 11 Sherwood, Pastor Ekarte, pp. 54–73. DuPlan was ‘lef holding the baby’ afer his associate in running botle parties and night clubs in Liverpool and Manchester for ‘coloured’ GIs and white women, Jimmy Taylor, returned to Africa afer several brushes with the police. Padmore was annoyed that DuPlan falsely claimed to be representing the Pan-African Federation while seeking funds in the US, see Acc 4910: Padmore to Walter White, 29 April 1947. 12 Acc 4910: Whiteway, 7 May 1946. 13 Acc 4910: WASU Magazine, vol. 12, no. 1, March 1945, pp. 12–14. 14 MT 9/3692: Seamen-Foreign (Code 141): Request for recognition of the National Chinese Seamen’s Union Liverpool. 15 HO 213/808: Chinese seamen: miscellaneous 1945–6. 16 HO 213/926: Compulsory repatriation of undesirable Chinese seamen. 17 HO 213/926, Garstang, 11 July 1946. 18 See the cuting from the News Chronicle 19 Aug. 1946 and ensuing correspondence in HO 213/926.

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19 LAB26/226: Colonial Ofce working party on the recruitment of West Indians for United Kingdom Industries 1948–49. 20 CO 1028/22: Working Party on Coloured People seeking Employment in the UK, 1952–3, Coloured Seamen and Stowaways, Note by Ministry of Transport. 21 CO 876/223: Repatriation of destitute and incapacitated colonial people including seamen, 1950, note from the Ministry of Transport, Dec. 1949. 22 Te Report of the AGM of the CPDA on 23 Jan. 1953 provides a useful history of the formation of the Association, see Liverpool Record Ofce: 329COM/14: Colonial People’s Defence Association, 1950–53. 23 CO 876/223, Tomas to Bannard, Feb. 1950. See also CO 876/167: Welfare of colonial seamen in UK: Repatriation of destitute seamen, accounts, 1950. 24 CO 876/236: Colonial seamen’s hostels, 1950. 25 BW 2/298, 24 June and 4 July 1946. 26 CO537/1224: Colour discrimination in the United Kingdom: Proposed legislation 1946. 27 HO45/25245: Commonwealth immigrants: Discrimination against coloured persons: Representations and reports of incidents. 28 HO 45/24748: Liquor licensing: Alleged colour bar in hotels and restaurants, 1930–48. 29 HO 45/25245, Inter-departmental report, 12 Oct. 1948. 30 CO 537/4273: Colour discrimination in the United Kingdom. Proposed legislation, 1949. 31 HO 45/25245, Briefng note for Secretary of State. 32 Stuart Hall, ‘Racism and Reaction’ in Five Views of Multi-Racial Britain, Commission for Racial Equality, 1978, pp. 23–35. See also, Shirley Joshi, and Bob Carter, ‘Te role of Labour in the creation of a racist Britain’, Race and Class, 25, 1984, pp. 53–70. 33 CO 537/5130: Relationship between anti-communist publicity and treatment of coloured people in the United Kingdom, 1949. When Sorensen proposed to bring forward a Private Members Bill ‘on the Colour Bar’, the Foreign Ofce warned the Cabinet Ofce that ‘Russian and Cominform propaganda (using the W.F.T.U. and other Communistcontrolled international organisations as mouthpieces) will utilise the occasion provided by the presentation of the Bill and, for that mater, any public discussion of this subject, to criticise His Majesty’s Government’s policy … His Majesty’s Government’s refusal to accept the Court of Human Rights of the Council of Europe will provide a likely target. In general, such international agreements, and His Majesty’s Government’s atitude to them, will be described as “bourgeois deceptions” and indications that the “imperialists” have been frightened by the alleged

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growing success of the (communist-inspired) movements for national liberation and world peace.’ National Archives, Kew, Foreign Ofce Papers: FO 371/88835 Private Member’s Bill on the Colour Bar, 1950–51. 34 LAB 8/1519: Coloured people in the United Kingdom: General policy, registration and placing, 1948–49, Colonial Ofce memorandum, 3 Sept. 1948. 35 BW 2/298, ACWCUK, memorandum 10. 36 BW 2/298, note by Keith, 11 Sept. 1947. 37 BW 1/61: Colonial Ofce Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Colonial People, 1947–49, ACWCUK, 15 Sept. 1948. On arrangements for the ‘Empire Windrush’, see HO213/244: West Indian migrant workers, 1948; and Ken Lunn, ‘Te British State and Immigration, 1945–51: New Light on the Empire Windrush’ in Tony Kushner (ed.) Te Politics of Marginality: Race, the radical right and minorities in 20 th c. Britain, London: Frank Cass, 1990, pp. 161–74. 38 LAB 8/2289: Registration and placing of coloured workers: General policy, 1949–58. 39 ‘Our Unofcial Stowaways. Behind the Scenes with Coloured Stowaways’, Echo 30 April 1948. 40 LAB 8/1519, Smieton and Stewart, 9 Aug. 1949. 41 LAB 8/1519, Keith 3 Sept. 1948. 42 CO 876/229: Repatriation of destitute and incapacitated colonial people including seamen 1951, Tomas to Owen 24 June, 1951. 43 HO 45/24471: Police: Complaints by coloured immigrants, 1941–50, Coloured Population in Liverpool’, 5 April 1950. 44 HO344/100:Coloured people from British colonial territories: Draf Cabinet memorandum, 1950. 45 LAB 8/1519, Colonial Ofce memorandum. 46 LAB 8/1519, Colonial Ofce memorandum. 47 LAB 8/1519, Notes of meeting at Home Ofce, 18 Feb. 1949. 48 LAB 8/1519, Hardman to Keith, 22 June 1949. 49 ‘No Aliens Employed’, Express 11 July 1946. 50 Quoted in Colin Homes, John Bull’s Island: Immigration and British Society, 1871–1971, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1988, p. 249. 51 ‘Anti-Jew Scenes in Liverpool’, ‘Liverpool anti-Jew riots’, and ‘Liverpool hooliganism goes on’, Post 2–5 Aug. 1947. 52 ‘Rioting in Liverpool’, Echo 2 Aug. and ‘32 arrests in City clashes. More White and Black Disturbances’, Post 3 Aug. 1948. 53 Anthony H.  Richmond, Colour Prejudice in Britain: A Study of West Indian Workers in Liverpool, 1941–1951, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1954, pp. 101–08. I have been unable to locate the report drawn up by the Area Ofcer of the Colonial Ofce Welfare Department upon

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which Richmond’s account draws. Andrea Murphy, From the Empire to the Rialto: Racism and Reaction in Liverpool 1918–1948, Birkenhead: Liver Press, 1995, ch. 6 makes good use of local press reports. 54 Ron Ramdin, Te Making of the Black Working Class in Britain, Aldershot: Wildwood, 1987, pp. 384–85. 55 ‘City Police Chief Pledges – Justice for coloured people’, Post 5 Aug. 1948. 56 HO344/100: Coloured people from British colonial territories: Draf Cabinet memorandum, 1950. 57 Hansen, Citizenship and Immigration, p. 59. 58 HO344/100. 59 Leo Silberman and Bety Spice, Colour and class in six Liverpool schools, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1950. 60 ‘Is there a British colour bar’, Picture Post 2 July 1949. 61 LAB 8/1560, North West Regional Ofce, 29 July 1949. 62 LAB 8/2289, North West Regional Ofce, 11 Oct. 1949. 63 LAB 8/1560, J.E. Tomas, 31 July 1950. 64 CO 537/5130, ACWCUK, 6 Oct. 1948. 65 LAB 8/2290: Coloured workers from British colonies: Special arrangements for circulation of suitable vacancies, 1949–53, McGuirk, 3 May 1951. 66 LAB 8/2290, Costello, 10 July 1951. 67 HO 45/24471. 68 BW 2/298, ACWCUK, 26 Sept. 1946. Learie Constantine declined to atend the opening, given what he considered its inappropriate location: ‘You may be aware that I hold contrary opinions from the Commitee, on the location of Stanley House and its efcacy as a Cultural and Social centre. Te question of need is unchallenged. What is disputed is its isolation from a more cultured environment’, Constantine to Lord Leverhulme, 13 Aug. 1946, Acc 4910. 69 HO 45/24471. 70 Richmond, Colour Prejudice in Britain, 93–95. 71 CO 876/199: Stanley House, Liverpool, 1951. Tere are several pencilled amendments on Owen’s report in the fle in an efort to temper its tone. 72 HO 45/24471. 73 CO 876/199, Annual Report, 1951. 74 CO 876/199, Report of the Commission of Enquiry. 75 CO 876/199, Keith memorandum and leter to Owen, Nov. 1951. 76 D.R. Manley, ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community with Special Reference to the Formation of Formal Associations’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Liverpool, 1959, p. 273. 77 CO 876/275: Area Ofces: Liverpool, 1952, Keith’s memorandum, 29 Jan. 1952.

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78 CO 876/275, Graham White, 4 March 1952; E.O. Oyo, CPDA, 23 Feb. 1952; H.E. Campbell, Merseyside West Indian Society, 1 March 1952. 79 CO 876/275, memorandum, 13 March 1952. 80 CO 876/275, Keith to White, 26 May 1952. 81 Liverpool Record Ofce: Acc 2603/2, 27 Oct. 1945 and 9 March 1946. 82 Liverpool Post, 1 Oct. 1946. Constantine ‘hoped his work in Liverpool had created a litle happiness for the coloured people’. 83 BW 2/298, ACWCUK, 26 Sept. 1946. 84 BW 2/298, ACWCUK, 26 Sept. 1946. 85 Picture Post 2 July 1949. 86 BW2/298, Liverpool Area Ofce Report, 14 Jan. 1948. 87 BW 1/61: Confdential Report, 5 March 1948. 88 As Paul Rich has shown, this completed a three-stage process of control over black students in Britain: initial missionary and philanthropic concern, more formal Colonial Ofce control during the 1940s, and a more informal governmental interest via the British Council. ‘Te patern resembled, somewhat paradoxically, the very process of British imperial intrusion, colonisation and neo-colonial withdrawal from Africa itself from the early nineteenth century to the 1950s and early 1960s, though contracted into a short period in the closing phase of empire.’ Rich, ‘Te Black Diaspora in Britain: Afro-Caribbean Students and the Struggle for a Political Identity 1900–1950’ in his Prospero’s Return? Historical essays on race, culture and British society, London: Hansib, 1994, p. 146. 89 See the press cutings from News Chronicle and Daily Despatch, 3 March 1950, and Evening Express, 20 April 1950 in Acc 2603/3. 90 CO876/275, Parkinson to Keith, 18 April 1952. 91 Rich, ‘Blacks in Britain: Response and Reaction 1945–62’ in Prospero’s Return? p. 155.

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Ch a pter fi v e

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Trouble spot of the immediate post-war years, Liverpool subsequently emerged as a model of race relations in the 1950s, a period of relative (but temporary) prosperity in the city following long overdue industrial diversifcation. Seemingly favourable in individual and cumulative impact, the various developments of the time, formative infuences on the emergence of ‘Merseybeat’, were by no means unproblematic. Te remarkable fourishing of ethnic associational culture, from the tribal to the pan-national, revealed the complexity and heterogeneity of the ‘coloured community’, testifying to a new ‘multi-cultural’ Liverpool: the highly segmented structure, however, precluded a united front against discrimination. Co-ordination was more readily efected in the newly established (all-white) Colonial Welfare Commitee, a multi-agency initiative which displayed the characteristic paternalist qualities of the local voluntary sector: in seeking to redress the disadvantage endured by the black community, it stopped well short of any provision which might encourage an increase in numbers. Stanley House Community Centre, still lauded as a fagship project, was ofen beset with confict over its paternalistic (white) management style and inability to satisfy the competing needs of new arrivals, ethnic groups and Liverpool-born blacks. As most of the black community eschewed the outer council estates favoured by the re-housed white working class, they remained distant (if not excluded) from the prosperity enjoyed (at least in the short term) by those living in close proximity to the new ‘branch plant’

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industrial units on the city’s outskirts. Liverpool blacks were reluctant to vacate the relative security of the Granby Triangle with its networks of ethnic collective mutuality, shebeens, clubs and other compensatory delights. For the most part, however, these critical refections on the city’s ‘boom’ years derive from hindsight. At the time, Liverpool was regarded as something of a success story, not least in community relations, a reputation reinforced when it escaped the race riots of 1958, afer which it was ofen approached for advice by cities experiencing the post-Windrush infux.

*** While negotiations proceeded for the transfer of the local welfare ofce from the Colonial Ofce to the City Council and the voluntary sector, eforts were made to establish an ‘inter-racial’ commitee to ‘watch the interests of the coloured community’. At a conference in July 1952 atended by ofcial delegates from the various forms of ‘negro’ associational culture – the CPDA, the Merseyside West Indian Society, the Somali Society, the Yoruba, Calabari, Fanti and other tribal unions – the Rev. Arnold Payton of St John’s, Toxteth, outlined his plans for a ‘Federal Council’ to act as intermediary between the City Council and the black population. Having spent time in Africa and the West Indies, Payton, the Bishop’s adviser on ‘coloured problems’, was an unrestrained critic of discrimination. However, he seems to have abandoned his scheme when he failed to gain support for its two main principles: leadership by the City Council, considered essential to ensure ‘prestige’; and representation of the ‘colonials’ through three main ‘negro’ groups: West Africans, West Indians and the Liverpool-born.1 In a series of follow-up meetings, held in Payton’s absence, representatives from the black community discussed a number of ways to take the proposal forward in amended form. Leaving aside any conduit to the City Council, the debate revolved around the respective merits of a new over-arching organisation ‘representing all coloured people’ or a comprehensive assembly of representatives of every ‘coloured organisation existing in the city’, carrying the recognition of group diferences a stage further than the clergyman’s scheme, D.R.  Manley noted, ‘so that each tribal or National group would be represented’. Complex and internecine, the discussions were catalogued in scrupulous detail by Manley, a self-proclaimed ‘middle-class’ West Indian, for his doctoral

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thesis on ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community with Special Reference to the Formation of Formal Associations’. An exercise in participant observation, the thesis drew upon Manley’s experience as the assistant secretary of one society and the liaison ofcer of another, as well as interviews among a sample of 147 informants, 116 ‘negroids’ and 31 whites (15 of whom were wives of West Indians, and ten of West Africans). Manley expected to observe the emergence of a broad ‘racial’ awareness: ‘In Liverpool in 1952 the Negroes’ sense of injustice was perhaps rising more rapidly than the opposed absorbing process in spite of relatively favourable economic conditions, hence the belief that all coloured sub-groups must co-operate with each other.’ However, close observation of the post-Payton discussions revealed that ‘the outstanding characteristics of this Negro Community were its highly segmented structure, and the considerable amount of friction which existed between the various sub-groups.’2 Manley identifed a number of fault lines, leading to obstacles and exclusions, precluding a united front against discrimination. On ethnic grounds, he was denied access to any of the West African groupings, while his elevated socio-economic status (he was the son of the Jamaican Chief Minister) made him unwelcome in some West Indian circles. Within each group there was increasing friction (not always generational) between established residents and new arrivals (generally of a more radical disposition), and between the ‘respectable’ and the ‘disreputable’. A wider cultural gulf kept Moslem Arabs and Pakistanis away from the pubs, dance halls and clubs which served as social centres for ‘Negroes’, Chinese and whites – the Somalis, he noted, were in an intermediate position, linked culturally to other Moslems, but unlike the Asian groups, prepared to join wider formations to protest at colour discrimination. 3 Manley’s typology of ‘negro’ associational culture in early 1950s Liverpool, quoted extensively by Ron Ramdin in his Making of the Black Working Class in Britain, ofers valuable insight into the complexity and heterogeneity of the ‘coloured community’.4 Tribal unions, generally meeting fortnightly in the home of one of the more prosperous members, acted as mutual beneft societies. Similar in many respects to ‘western’ tramping networks, they ofered conviviality and welfare insurance for men but only occasional and auxiliary social roles for women. Although on the wane among more recent arrivals, such primary ‘tribal’ allegiance ofen refected real diferentiation: ‘members of two African

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tribes, for example Yorubas and Ewes’, Manley acknowledged, ‘may have no more in common than Britons and Italians’. By no means free of tribal friction, national associations (Nigerian, Sierra Leonean, Somali and West Indian) tended to take more interest in politics and independence back in the homeland, while at the same time displaying more concern to protest at discrimination in Liverpool. 5 Given his provenance, Manley accorded considerable atention to the Merseyside West Indian Association (MWIA), established in 1951 by a small group of disgruntled workers distrustful of ofcial trade unions, who met in a washroom at a local ordnance factory. Soon banished from this location, they transferred meetings to a local black barber’s shop, where the programme expanded to include ‘pseudo-political protest’ and a proposed range of social and cultural activities, prompting the need for a further move to more suitable premises. Tereafer much dissension followed on whether to make use of facilities at refurbished Stanley House. Te ‘moderates’, led by one of the technicians who came over during the war (and who was subsequently appointed as warden at Stanley House), argued in favour, while more radical elements, primarily new arrivals from Jamaica, wished to have no contact with an institution associated with the Colonial Ofce and which smacked of segregation (‘keeping Colonial Negroes “in their place”’). Having moved into Stanley House (which brought an increase in membership to nearly 100), the society became embroiled in further disputes (although it continued to feld a popular cricket team). Women demanded to be accorded membership, a campaign led strenuously (but not always tactfully) by an ‘energetic’ middle-class white woman, ‘acutely frustrated by her life as the wife (common-law) of a Negro worker, [who] saw in the society an opportunity for at least some relief from her personal difculties’. Once admited, women confned themselves to the Social Commitee, one of whose objectives – a Christmas party for ‘coloured’ children – led to internal confict over ‘authority’ within the MWIA and to damaging external dispute with the African Social and Technical Society (ASTS) over its rival plans (not to mention the reprise of contention over Stanley House as the proposed party venue). Although founded to encourage migration (back) to the Gold Coast, the ASTS was soon dominated by West Indians, not least the forceful and charismatic chairman, who reputedly profted from the sale of drinks at Saturday night parties arranged by the Entertainments Commitee. Having humiliated the MWIA in ‘negotiations’ over the proposed children’s party, the chair

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of the ASTS was disgraced shortly aferwards, following disclosure of his serial liaisons with white women and a (near physical) feud with the society’s secretary, afer which the ASTS collapsed.6 Neither the MWIA nor the ASTS engaged the support of the wider black community: as Manley noted, they were regarded as inefective in opposing prejudice and discrimination. Here the CPDA, ‘the purest form of “protest” association to be found among this Negro group’, played a more important role. In the absence of any collective mutuality provision and with recreational and educational activities categorised as ‘subsidiary’, the CPDA was able to concentrate on politics – hence its appeal to the Communist Party.7 In a manner reminiscent of the LCP during the war, the Communist Party decided to accord special atention to Liverpool and the CPDA in the early 1950s.8 Liverpool was identifed as a crucial area of challenge and opportunity, a ‘key city’ in ‘the joint struggle for Colonial rights at home and abroad’. Discussions with local comrades revealed that ‘racial discrimination is practised to a greater degree than in any other part of Britain’: On the background of the long and biter confict between Catholics and Protestants this is perhaps not surprising. But in a situation when the British people (and especially the organised Labour movement) have been aroused to a high pitch against Malan’s racial laws in South Africa, it is all the more serious there should be so much racial discrimination in this key city.9

In a city where ‘it would be a mistake to under-estimate the extent of anti-white feeling,’ the CPDA ofered a way forward, a useful entry point for the Party to inject the necessary disciplined leadership and ideological rigour: Te Party alone can teach the Labour movement the economic and political lessons for which the more generalised propaganda of the C.P.D.A. can prepare the way – Tat the destiny of the British workers is indissolubly linked with the Colonial workers and that the Labour movement generally must fght for the unifcation of all workers, to prove that the divisions in the workers [sic] ranks have always proved disastrous, whenever they have been made throughout history. Tese lessons can only be learnt, only through real Marxist clarity … Te most urgent need is for the training for the splendid coloured cadres who exist. We will need not only Party cadres but to develop more leaders in the C.P.D.A.10

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Te work of the CPDA – in approaching the organised Labour movement, establishing a women’s section and spearheading the fght against all forms of racial discrimination – was catalogued and praised in reports by Idris Cox of the International Afairs Commitee, despatched to Lancashire to promote ‘Solidarity with Colonial People and their Fraternal Associations’.11 Afer the initial overture – a meeting in August 1951 to discuss with a sub-commitee of Labour Party and Trades Council ‘the social problems and issues which afect Liverpool’s coloured population’ – relations with Labour did not run smoothly. At the meeting, E.Y.  Oyo of the CPDA listed three ‘requirements’ before colonial people could ‘align’ with Labour: ‘Colonial people should have no difculty in geting employment in various industries’; ‘Te Labour Party should do all that lies in its powers to abolish colour discrimination which colonial people consider it [sic] is the root cause of their economic and social hardships in the City’; and ‘Te Labour Party should set to remedy our social defects, bad housing etc.’ By way of response, the sub-commitee’s main recommendations – that members of the Labour Party would ‘push forward the employment of colonials in Municipal Undertakings’, and that the CPDA should apply for afliation to the Trades Council – ran into difculties. ‘Nothing resulted’ from a meeting with Bessie Braddock to discuss the employment of colonials as Corporation bus conductors, tram conductors or drivers. Constitutional difculties prevented afliation to the Trades Council.12 Te formation of the Women’s Section, under Dorothy Kuya (a Young Communist League ‘comrade’), proved far less contentious than in other organisations – and was soon followed by a successful outing of over 300 children to Chester and a Christmas party at the Hope Street Church Hall to which Bessie Braddock donated ‘sweets for the kiddies’. In revising the constitution to accommodate the new section, the CPDA took the opportunity to amend its structure in such a way as to encourage ‘the afliation of sectional coloured organisations to the Association’.13 By so doing, they sought to incorporate into their structure all the various ‘negro’ organisations involved in the post-Payton discussions. Blessed by Ekarte and the African Churches Mission, this assertive move was welcomed by the Communist Party, harsh critics of the ‘reactionary’ tribal unions in Liverpool. ‘Among these are the Yorbas, Ijaws, Ibos, Calabars, together with a Freetown Union (Sierra Leone) and a Liberian Union’, Cox reported: ‘None of them seems to take an active part on issues afecting the colonial people, and many of them consist of

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reactionary elements opposed to the C.P.D.A. which they regard as being under Communist leadership.’ In order to ‘rally and organise the colonial workers and break down inter-tribal and inter-territorial barriers created by the imperialist “Divide and Rule” policy’, Cox recommended that the CPDA should strive to become a real Open Forum, expressing all shades of progressive opinion among colonial people … It should set the defnite aim of becoming the recognised voice of the colonial people on all their problems, and an organisation which represents a broad anti-imperialist front, and avoid any tendency to become a duplicate of the Communist Party in the eyes of the colonial people.14

Having also spent time in Manchester, Cox was convinced that Liverpool should spearhead the ‘United Front with the Colonial People’. Te ‘situation in Liverpool’, he reported, was ‘much sharper than in Manchester’: Tere are 25,000 unemployed and considerable colour discrimination and racial feeling. Of the 8,000 colonial residents, a fair proportion are directly connected with the Port – either as seamen or dockers. Te coloured population is both less stable and more directly concerned with immediate issues than in Manchester. Te Liverpool 8 district is more squalid than Moss Side, and there are big blocks of ‘white’ council fats in it. Te stowaways and other immigrants come into Port and the white workers’ fear of unemployment is revived in every batch.

Furthermore, Liverpool had a distinct advantage in pushing Party policy: unlike Manchester, with its ‘Trotskyist activity in peddling the Pan-African Federation line’, the Pan African Federation had ‘almost no infuence’ in the city.15 A strengthened leadership cadre in Liverpool would ‘assist in preventing ultra lef lines from sections of the colonial people, weaken the grip which Pan African ideas have over those workers, and extend the feeling of proletarian internationalism.’16 Te one weakness noted by Cox was the absence of any organised contact with colonial students: Because most colonial comrades in Liverpool are workers (and most of them unemployed) I got the impression of a tendency to be intolerant of colonial students who wanted time to study when other comrades were engaged in activity. Tis was admited by several comrades, and it was necessary to emphasise that the main job for colonial students was to

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become qualifed, and to equip themselves politically to return to their countries, and that nothing should interfere with this.

For the Communist Party, as much as for the British Council, students were a colonial class apart: Te main responsibility of all colonial students is to complete their course and become qualifed, and the extent of their political activity is secondary to this main aim. At the same time, special opportunities should be provided for political discussion and Marxist training, and they should strive to organise their fellow-students into appropriate colonial student unions.17

Aspirations to establish the CPDA as ‘the mass organisation of the colonial people’ were not fulflled. Discussions for the proposed incorporation of other groups into the CPDA broke down just as Manley prepared to leave Liverpool – yet further proof, he contended, of structural tensions with the ‘negro’ community. He doubted that the communist allegiance acted as a major deterrent, not least because comrade Ludwig Hesse and other CPDA leaders subscribed to a communism ‘of the emotional rather than the ideological variety’. At best, Manley concluded, the CPDA secured episodic popular support, on the occasion of specifc (and particularly disturbing) instances of discrimination, being otherwise unable to counter the indiference of the black community.18 CPDA meetings were held in the Unitarian Church on Hope Street and subsequently in Ekarte’s Church Hall, but not in Stanley House. In this instance, it seems, objections were raised by the authorities running the House. ‘Tis atitude was disappointing,’ the CPDA recorded in an annual report reviewing the early days of the Society, ‘in view of the fact that it was understood that this Institution was set up to serve the needs of the coloured community. However, intervention by Mr Charles Owen yielded no fruitful results’. To add insult to injury, the CPDA was subsequently excluded from the circular leter of invitation sent to various ‘Coloured Societies’ inviting them to the re-opening of Stanley House afer refurbishment.19 Although the CPDA were excluded from the re-opening ceremony, the new governance arrangements at Stanley House allowed for greater (but still minority) black representation. Most members of the new Council were middle-class whites nominated by the Limited Company, but six seats were ‘provided for the coloured members’. In his critical assessment of the frst couple of years of the re-opened facility, Manley suggested

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that white council members ‘were activated more by a desire for prestige as public spirited citizens, than by a genuine sympathy for coloured people’.20 With a characteristic blend of Merseypride and well-meaning paternalism, leading local fgures welcomed the re-opening of the ‘only organisation of its kind in the country to cater for the cultural, educational and recreational private life of the coloured citizen’.21 Picked out for praise in correspondence following publication of the Bow Group pamphlet, Coloured Peoples in Britain, Stanley House was hailed as a forum for the ‘spontaneous social contacts’ advocated by the Group, a venue where ‘the removal of any idea of segregation can be achieved.’ Stanley House, Eric Errington explained in a leter to Te Times, was started by voluntary contributions, and is being developed by the active interest and fnancial help of such bodies as the Carnegie and United Kingdom Trust, other charitable trusts, and one or two industrial concerns … Voluntary eforts in this feld have great disabilities to overcome, and a litle practical help from the Government would make the task considerably easier.22

Any suggestion of government funding or intervention, however, was promptly ruled out by James Lemkin, chair of the Bow Group: Coloured people domiciled in Britain look, as does any citizen, to municipal authorities for welfare, such as housing. Tere is no overall agency responsible for coloured peoples in Britain. Tis is proper. To create one would make coloured peoples feel acutely that they had a special status.23

Te local press welcomed the ‘fresh start’, not least because of inside information, from a well-paced informer in the ‘coloured’ colonial community, revealing how ‘slights and grievances ofen develop as extreme nationalism – a political philosophy sometimes bearing the Communist stamp.’ Refurbished, reformed and rehabilitated, Stanley House was to be the fulcrum of ‘a large-scale atempt to drive colourconsciousness from the city. Churches, social organisations and civic leaders will be asked to unite in this campaign’.24 Representatives from these agencies kept an eye on progress throughout the mid-1950s, meeting 11 times between March 1955 and March 1956 to draw up a report on ‘Te Question of Colour in Liverpool’, subsequently discussed (as noted below) at a conference on ‘racial relations’ at Holly Lodge High School in 1957. Te National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL) also took an

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interest in the issue. Prompted by the activities of an Ad Hoc Commitee to defend freedom of expression in Liverpool, the NCCL decided to explore the possibility of establishing a Merseyside branch, ‘concerned with all cases of discrimination whether based on race, religion, colour, language or politics and we oppose, of course, the colour bar’. ‘One of its most urgent tasks will be an examination of the position of the colonial peoples,’ Elizabeth Allen, general secretary of the NCCL, explained in leters of invitation to potential supporters and afliated co-operative societies, trades unions and other groups. In the lengthy process of sorting out constitutional and other arrangements, she became locked in difcult correspondence with a black activist who looked upon the scheme as an opportunity to establish an umbrella organisation of ‘coloured’ colonials with an ofce for himself. ‘Te Colonials in Liverpool are not represented, and the present form of Society is tragically unsatisfactory,’ Owen Rollins began the correspondence in August 1954: ‘I should be very, very glad if you could do something to help us now.’ A year later, as Allen was at last preparing for a pre-launch ‘gathering’ in the Stork Hotel, Liverpool, Rollins went into detail: If we are to live according to the wisdom of God, well then the Coloured people must have their own political and religious leaders. Welfare and social workers, including Policemen. Tere is not one Clerical worker among the Coloured people who is employed by the Ministry of Labour … If the authorities do not know what the Coloured people want, I am quite prepared to tell them and to help them solve some of the problems here. A Coloured Welfare Ofcer is badly needed in Liverpool.

He repeated the point in a follow-up leter a fortnight later: We need a full time paid Coloured Secretary here … It would be possible for him to work honestly for the Coloured people and approach the general public with authority. I am quite prepared to do this particular job. Are you willing to open an Ofce for me?

In tactful prose, Allen made clear that Rollins would be welcome to atend the pre-launch gathering of ‘those already interested in civil liberty issues’ and that he could ‘bring someone from any local organisation of coloured people to remind us of the work to be done in that feld’, but pointed out in no uncertain terms that ‘this gathering will not be the place to raise the question of seting up an organization for

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coloured people and there is no question of our opening an ofce for you. I want this to be quite clear.’25 Given on-going concerns about ‘the operation of the colour bar in Liverpool’, the re-opening of Stanley House was viewed with considerable interest. Te local press interviewed Anthony Richmond, whose survey of West Indian workers in Liverpool, 1941–51, had concluded with the hope that, once refurbished, Stanley House would become ‘the spearhead of an active movement for the assimilation of the coloured population. It must become an active agent for the breaking down of barriers, rather than passively accept their existence as hitherto’.26 Te new approach was accompanied by re-assessment of liaisons between white women and black men. ‘White people must not assume that a girl associating with a coloured man is a bad type,’ Richmond informed the local journalist. Speakers at a conference of the British Council of Churches in Liverpool took the mater further: mixed marriages were no longer regarded as ‘shocking’, but were to be welcomed as a ‘good thing’ – it was even suggested that the Mothers’ Union ‘should encourage decent girls to mix with Colonials’.27 For all the high hopes, no such breakdown of barriers occurred, although, as Manley acknowledged, there was a minimum of disturbance and violence and no illegal or immoral proceedings under the new management regime. ‘Te relationship between whites and Negroes within the Centre’, he maintained, was characterised ‘by such a degree of mutual misunderstanding that inter-group co-operation was seriously impaired.’ Stanley House, he maintained, ‘represented an alien intrusion into the previously established recreational habits of the Negroes, many of whom remained unconvinced of its value’. Membership reached a peak of 285 in 1954, the breakdown of fgures suggesting that ‘the more “westernized” Negroes made greatest use of the facilities’: 89 ‘AngloColoured’; 58 American ‘negro servicemen’ from Burtonwood; 52 West Indians; 46 whites; 30 West Africans; four Arabs; four Chinese; one Canadian and one East African. ‘Interest in the various facilities varied,’ he observed, dancing and games appearing to be more popular as a rule, than lectures and other educational activities, and a number of people used it as a centre for meeting friends, reading colonial newspapers and so on. Yet, it could not, in 1952 and 1953 compare in popularity as a general ‘hang-out’ or social centre with the night club a few blocks away. 28

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Figure 9, Figure 10: Purchased with a grant from the Colonial Ofce in 1943, the former St Margaret’s Orphanage in Upper Parliament Street was transformed into the Stanley House Community Centre, intended as a fagship post-war facility ‘to provide our coloured people with a commodious focus for their social life instead of leaving them to drif’. Delayed in its opening, it experienced a ‘chequered history’ thereafer, beset with confict over its paternalistic management style and inability to satisfy the competing needs of new arrivals, established ethnic groups and young Liverpool-born blacks. Te sheer size of the forbidding building – 35 rooms and a large yard – added to its fnancial problems. In dilapidated state in its fnal years, when known as the Sir Joseph Cleary Centre, it still displayed its original logo, a hand-clasp of black and white.

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Shortly afer Manley lef Liverpool there was a major clamp-down on the ‘shebeens’, illicit drinking-dens and unauthorised clubs in the surrounding Rialto district (beyond the purview of the white middleclass paternalists cocooned in Stanley House). Tey were promptly replaced by ‘registered’ clubs, purportedly ‘all nice and legal’, but as Richard Whitington-Egan’s night-time ramblings discovered, still ‘shebeens’ in all but name, frequented by prostitutes, dope-peddlers, black marketeers and ‘spivs’. Popular with black American GIs from Burtonwood (whose style, wealth and cars were lovingly recollected by members of the black community interviewed by the American anthropologist Jacqueline Nassy Brown in the 1990s), the area also atracted pleasure and sensation-seeking whites. Home of the black community, L8 at night acquired a cosmopolitan and bohemian reputation which black entrepreneurs were quick to exploit through suitable mark-ups for afer-hours drinking and early morning taxi-rides. ‘Taxis and pirate private-hire cars’, Whitington-Egan observed, purr through the darkness with their cargoes of rogues, drunks and sensation-seekers, who believe that fve or six hours spent in sipping exorbitantly expensive drinks in company with thieves, drug-peddlers, whores and their hangers-on, is seeing life with a capital “L”’.

Tere was much to relish in the ‘poetic justice’ of the former townhouses of slave traders being transformed into afer-hours drinking clubs run by ‘coloured stowaways’ where it was now ‘the negro who exploited the thirsty white’.29

*** While unable to compete with what was on ofer in the neighbourhood, Stanley House developed into a useful community resource once the Personal Service Society took over responsibility for Owen’s ofce and established the Colonial Welfare Commitee in 1954. 30 Tere was a new emphasis on co-ordination: Alderman Cleary played a prominent role on the Commitee and at Stanley House, where he chaired the Council; the warden was co-opted onto the Commitee; and arrangements were made for Owen to spend two sessions a week at Stanley House, ‘admirably and centrally situated for the great majority of Colonials’. 31 As well as organising dressmaking classes ‘for 20 girls, all coloured’, the Board of Education was approached to develop pre-technical general education

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classes at Stanley House as part of the Commitee’s commitment to the provision of ‘training schemes for Colonial people’. Te purpose, however, as the Commitee minutes recorded, was not to enhance prospects in the local labour market but to encourage return to the colonies: ‘Tey would be more content to return to their own Countries in due course if they had been trained for some specifc work while in this Country.’32 Co-ordination was strengthened when K.  Aldous replaced Owen as Welfare Ofcer in 1956 and negotiated the use of the top foor at Stanley House as a transit centre for stowaways and destitute new arrivals. ‘A Reception Centre with a Diference’, it proved a most useful short-stay facility. ‘It would be wrong to provide permanent accommodation for working coloured people,’ Aldous reassured the Commitee, ‘as it would encourage coloured people from congested areas to move to Liverpool, and in view of the difcult employment situation here, this would be undesirable’. 33 Te change in governance notwithstanding, the Colonial Welfare Commitee continued in the familiar ambivalent path, seeking to redress the disadvantage endured by the black community but stopping well short of any provision which might encourage an increase in numbers. As it gained confdence in the formula, the Commitee was to stand forward in the late 1950s as role model for other cities experiencing their frst infux of ‘coloured’ colonial migrants. ‘Its most valuable contribution is to supplement work already being done by others’ the Commitee noted in Te West Indian Comes to England: ‘It has aimed at close liaison with both central and local government departments and other voluntary agencies and has encouraged coloured people to make fuller use of the services already available for them.’34 Technically a sub-commitee of the Personal Service Society, the Colonial Welfare Commitee in Liverpool was one of the frst multiagency bodies to be formed afer discussions (atended in London by the Rev. Payton) between the Colonial Ofce, the National Council of Social Service and the British Council of Churches about the real need for some medium through which the unofcial organisations concerned with social welfare might be able to co-operate on a basis of consultation with Government and local authorities who have to deal with problems as a result of the steady post-war increase of the coloured population. 35

Local ofcials from the Ministry of Labour (McGuirk from the Leece

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Figure 11: Run by larger than life characters such as Dutch Eddy, depicted here in a line drawing by John Cornelius, the shebeens and drinking clubs of Liverpool 8, over 20 strong at their peak, atracted a clientele, black and white, which the ‘community centre’ at adjacent Stanley House was unable to match.

Street Exchange), the National Assistance Board, and the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance were ‘in atendance’ at Commitee meetings – the British Council, however, chose not to send a representative on a regular basis. Along with Alderman Cleary (a Methodist lay-preacher and former deputy leader of the Labour Council group), the two most prominent members were the Rev. Payton and Councillor Pannell, a Tory with West African business interests and experience (and subsequently MP for Liverpool Kirkdale). 36 Although having withdrawn from the inter-racial commitee discussions, Payton continued to campaign (ofen in publicity-seeking manner) against discrimination, on one occasion shocking the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce by asking, ‘Why are there no coloured magistrates, policemen or Corporation ofcials?’ Reporting on the incident, the Liverpolitan drew atention to polarised local atitudes towards ‘the colour question’: Interested parties think the corporation has tended to hide behind statistics which show that there are still ‘work-shys’ among the

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coloured community living on public assistance and creating headache upon headache for the administration. Te more extreme advocates of beter welfare feel the City Council are nursing a grudge against ‘non-Europeans’, and are justifying a policy dangerously close to ‘Malanist segregationalism’. 37

While a staunch critic of discrimination, Payton was by no means a liberal infuence within the Colonial Welfare Commitee: indeed, his stance – like that of Councillor Pannell – refected the general hardening of atitude towards immigration in the mid-1950s. Having warned of ‘the danger of having special engagements for employment etc., for Colonials which might encourage them’, Payton outlined the distinction to be applied towards ‘incoming Colonials’: those who arrived with recommendations and references in the proper way were to be helped in every way possible, but so-called ‘free lance’ entrants were to be denied any special provision. ‘It was felt that unlimited free lance entry into the city might jeopardise the position of Colonials who were Liverpool born,’ the minutes of the frst Commitee meeting recorded. Payton insisted on the need to take account of ‘the Colonials born and bred in the city having no loyalty for any other place than Liverpool’. 38 ‘It has to be accepted’, Cleary informed the press, ‘that about one-third of the coloured population of Liverpool were born here, and that many of them had their parents and grandparents born here as well’. 39 While acknowledging the credentials of the locally born black population, the Commitee trusted to prevent any increase in numbers of ‘coloured colonials’. Indeed, Owen’s reports to the Commitee began by detailing his continuing eforts to make repatriation a more atractive and swifer option for the sick, elderly and, above all, the unemployed or unemployable: ‘more men, for whom there is no future in this country, could be returned to their country of origin if the machinery for doing so worked more speedily.’40 Troughout its existence, the Commitee sought fnancial aid and procedural improvement to facilitate greater repatriation, believing it to be ‘more economical and humane’ to enable long-service but now long-term unemployed colonial seamen ‘to return home’ – its fnal report in March 1963, by which time the Commitee was known as the Overseas Welfare Commitee, noted how decolonisation had accentuated ‘the difculty over repatriation’.41 From the outset, Pannell campaigned vigorously on the issue – in parallel with his eforts to tighten up entry requirements along reciprocal lines. At a

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meeting in London in November 1954 on problems relating to coloured people, he put forward a package, previously endorsed by the Commitee, comprising fast-track repatriation, tougher treatment of stowaways, and compulsory deportation of colonials convicted of crime (he was particularly outraged by the case of the Nigerian John Atiti, who, afer three convictions for keeping a brothel, could still not be deported while British subjects could be deported from Nigeria for misbehaviour).42 A few months earlier, Pannell’s colleagues in the Liverpool Group of the Conservative Commonwealth Association had gone a critical step further. In a paper on ‘Te Problem of Colonial Immigration’ submited to the Colonial Ofce, they called for legislation to restrict the migrant infow. Liverpool was portrayed in alarmist terms as ‘a new Harlem’ of vice, squalor, scrounging and crime, conditions compounded by well-meaning but counter-productive intervention by the local authorities and voluntary sector: … hundreds of children of negroid or mixed parentage eventually fnd their way to the various homes maintained by the Corporation, to be reared to unhappy maturity at great public expense. Large numbers of the adults are in receipt of unemployment beneft or National Assistance and many are engaged in the drug trafc or supplement their incomes by running illicit drinking dens or by prostitution … Despite the absence of reliable data, the gravity of the problem is fully recognised by municipal authorities and welfare organisations. Doubtless, it is also known to the Government but they, who alone can act efectively in the mater, seem unwilling to tackle the trouble at its source. Te municipal authorities and welfare organisations re-double their eforts to mitigate the worst features of the problem, yet all these eforts, eminently praiseworthy in themselves, contain the seeds of their own failure, since improved conditions only induce the arrival of still more immigrants to beneft from them.43

While conscious of the need to avoid any such perverse incentive, the Colonial Welfare Commitee chose not to endorse the growing demand for restrictive legislation. Eforts were concentrated on ensuring the dispersal from Liverpool of new arrivals and on defusing tensions and grievances among those who remained. Although the occasional new arrival in the port missed the onward train connection, having (erroneously) expected to be received and assisted at the docks by the Welfare Ofcer,44 Owen reported that the vast majority of the 1,000 or so who arrived in both 1954 and 1955

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from the West Indies quickly lef Liverpool, less than 50 of each cohort choosing to remain. During this period, his ofce received a monthly average of well over 200 calls, of which 45–50 were new cases seeking advice on a range of issues, including housing, work, sickness, training and (by no means top of the list) repatriation, more than sufcient justifcation for the continuance of his post: Much of the work done by the ofce is rendered necessary by the lack of knowledge and experience of those who seek our interest. Were the service not available many small irritations would linger needlessly and many occasions for explaining situations to anxious minds would slip away leaving a sense of bewilderment and frustration. Te advantage to Colonials and to ourselves in helping to setle or remove the grievance frequently felt by the coloured man in our midst, should not need to be stressed. Only too frequently the coloured man feels himself to be impotent in our highly organised society. Te ofce is something of a sanctuary against the hardship of a world he rarely understands, and a place where help and advice can be given to him when he feels he is being wrongly treated.45

When Labour gained control of the City Council in 1955 (a generation later than in other major provincial cities), there were fears that the Conservative government might remove its fnancial contribution. Te Commitee repeatedly underlined the importance of the Welfare Ofce. ‘Liverpool with its normal coloured population in addition to all the new comers should have special consideration from the Colonial ofce [sic],’ they insisted, fearing that closure might make it necessary for the Colonial governments to set up their own ofces: ‘It seems inevitable that if these circumstances arise the process of the absorption of Colonials into the life of the community would be seriously retarded as they might be looked upon as a “foreign set up”’.46 As it was, the Colonial Ofce continued with its contribution of £300 until Owen resigned in February 1956, when Keith took the opportunity to remove the funding. By this time, Liverpool was no longer a priority concern for Keith, although it still loomed large in the statistics presented to the Working Party on Coloured People Seeking Employment in the United Kingdom. Te Ministry of Labour reported that 563 of the 3,366 unemployed coloured workers were in Liverpool; the National Assistance Board noted that Liverpool had 400 cases on its books, twice as many as in Manchester, Birmingham and Cardif – and of the 100 cases nationally which had been on the books for more than three years, no less than 70

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were in Liverpool. However, fgures supplied by the Immigration Service and the Police confrmed that new arrivals gravitated either to London or areas of heavy industry (Lascar deserters showing a particular preference for the Shefeld area, ‘where they can obtain work or make a living by market trading or peddling’).47 Shunned by new arrivals, Liverpool, it was suggested, was now beter placed to promote assimilation. ‘While there is no question that the half-caste children of marriages of white and coloured parents present a difcult social problem,’ the Chief Constable replied to a questionnaire on the number and conduct of ‘coloured people’, ‘it may be that these children, being born in the United Kingdom and assimilating more readily into the general surroundings here, will tend in the future to break-down the prevalent colour-consciousness to be found at the present time.’48 Turning his atention away from Liverpool, Keith sought detailed information on new arrivals to counteract growing prejudice and calls for restrictive legislation. Disappointed by the limitations of a PEP survey restricted to colonial students, he approached Kenneth Litle, founding father of the study of race relations, to undertake an in-depth survey of a ‘coloured’ working-class community in an area such as Birmingham.49 He welcomed the recommendations of the 1955 Report on Jamaican migration to Britain by Clarence Senior and D.R.  Manley (who briefy returned to Liverpool during the research, most of which was conducted, however, among the ‘bigger dispersal’), leading to the secondment of a Jamaican civil servant, Ivo de Souza, to his ofce. London, not Liverpool, was the focus of operations for this new British Caribbean Welfare Service. 50 Having recently returned from the West Indies, Keith was acutely conscious of the colonial ramifcations of hardening atitudes in Britain. Entry legislation, he warned, would undoubtedly have violent repercussions in the Colonies concerned, particularly in Jamaica, and any restriction on the employment of persons on racial grounds would lead us into great difculties and would be entirely contrary to the aims which have been consistently pursued by the C.O. through my department.

Te current infow from the West Indies, he believed, was being wilfully misrepresented: a continuation of the traditional patern of Caribbean labour migration, the fow was now directed towards Britain as a favoured (temporary) destination rather than the United States, largely

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in consequence of the MacCarren-Walters Act; atracted by work not benefts, migrants would not stay long. In his eforts to disabuse prejudice against the West Indian transients, Keith relapsed into detrimental stereotyping of others. Colonial seamen, not the West Indian worker migrants, were the cause of social problems: ‘Te difculties (crime, unemployment, and anti-social activities etc.) arise mainly among West Africans (and some Arabs) who have been in this country for a long time. Tere is no evidence that their numbers are being reinforced by new arrivals.’51 As the number of arrivals from the Indian sub-continent increased later in the 1950s, Keith confded in a memorandum that ‘our best hope, as the Colonial Ofce, lies in contrasting the skilled character and proved industry of the West Indians with the unskilled and largely lazy Asians.’52 Despite fears to the contrary, the City Council decided to continue with its funding afer Keith terminated the Colonial Ofce contribution. As a necessary economy, however, the ofce space in the University Setlement had to be given up: Owen’s replacement as welfare ofcer was based in Personal Service Society premises at 34 Stanley Street (where they had established a Citizens’ Advice Bureau) with weekly outreach sessions in Stanley House. A qualifed social worker with considerable medical and refugee experience with the Society of Friends, Aldous brought new energy and commitment to the post, convinced that ‘every efort should be made to help the coloured community to become more integrated into the general life of the city’. In developing a service ‘especially designed to meet the needs of coloured visitors and inhabitants of Liverpool’, he sought to make beter use of the resources of the Personal Service Society: ‘Tere is clearly a wealth of experience and contacts developed by the P.S.S. which should be at the disposal of coloured people in the same way as it is for other citizens.’53 His most successful innovation was the transit centre at Stanley House, an integral part of a new emphasis on welfare work for new arrivals. ‘Perhaps most important of all is the fact that newcomers from overseas have someone who will take a personal interest in them,’ the annual report for 1956 recorded: During the difcult process of adaptation to conditions in this country there is the danger of a vicious circle starting of disappointment, disillusion and escape into bad habits and bad company. We are sure that the guidance and support given to many immigrants has stopped

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this process, and encouraged them to go on with their original aim in coming here, to beter themselves. 54

While the transit centre arrangements worked well (stowaways were provided with ‘used Police Ofcers trousers’ purchased at discount rate), 55 other aspects of Stanley House caused Aldous some concern. As he pointed out to the Colonial Welfare Commitee, he remained uncertain as to whether the community centre was intended primarily for setled citizens (in which case, the essential requirements were strict rules, a residence qualifcation and a local ‘king pin’ from within the colonial community to act as chair or warden) or for new arrivals (in which case it should be run by an outside group). 56 In a leter to the Commitee prior to his resignation at the end of 1957, he expanded on his concerns. Te building, too large and expensive to maintain, was an undoubted asset, but as experience had shown, the project had ‘not been able to present an organisation capable of successfully running a Community Centre over a long period of time’. ‘Te constitution of Stanley House has been based on a fallacy that all coloured people have enough in Common [sic] to make them wish to have social contact together,’ he insisted, echoing (but not acknowledging) Manley’s earlier fndings: … there is as large a diference in outlook between diferent coloured races as say, between Anglo Saxons and Latin people. Te fact that persons are coloured living as a minority in a predominantly white society, does not necessarily imply that they wish to associate as one group. My impression has been that under the present organisation there is a tendency for the house to split up into cliques with constant suspicion that groups are trying to manoeuvre into a position of control. Consequently, plans carried out by one section are only too readily criticised, and instead of allowing teething troubles to be corrected, reasons are found for abruptly ending them.

Given these tensions, Aldous favoured scaling back operations simply to the provision of a social club, to which end he recommended disposing of the premises, ‘if possible to an organisation interested in using it for Hostel Accommodation for Colonial Students, and in its place, a smaller building should be found which would be both more economical, and have the more intimate atmosphere required for a social club’. 57 Te Colonial Welfare Commitee chose not to advocate this course as it feared the City Council might withdraw its grant. Finances, indeed, remained a major difculty. Eforts to secure central government funding

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continued to prove unavailing. When approached during a fund-raising drive, De Souza expressed his appreciation of the work undertaken by the Commitee to enable new arrivals to setle ‘with a minimum of friction’, but insisted (in a manner reminiscent of Keith) that his ofce had neither the funds nor the inclination to contribute lest it might undermine the essential voluntary character of the endeavour. 58 Fortunately, the City Council agreed to a modest increase in the annual grant to the Personal Service Society. Afer some considerable bureaucratic discussion between departments, the Council even allowed some of the increased grant to be vired by the Society to Stanley House to fund a clerical post, an exceptional arrangement to enable the warden and his assistant to undertake more welfare work. 59 Given the high turnover of staf, personnel issues were almost as troubling as the fnances. W.B. Tompson, an American ‘coloured’ who replaced Aldous as Welfare Ofcer, decided to return to the States afer two years in the job. Given the difculties in fnding a suitably qualifed full-time replacement, brief consideration was given to the transfer of all welfare work to Stanley House, but in the light of the sensitivities involved, this was dismissed as undesirable. ‘Colonial welfare work is shared between the two organisations,’ the City Treasurer recorded, ‘and the Personal Service Society is most anxious that it should not be centralised at Stanley House since, if enquirers are turned away from the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, it may well lead to suggestions of racial discrimination.’60 Te dual arrangements, however, did not always run smoothly. Alan Pearson, the warden, was criticised by the Council at Stanley House for spending too long on welfare cases which should have been referred to the Personal Service Society ofce.61 Relationships improved when the Society secured the part-time services of E.T. (Ted) Ansel(l) to replace Tompson. A West Indian and former boxer, Ansel was ‘a very diferent type of worker to the other ones we have had’, but, having given him ‘a certain amount of training ourselves’, he proved a real asset to the Personal Service Society as Welfare Ofcer. He divided his time between the Society’s ofce in the city centre and Stanley House. ‘We feel strongly that it is essential for the work to be carried out both here and at Stanley House in order that there is no possible impression of discrimination if their problems were only dealt with at one or other place,’ the Overseas Welfare Commitee reported: ‘We think it is true to say that the type of applicant going to Stanley House for help would not be very likely to come down here. Also, we know that many overseas (coloured) people would never go to

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Stanley House.’62 Afer much trial and error, the Commitee established a suitable formula to deal with local complexities and propensities, but as decolonisation gathered pace from the late 1950s (hence the change of name from Colonial to Overseas Welfare), the future was uncertain: ‘It is difcult to forecast how the work will develop in view of the increasing number of Colonies gaining their independence and the possibility that they will in due course wish to appoint their own representatives in this country.’63

*** Tere were other developments in the late 1950s to promote welfare among the black community. Purchased through funds raised by friends and parishioners, the Rev. T.S.  Goddard opened World Friendship House in Falkner Square to provide accommodation for students from overseas alongside those studying in the Social Science Department at the University because they will be most likely to help in the purpose and aim of the house. Tey will also be asked to treat the house as a home, which, in turn, will bring about beter union among the group and perhaps assist in this community where social work is never out of fashion.

Te Merseyside International Friendship Commitee was formed in July 1959, ‘to bring together the diferent peoples of the world residing on Merseyside for Educational, Social and Cultural activities, and to combat racial discrimination’. Members included the National Union of Nigeria, the Ghana Union, the British Honduras Association, the British Guiana Freedom Association, the Pakistani Association, the West Indian Federation, the United Kroo National Society, the Ibo Union, Movements for Colonial Freedom and the Trades Council and Labour Party.64 Although atended by representatives from statutory and voluntary agencies (including Aldous from the Personal Service Society), the Holly Lodge conference in November 1957 was essentially a religious occasion, refecting the (not yet fully reconstructed) atitudes of local Protestant churches towards the ‘question of colour’. Although incorporating some of the fndings of Richmond’s research, the report under discussion bore a strong moral tone: critical of the proliferation of social clubs ‘whose membership, we were told, consists of coloured men and a few white

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prostitutes’, it marked a return to caution over mixed marriages: ‘two people with diferent racial and cultural backgrounds would be wise to consider carefully the problems to which their marriage might give rise.’ Te presence of ‘coloured American servicemen’ from the USAAF at Burtonwood heightened the moral concern ‘because they have more money, are lef alone (so it is alleged) by the local Police, and because, due to their comparative afuence they atract girls more readily’. Much time was spent deconstructing the concept of race to demonstrate – by local example – its irrationality, illogicality and imprecision: ‘In Liverpool there is a section of the community which is coloured and yet born in the city. How are they to be described from the point of view of “race?”’ In a return to Payton’s undiferentiated divisions, these ‘negro residents of one or more generations’ were categorised as one of the three ‘coloured’ groups in the city along with ‘immigrants’ from the West Indies and from West Africa. All three encountered the evil of ‘colour’ prejudice, ‘uterly opposed’ by the Christian community: It is our opinion that the only distinction which can be made between the groups is a physical one. Tis physical distinction is concerned chiefy with the colour of the skin, though possibly also other characteristics: broad noses, the lips turned outwards, the hair tightly curled. However the characteristics may vary amongst coloured people, it is, we believe, the pigmented skin of the ‘black’ man and the pink-grey skin of the ‘white’ man which provide the only practical method of distinguishing between the groups in question.

In an efort to put the problem in perspective, the report noted somewhat crassly that ‘coloured people seem more numerous than they actually are because the colour of their skin makes them more noticeable.’ Slipping back into the language of race, the Bishop and the President of the Free Church Federal Council issued a joint declaration at the end of the conference atesting to their uter opposition to ‘racial discrimination’ and inviting coloured people who have clear evidence of such discrimination to let their priest or minister know of it, who could if necessary and appropriate, bring the mater to the atention of the Colonial Welfare Worker at the Liverpool Personal Service Society.65

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*** By this time the Personal Service Society was acquiring the confdence to posit Liverpool as an example of good practice in race relations. In a report presented in January 1957 to the Steering Commitee of the National Council of Social Service concerned with ‘the welfare of coloured people’,66 the Society underlined the value of the experience acquired in Liverpool through long familiarity with a ‘coloured’ presence: Te fact that coloured people have lived and setled in Liverpool for many years infuences the whole of Colonial Welfare Work in the city. Whereas in many other towns the presence of coloured people presents a new situation, in Liverpool the various ofcials, agencies and citizens are accustomed to their presence. Tis is not to say that there are no special problems in relation to coloured people, or that they are entirely accepted as members of the general community, but it does mean that problems which the presence of coloured people present are frequently tackled within the framework of already existing organisations.

Tere were currently some 6,000–10,000 in fats and bed-sits in the Rialto area of Liverpool 8 and a small number in new housing estates on the outskirts. New arrivals tended to move on quickly to London and the Midlands given the poor job prospects, rendered all the worse by discrimination: there was ‘more prejudice in employment than in any other sphere’. Having been used to a relatively high standard of living, seamen dismissed at the beginning of the 1950s had no wish to return to their country of origin and resented their continued exclusion from the established pool of the Shipping Federation. As regard shore employment, a few skilled men were happily employed in shipbuilding, printing and motor engineering, but most ‘coloured’ men were engaged in manual work in factories in outlying districts or further afeld in St Helens, Warrington, Birkenhead, Ellesmere Port, Burtonwood and Sealand Air Base. On the plus side, however, were facilities and provision that other cities might like to consider: a Colonial Welfare Department on the Liverpool model and the appointment of a police liaison ofcer to carry out ‘preventive work’ amongst ‘coloured’ people – the plain clothes ofcer appointed was subsequently co-opted onto the Colonial Welfare Commitee and the Council of Stanley House. Afer discussion, it was decided not to add Stanley House itself to the list because of its ‘checkered [sic] history’:

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at times it has been debated whether it would be beter to close the premises as a community centre and re-open it for some other purpose such as a hostel … Te recent acquisition of a juke box seems to have done quite a lot to liven up proceedings. 67

On taking up appointment at the beginning of 1958, Tompson spent time in outreach work across Merseyside and in liaising with ‘other areas of high immigration’.68 Te number of inquiries and approaches increased considerably when Liverpool escaped the race riots which erupted in Noting Hill and Notingham in August, the frst signs, Stuart Hall notes, of an open and emergent racism of a specifcally indigenous type – duly followed by the establishment of well-meaning voluntary groups ‘intending to promote “racial tolerance” and integration’. 69 ‘It was recognised that the foresight of the Local Authority in arranging for a social worker to deal with the problems faced by coloured people was to be commended,’ the Welfare Commitee recorded with pride, noting that ‘a lead might be taken from this city’.70 ‘Various organisations and authorities in other cities had made enquiries regarding Colonial Welfare Work in Liverpool,’ Tompson later reported: ‘Te long term knowledge and concern which Liverpool had shown for its Colonials has created a patern which could be an example to other cities.’71 Among the inquiries, the National Citizens’ Advice Bureaux Commitee asked the Personal Service Society for advice about the employment of ‘coloured’ social workers, wondering (with revealing convolution) whether such a worker should be regarded as an ordinary member of the team and should deal with any C.A.B. question of any enquirer; or whether he or she should deal only with C.A.B. enquiries from coloured workers or, fnally, whether the coloured social worker should be regarded as a specialist not dealing with questions afecting the normal social services of this country, but being called in, so to speak, when either there was a problem relating to the coloured worker’s home (by ‘home’ I mean, say, in the West Indies) or perhaps when the bureau worker was unable to establish a satisfactory relationship with the coloured worker.72

Given ‘our large coloured population’ in Liverpool, Miss Peck replied, specialism was particularly important, noting the diversity beyond the Caribbean infux: ‘a lot of specialised knowledge is required regarding the various backgrounds of the colonial people, there are special Unions e.g. Ibo States Union, National Union of Nigeria and Cameroons and the Ijaw Union and tribal afliations.’ Hence the Society had a full-time (and

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hard-worked) colonial welfare worker who ‘is very much a specialist and also he is a coloured worker himself ’: Many of the queries are very much of a specialist nature as well as including the ordinary sort of problems which any citizen might have … He uses all the facilities provided by this Society for the beneft of any of his clients and, when the occasion arises, interviews other people for us provided that they agree.73

In an efort to atract funding, Tompson drew up a report on ‘Colonial Welfare Work with special reference to West Africa’, drawing atention to the factors that had ensured Liverpool’s quiescence during the recent race riots: the long-term presence of West Africans, ‘who have established the basis of the stability which forestalled any incidents in the city’, and the pre-emptive role of the Colonial Welfare Commitee. Having detailed his regular contact with the three main Nigerian Unions (Ibo States, National, and the Cameroons and Ijaw), he catalogued some recent successes in securing jobs in felds where previously coloured workers were excluded: a laundry (which had taken on two Nigerian women, its frst ‘coloured’ employees), a large department store and a shipping company. He also provided a mediation service for those having difculty adjusting to their new jobs, assisted students, undertook prison visits and ofered repatriation advice. Tis all-round package of welfare provision, the Personal Service Society believed, would surely be appreciated by colonies on the verge of independence – the Commissioner of Nigeria, who had previously accorded fnancial aid to help restore Ekarte’s Mission, readily donated £50: However true the impression may be, that people’s problems are the same regardless of race, creed or colour, it is of great interest to the coloured of the City to know that there is established a department solely connected with their Welfare. Every efort is made to tackle the problem of prejudice, as well as that of discrimination … owing to the growth of the work there is a need for additional assistance and it is felt that with the further achievement of independence by the various Colonies, they would wish to support in some way the eforts that are being made to provide beter conditions for their compatriots in this important city and port of Liverpool.74

Tompson also dealt with pre-emigration enquiries from the British West Indies – a section of Te West Indian comes to England was writen by the Colonial Welfare Commitee.75 Te Migrant Services Division,

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of which De Souza was the secretary, sent a number of fact-fnding delegations to the city to meet with Tompson as ‘Liverpool was being used as a patern for future community development in other cities.’ 76 Not everything ran smoothly however. Having opened in October 1958, the Caribbean Centre in Upper Parliament Street had to be re-launched a few months later (with Archbishop Heenan as the guest of honour) as it had ‘not fulflled its object, mainly through a lack of support’. Tere were renewed difculties soon aferwards caused by ‘improper management’, a growing debt burden and writs pending, prompting Tompson to ask De Souza to come to Liverpool to help sort out the mess: ‘it should be setled as soon as possible, otherwise it would have unfortunate repercussion [sic] for the coloured community.’ 77 Following the dissolution of the West Indies Federation, the Jamaican Migrant Service sought the ‘continued goodwill and support’ of the Personal Service Society and its renamed Overseas Welfare Commitee ‘in such maters afecting Jamaicans as may require our joint eforts’.78 Having established its credentials in race relations, the Personal Service Society received a fow of inquiries from those seeking advice. Te Notingham Council of Social Service, for example, sought expert opinion before appointing a full-time liaison ofcer ‘to promote integration rather than segregation’. ‘I am sure it must be very difcult for you in Notingham where you have only recently had a coloured population to integrate them into the local community’, Miss Peck replied: ‘We have always had a coloured population and they are prety well integrated into the community.’ Before detailing the successful recent interventions – the Colonial Welfare Worker, Stanley House Community Centre and the Police Liaison Ofcer – she sought to disabuse any notion of a segregated ‘coloured’ community in Liverpool: Tey do tend to live very much in one area of the city, but this is not because they must but because they want to. When they are eligible for a Corporation house, as some of them are, because they have been born and bred in Liverpool they ask not to be sent away from their own area, they like to be rehoused in the fats in the city. I think this is a point worth making, because one hears so much about the coloured people being segregated whereas, in fact, they like to be together just the same as any English community living abroad is closely knit and likes to be together.79

When the Town Clerk was asked by the Commonwealth Immigrants Advisory Council in January 1963 for information on how the city had

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‘been afected by the arrival of Commonwealth immigrants in recent years’, he turned to the Personal Service Society to provide an extensive report.80 As was now the standard format, the report began by stressing the city’s lengthy experience: Liverpool is rather diferent from some of the other cities, as we have had a permanent coloured population for so many years, the more recent infux of immigrants has not made the same sort of impression in this city as it has in other cities where there were only a few or no coloured citizens.

Ten followed detailed observations drawn ‘from our wide experience but they are not based on actual statistics of which we have none’. Tis disclaimer notwithstanding, the report included an array of interesting fgures. Te ‘coloured’ population was estimated at approximately 10,000 of which ‘50% are probably recent immigrants and the other 50% are coloured people permanently resident in the city.’ Of the immigrants, ‘65% intend to go home and come here to make money to take home.’ Te main countries of origin were 50% West Indies (including some qualifed tradesmen, but mainly general labourers, transport workers and factory hands), 20% West Africa (overwhelmingly seamen), followed by smaller numbers of Somalis (also practically all seamen), Pakistanis (including general labourers and boarding-house keepers as well as seamen), Indians and Chinese (who now specialised in catering). Families were small: ‘in many instances afer the frst one or two children are born others are sent home to their extended families in the West Indies or West Africa.’ Although full use was made of the National Assistance Board, the National Health Service and the Ministry of Labour, there were noticeable reservations: 65% were suspicious of the Health Service ‘as they think that doctors do not examine them properly’; and 50% found their own jobs, many of whom ‘would rather come to agencies, such as ours, than go to the Labour Exchange’. Some ‘fundamental problems’ remained in housing, and unemployment compounded by infated notions of the warmth of welcome and level of wages to be received in Britain, leading to a ‘general inferiority complex and chip on the shoulder’ atitude: ‘crowded and poor living conditions and the ignorant atitude of some “whites” lead to further dissatisfaction.’ However, there were a number of ameliorating factors, promoted by ‘places like Stanley House Community Centre where in terms of control, administration and responsibility all irrespective of colour can take full

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part’. Without wishing to promote discriminatory provision, the report called for education geared to the special needs of ‘coloured’ immigrants: ‘We realise it is desirable wherever possible that they should make use of the ordinary educational facilities, but undoubtedly many of them need special consideration owing to the variation in their educational atainments compared with age.’ Te report concluded with yet another endorsement of the appointment of a special Police Liaison Ofcer: ‘friendly liaison with Police on the Liverpool patern we feel is a great help.’81 How things were to change in subsequent decades.

*** Te name of Superintendent J.G. Morrison, the Police Liaison Ofcer, was proudly appended to the Liverpool list of ‘Organisations active in the feld of race relations’ compiled by the Standing Councils of Social Service in early 1962. As well as the local branches of the International Friendship League and the East-West Friendship Council, this register provided contact details for a signifcant (but by no means exhaustive) number of organisations, ranging from specifc ethnic clubs and societies (based in the Rialto area), to city-wide organisations concerned with housing and accommodation, advice and welfare. Headed by the Personal Service Society (Stanley Street) as the ‘Coordinating Commitee’, the list included: Stanley House Community Centre (Upper Parliament Street), Methodist International Hostel, Federated Pioneer Group (Granby Street), Pakistan Association (Granby Street), British Honduras Union (Parliament Street), Ghana Union (Amberley Street), Nigerian Union (Carter Street), Sierra Leonian Union (Canning Street), World Friendship House (Falkner Square), High Commission for India Consular and Welfare Department (Rodney Street), Pakistani Seamen’s Welfare Ofcer (Cleveland Street, Birkenhead), and the Council of Social Service (Castle Street).82 Trough its extensive network of voluntary social service provision and ethnic associational culture, complemented by friendly police liaison, Liverpool continued to place itself at the head of ‘race relations’ in the 1960s, although, to the dismay of Professor Simey, funds were not forthcoming for continued academic research.83 Renewed in confdence – enjoying what Alderman Cleary described in 1962 as ‘a position of prestige in the city’84 – Stanley House sought to take the agenda forward to ‘community relations’ and decided to expend considerable efort in engaging with teenagers, trusting thereby to allay contemporary fears of ‘juvenile delinquency’.

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Notes 1 D.R. Manley, ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community with Special Reference to the Formation of Formal Associations’, unpublished PhD thesis, University of Liverpool, 1959, pp. 286–92. For a biographical sketch of Payton, see ‘Te Colour Question’, Liverpolitan and Merseyside Digest, 15 Jan. 1953. 2 Manley, ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community’, pp. 168 and 187. 3 Manley, ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community’, ch. 7, ‘Formal Associations’. 4 Ron Ramdin, Te Making of the Black Working Class in Britain, Aldershot: Wildwood, 1987, pp. 377–94. 5 Manley, ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community’, ch.7. Established by merchant seamen in 1935, the Igbo (or Ibo) Union has been hailed as ‘a typical “Black community” organisation where people with a shared experience of racism and isolation decided to come together to improve the social welfare of its members’; from levies raised among themselves they purchased a house in Mulgrave Street as a meeting place and temporary rented accommodation for members, see Angus Chukwuemeka, ‘Te Economic Dimensions of Local Black Community Organisation’ in William Ackah and Mark Christian, (eds), Black Organisation and Identity in Liverpool: a local, national and global perspective, Liverpool: Charles Wooton College Press, 1997, pp. 45–47. Te ‘bankers’ for these collective mutuality unions tended to be ‘headmen’, chosen either on the basis of their former rank back home in West Africa (as in the case of Wally Brown’s Kru seaman father), or ‘someone beter educated and shore-bound, to act as focus for seamen who might not be in port at any one particular time’, see Ray Costello, Black Salt: Seafarers of Afican Descent on British Ships, Liverpool University Press, 2012, pp. 105–06. 6 Manley, ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community’, ch. 8, ‘Te Development of Negro Associations’. 7 Manley, ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community’, pp. 227–43. 8 Te following account makes use of papers in the Liverpool Record Ofce: M329COM/14, Merseyside Communist Party: C.P.D.A. 9 M329COM/14/5, ‘Te United Front with the Colonial People: Report and Proposals arising from discussions in Manchester and Liverpool, Sept 16th–23rd, 1952’. 10 M329COM/14/3, C.P.D.A. General Report 1951–2.

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11 M329COM/14/7, ‘Proposal for the Development of Work Towards Solidarity with Colonial People and their Fraternal Associations’. 12 M329COM/14/2, Notes on the Meeting of the Sub-Commitee of the Labour Party and the Trades Council with the Deputation of the Colonial Population … 29th August 1951’. 13 M329COM/14/1, Annual General Meeting, C.P.D.A., 23 Jan. 1953, pp. 12–13. 14 M329COM/14/5, United Front, and 14/, Proposal. 15 M329COM/14/6, ‘Liverpool – Report on N.I.S. activity’. For an analysis of divisions between Communists and Trotskyists, see Stephen Howe Anticolonialism in British Politics: Te Lef and the End of Empire, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993, pp. 159–66 and 183–87. 16 M329COM/14/7, Proposal. Howe p.  190 notes that while the Pan-African idea itself was far from dead, its British-based manifestations were of limited signifcance afer the major participants dispersed in the late 1940s. 17 M329COM/14/5, United Front. George Padmore, the leading Pan-Africanist, ofered a diferent perspective: ‘It is the fashion among coloured students to be “lef”. But they are never so “lef” as to let themselves be lef behind when the politicians in ofce ofer them jobs! In fact, most of them shed their Marxist garments on returning home and revert to what they have always been at heart – bourgeois nationalists. Some even degenerate into out-and-out tribalists, preaching the most reactionary kind of political mumbo-jumbo as a means of geting themselves elected by legislatures. With these professional Africans, it is largely a case of being “revolutionary” at twenty, moderate at thirty, conservative at forty, and reactionary at ffy. Te British Communist Party will be sadly disappointed if it is relying upon these opportunistic intellectuals to lead the proletarian revolution in Africa!’, George Padmore, Pan-Aficanism or Communism? Te Coming Struggle for Afica, London, Dennis Dobson, pp. 329–30. 18 Manley, pp. 238–43. 19 M329COM/14/1, Annual General Meeting, 8–9. 20 Manley ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community’, pp. 269 and 274. 21 ‘City Move to Combat Racial Prejudice’, Echo 22 June 1952. 22 ‘Bow Group Pamphlet’, Te Times 5 Aug. 1952. 23 ‘Coloured People in Britain’, Te Times 12 Aug. 1952. 24 ‘City Move to Combat Racial Prejudice’, Echo 22 June 1952. 25 Hull History Centre: National Council for Civil Liberties Archive, U DCL/80/10, Liverpool Branch 1954–55. See in particular the leters from Rollins, 22 Aug. 1954, and 21 Aug and 2 Sept. 1955, and Allen’s replies, 30

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Aug. 1954, and 1 and 15 Sept. 1955. For the Ad Hoc commitee formed to protest at the Council’s atempt to ban the screening of Soviet flms at the Philharmonic Hall, see U DCL/7/10. 26 Anthony H. Richmond, Colour Prejudice in Britain: a study of West Indian workers in Liverpool, 1941–1951, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954, p. 166. 27 ‘City Move to Combat Racial Prejudice’, Echo 22 June 1952. Richmond had spoken in similar terms at an ‘informal conference on coloured workers’ held by the British Council of Churches in Liverpool, April 1951: ‘In Liverpool many decent girls go out with coloured men. White people must not assume that a girl associating with a coloured man is a bad type’, see report in Acc 4910, Material relating to Pastor G. Daniels Ekarte. 28 Manley, ‘Te Social Structure of the Liverpool Negro Community’, pp. 267–79. 29 Richard Whitington-Egan, Liverpool Roundabout, Liverpool: Philip Son and Nephew, 1957, pp. 294–302 (‘Drink Dens’). Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Dropping Anchor, Seting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, pp. 43–45 and 219–220, where she notes that the eponymous owner of Dutch Eddie’s, an ex-seaman from Dutch Guyana, became so prosperous as a club proprietor that he was able to launch a side business providing loans to Granby residents. Te names of the clubs are lovingly recalled on local heritage websites, for example www.toxteth.com, which lists no less than 23. 30 Te following account makes use of papers in Liverpool Record Ofce M364 PSS/7, Liverpool Personal Service Society: Colonial Welfare Commitee. 31 M364/7/1, Minutes, 28 June 1954. To facilitate a beter atendance, one of the Stanley House sessions was subsequently held in the evening. 32 M364/7/1/4, leter to Director of Education, 12 Sept. 1955; and Treweek to Peck, 23 July 1955; and 7/1. Minutes 31 May 1954. 33 ‘A Reception Centre with a Diference’, Echo 4 Dec. 1957. M364/7/4, Aldous to Peck, 24 Oct. 1956. 34 ‘West Indian Welfare in Tree Cities’ in Te West Indian Comes to England. A Report prepared for the Trustees of the London Parochial Charities by the Family Welfare Association, London: Routledge, 1960, p. 161: ‘A Colonial Welfare Commitee, consisting of business men, social workers, observers from the statutory departments advises and generally assists the Welfare Worker through the knowledge, experience and wide contacts of the members’. 35 CO 1028/25: Consultative Group on the Problems of Colonial Peoples in the UK, 1952–3. 36 M364/7/1/, Minutes 22 March 1954.

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37 ‘Merseyside Afairs’, Liverpolitan and Merseyside Digest 15 Jan. 1953. 38 M364/7/1/, Minutes 22 March 1954. 39 ‘New group to care for city coloured folk’, Daily Post 26 March 1954. 40 M364/7/1/4, leter to Colonial Secretary, 10 Feb. 1955. 41 M364/7/1, Minutes 26 March 1957; and 7/1/5, report, March 1963. 42 M364/7/1, Minutes 31 May and 29 Nov. 1954. ‘Councillor’s Plea: Bar Entry of Coloured Stowaways’, Post 1 March 1956. CO 1032/195: UK policy on immigration from colonies 1957–58. 43 CO 1032/119: Employment of coloured people in UK: Bill to restrict immigration of British subjects from overseas, 1954. On a more positive note, the Liverpool Group of Conservative Commonwealth Council put forward proposals for a Housing Association scheme to tackle problems of accommodation and congestion for West Indians in the city. Te Colonial Welfare Commitee kept a watching interest in the proposal from a distance given the need to ‘guard against involvement in any scheme run by a political party’, see M364/7/1, Minutes 29 Jan. 1957. 44 CO 1028/34: Leters from West Indian immigrants requesting help from the authorities upon their arrival at Liverpool, 1954–6. 45 M364/7/1, Owen’s Reports on Colonial Welfare Work, Sept. 1953–Aug. 1954 and Sept. 1954–Aug. 1955. 46 M364/7/1/4, leter to Colonial Ofce, 22 Aug. 1955. 47 CO 1028/22: Working Party on Coloured People seeking Employment in the UK, 1952–3. 48 HO 344/106: Chief Constables’ replies to questionnaire on numbers and conduct of coloured people in their areas, 1953. 49 CO 1028/26: PEP survey of Colonial people in the UK, 1952–3. Keith, however, resisted pressure from Racial Unity for a commitee of enquiry into ‘problems’ experienced by the ‘coloured’ population: ‘It would undoubtedly stir up a good deal of interest of an unhelpful character in the position of coloured people, and the coloured people themselves might well feel resentful of an enquiry which singled them out as “problems” and publicised the conditions under which they live, their difculties about work, colour discrimination and so forth’, CO 1028/32: Requests by Racial Unity for a commitee of enquiry into the position of coloured people in the UK, 1954–6. 50 CO 1028/35: Report by Jamaican fact fnding mission on Jamaican migration to the UK, 1955–6; and CO 1028/36: Reports by Jamaican Welfare Liaison Ofcer, 1954–5. 51 CO 1032/119. 52 CO 1032/195. 53 M364/7/1, Report on Colonial Welfare, July–Aug. 1956. 54 M364/7/1/4, Colonial Welfare Work 1956.

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55 56 57 58

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M364/7/1/2, Minutes 29 April 1958. M364/7/1, Minutes 29 Oct. 1957. M364/7/1/4, Aldous 23 Dec. 1957. M364/7/1/5, De Souza 3 Sept. 1959; and see also the earlier correspondence with De Souza over funding in M364/7/1/4, 20 Nov. and 3 Dec. 1957. 59 Tere is much correspondence with the Town Clerk and City Treasurer in M364/7/1/5. 60 M364/7/1/5, Report of City Treasurer to Finance and General Purposes Commitee, 27 June 1962. 61 M364/7/1/5, memorandum, 23 Aug. 1961. 62 M364/7/1/5, leter to Miss Litlejohn, 27 March 1963, and report on Overseas Welfare Work (Colonial), March 1963. 63 M364/7/1/5, leter to Town Clerk, 20 Oct. 1960. 64 M364/7/1/2, Minutes 25 Aug. 1959. 65 Te Question of Colour in Liverpool, Liverpool 1957. 66 Established in 1919, the National Council of Social Service had developed the notion of ‘community service’ in response to growing paterns of suburbanisation around housing estates; local councils of social service (other than in Liverpool) had previously been unconcerned with ‘multiracial’ issues, see Paul Rich ‘Blacks in Britain: Response and Reaction 1945–62’ in his Prospero’s Return? Historical essays on race, culture and British society, London: Hansib, 1994, p. 156. 67 M364/7/1/3, Report presented to the Steering Commitee of the National Council of Social Service for the Welfare of Coloured People … Jan. 1957. 68 M364/7/1/2, Minutes 28 Jan. 1958. 69 Stuart Hall, ‘Racism and Reaction’ in Five Views of Multi-Racial Britain, Commission for Racial Equality, 1978, 27. Michael Rowe, Te Racialisation of Disorder in Twentieth Century Britain, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, pp. 126–27. Rowe suggests that ‘the disorders of 1958–59 relied upon a racialized account of community tensions and that this represented an early example of what is now ofen referred to as the “race relations” approach’ (p. 107). 70 M364/7/1/3, Statistics for 1957–58. 71 M364/7/1/2, Minutes 28 April 1959. 72 M364/7/1/5, Oswald to Peck, 16 March 1959. 73 M364/7/1/5, Peck, 19 March 1959. 74 M364/7/1/3, Report on Colonial Welfare Work with special reference to West Africa, 1959. For fnancial aid to Ekarte, see also, M364/7/1, Colonial Welfare Report, Oct. 1957. 75 Te West Indian Comes to England, pp. 159–62. 76 M364/7/1/2, Minutes 27 Oct. 1959. 77 M364/7/1/2, Minutes, 24 Feb. 1959 and 23 Feb. 1960.

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78 M364/7/1/5, Jamaica Migrant Services, 20 June 1962. 79 M364/7/1/5, correspondence with Notingham, 3 and 10 Aug. 1962. 80 M364/7/1/5, Town Clerk, 16 Jan. 1963. 81 M364/7/1/5, Commonwealth Immigrants Advisory Council, 24 Jan. 1963. 82 Liverpool Record Ofce M364 PSS/7/1/3, Liverpool Personal Service Society, ‘Welfare of Coloured People: Organisations active in the feld of race relations in Britain excluding the London Area’. 83 ‘Most unfortunately my atempts to develop research in race relations in this Department encountered severe checks’, Simey wrote in declining an invitation to atend an NCCL conference in Liverpool on race relations in 1961. Te conference was one of a series organised by NCCL ‘in areas where there is a substantial coloured population, but at a time when there is no overt tension’. Hull History Centre, NCCL Archive U DCL/93/5 Conference on Race Relations in Britain, at Liverpool, 1960–61. 84 Echo 10 Nov. 1962.

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C h a p t e r si x

1960s: race and youth

Te optimism of the Merseybeat years was soon to dissipate: as economic prospects declined, community relations deteriorated, although the local conventional wisdom of racial harmony still prevailed in media, political and ofcial circles. Critical dissent was expressed frst by those concerned with local black youth, as in the report Special but not separate produced by the Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee, an ominous examination of ‘the situation of young coloured people in Liverpool’. Te increasingly dangerous consequences notwithstanding, the discrimination and disadvantage experienced by Liverpool-born black youths had gone unchecked, obscured from public gaze and discussion by the spurious local rhetoric of harmonious relations and the wider national preoccupation with new immigrant arrivals. Evidence presented to the Select Commitee on Race Relations shortly aferwards suggested that Liverpool, so far from being a role model, stood as ominous object lesson, foreshadowing problems to come if British-born children of recent arrivals were to encounter similar levels of discrimination and disadvantage. While the local authorities and politicians continued to vaunt the city’s harmonious reputation, professionals and academics working in community relations looked upon the riots of 1972 as a siren call, warning of trouble ahead elsewhere as British-born black children of the Empire Windrush generation approached adolescence, alienation and racial polarisation. Atitudes towards adolescence were to alter signifcantly in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly for those still stigmatised in some quarters as

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‘half-caste’. Accentuated by the 1958 riots, moral panic about delinquency focused initially on Teddy Boys, the most visible representatives of the rebellious, ‘thuggish’ and delinquent sub-culture among urban white teenagers. Duly demonised as a kind of class (almost race) apart, they were held responsible for initiating racist (and other) violence.1 Proud to have escaped the riots and subsequent ‘deplorable incidents in other parts of the country’, Liverpool had its own distinctive ‘aetiology of delinquency’. A series of studies from the 1930s to the 1950s had drawn atention to dangers posed by ‘older, over-crowded areas where the population is of mixed racial origin, and where exceptional degrees of poverty and casual employment are found’. J.B. Mays’ infuential study Growing up in the City, focused on ‘interstitial areas’ between central Liverpool and its line of docks, described in the introduction by Richard Titmuss as ‘a delinquency-producing area’. While the book drew atention to ‘gangs of juveniles in the area which are either entirely or predominantly composed of coloured children’, Mays sought to provide academic caution and perspective, noting that it was ‘possible to exaggerate the sordid aspects of life within the area. Tey can be paralleled with similar localities in other great seaports’.2 Eforts and initiatives by Stanley House and others throughout the 1960s to provide facilities and opportunities in this distinctive and challenging environment were steadily hindered by changing atitudes elsewhere. Prompted by anxieties in cities previously unused to a multiracial presence, there was a fundamental shif in urban pathology: no longer the preserve of the Teddy Boy, violence, crime (particularly ‘mugging’) and delinquency came to be identifed primarily with black inner-city youth. Implanted in Liverpool, this transmogrifcation terminated cordial liaison between the black community and the local police (with their own special stop and search powers), removing a central prop of the formerly vaunted race relations.

*** Tere had been atempts in the late 1950s to establish youth clubs to cater primarily for Liverpool’s black population, but none seems to have lasted or made much impact. From the early 1960s Stanley House put on a number of events specifcally for teenagers. In 1961, for example, there was ‘a competition of sound systems’ between locals and 120 visiting West Indians from Birmingham, who brought their sound system in a

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lorry, disturbance kept to a minimum thanks to the Centre’s location, between a garage and a street corner. 3 Te lack of adjacent outdoor space other than the concrete yard at the back, however, denied the newly established multi-racial football team of 16 to 18 year olds (with appropriate black and white-striped kit) a home venue for matches in the Liverpool Boys’ Association League.4 Te following year, afer persistent lobbying by Bessie Braddock, adequate funds were fnally secured from the Ministry of Education and the City Council to begin conversion of the basement in Stanley House into a youth club with an ultra-modern cofee bar, juke box and gymnasium – with an outside foodlit quad for fve-a side football and netball. At a cost in excess of £10,000, the project, the local press reported, will help to achieve one of the objects of the centre – to provide the means of promoting the moral, mental and physical well-being of coloured children and those of mixed blood, together with their white child relatives and friends in the United Kingdom, by the establishment and maintenance of facilities for educational and physical training and classes and youth organisations. 5

Able to accommodate 100 teenagers a night, the refurbished facilities were opened in October 1963 by Francis Dennis, Counsellor to the Liberian Ambassador to Britain. ‘By creating a healthy and conducive atmosphere in which your young people must develop’, he averred, ‘you are helping not only the children but the community that must measure up to the tasks of combating acts of crime, misdemeanour and lawlessness.’6 Tere was an accompanying fanfare of Merseypride publicity in the local press for ‘what is believed to be Britain’s frst youth club for coloured teenagers’. Ninety percent of the initial membership of 120 were ‘coloured’, but, as the Daily Post emphasised, ‘the centre’s aim is to foster friendship between the races, as illustrated by their symbol of black hand clasping white.’ 7 Bessie Braddock took to the radio airwaves on the BBC’s ‘Te Week’s Good Cause’ to raise funds for this pioneer ‘atempt to atract the youths of all races and creeds in the area, and to train them to be useful citizens’. At the heart of a ‘tough area’, the club would ‘give the youngsters of Princes Park an opportunity to enjoy themselves and keep out of trouble until they lef the Club at 18 with a proper respect for the law and an appreciation of what innocent enjoyment means’.8 A young Nigerian, Tony Akomah, who had spent two years at the LSE followed by a year’s youth leadership course at Swansea

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University, was appointed club leader, in charge of a wide range of activities designed to expend the ‘surplus energy’ of ‘some of the toughest kids in the North-West’: boxing, football, volley ball, table tennis and woodwork for the boys, domestic crafs, rounders and netball for the girls, along with dancing and ‘other mixed social activities’.9 An investment against delinquency, the new facilities at Stanley House also held out the prospect of social mobility (and/or celebrity) through the ‘gheto’ pathways of sport and music. Te arrival in Liverpool in the 1950s of champion boxers from Nigeria served as role models for young black lads using the new gymnasium. ‘Te history of Stanley House is studded with the names of top class boxers – among them two world champions in Hogan Bassey and Dick Tiger,’ the Liverpool Weekly News reported, trusting that ‘the new gymnasium will provide a background for more.’10 Bessie Braddock, a keen boxing fan, became very friendly with Hogan ‘Kid’ Bassey, world featherweight champion, and encouraged him to use his infuence beyond the young hopefuls in the gymnasium. During a biter dispute over ‘racial discrimination’ with Elder Dempster, Bessie and her husband Jack accompanied Bassey to Stanley House to intervene on behalf of the aggrieved Nigerian seamen (technically deserters) who had taken refuge there. ‘Today the Nigerian seaman enjoys a far higher standard of living than the Asiatic seaman,’ Braddock recorded in her autobiography: ‘indeed, the Nigerian seaman is much beter of than most of his countrymen. Bassey played a part in this.’11 While good use was made of the gymnasium, the most successful feature of the new youth club was the live music provided by the resident band, ‘the new coloured pop singing group, Te Chants’.12 One of several black harmony acts in the Rialto area, Te Chants – one of whose songs, ‘One Star’, writen by Eddie Amoo, credited to ‘Stanley Houseman’ – subsequently evolved in the following decade into the chart-topping Real Ting and then, marking the change in community relations, into a political black British band (a niche which led almost to obscurity).13 As the landfall of American popular culture, Liverpool (and its sharpsuited ‘Cunard Yanks’) was well-placed for white bands to emulate and adapt black American music, but insufcient atention (and credit) has been accorded to the indigenous black Liverpudlian contribution to the fourishing of Merseybeat – to those who, as a TV documentary acknowledged, ‘put the beat in Merseybeat’.14 Having learnt much in their formative period from the Liverpool 8-born Somali-Irish guitarist

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Figure 12: Revered as the ‘Queen Mother’ by black and ethnic minority groups, ‘Batling’ Bessie Braddock, MP for Liverpool Exchange, welcomed to her constituency surgery ‘Chinese, Africans, Indians, Pakistanis, Jamaicans, Adenese, Arabs – every race and colour you can think of ’. A great boxing fan, she worked closely with the Nigerian Hogan ‘Kid’ Bassey, world featherweight champion, not only to encourage young hopefuls in the Stanley House gym but also to assist West African seamen in dispute with Elder Dempster.

Vinnie Tow (later Ismail) and the Trinidadian-Liverpudlian steelpannist (and club owner) ‘Lord’ Woodbine (Harold Phillips), the Beatles were quick to appreciate the Chants (briefy managed by Brian Epstein) and invited them to play at the Cavern.15 Te optimism of the early 1960s was perhaps best captured by a photograph of Te Chants at the Town Hall along with the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress and Bessie Braddock to welcome Te Beatles back from their triumphant tour of America.16 Te success of the youth club was replicated in other activities at Stanley House. Following the re-opening in premises at the Community Centre rented by the Local Education Authority, the Nursery School

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Figure 13: Afer their triumphant 1964 tour of America, the Beatles share a joke at Liverpool Town Hall with local black vocal group the Chants, who frst came to notice at Stanley House Youth Club. Part of the insufciently acknowledged local black contribution to Merseybeat, the Chants, briefy managed by Brian Epstein, were invited to play the Cavern by the Beatles. Lef to right: Nat Smeda, John Lennon, Lord Mayor Louis Caplan, Edmund Ankarah, Eddie Amoo, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Joey Ankarah, Alan Harding, Bessie Braddock MP, George Harrison and (seated) Mayoress Fanny Bodeker.

gained favourable reports from HM Inspectors: by 1960, there was a two-and-a-half-year waiting list for places.17 Much praised in the press, a Ladies Commitee was formed by ‘Stanley House womenfolk, English, African, West Indian and other nationalities’ to raise money for children’s outings to the seaside, trips for the old folks, and ‘recreational equipment for the Youth Centre to keep the youngsters of the streets’.18 Taking advantage of changes in licensing regulations, the warden was able to report that he had ‘eliminated those who only saw in Stanley House the opportunity to carry on drinking afer the ordinary licensed premises have closed’. Henceforth, it was proposed to adopt a working men’s club model with reduced bar prices so that ‘the pleasure and the privilege

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will be all the greater when they are more economically obtained.’ A number of organisations made regular use of the premises: the warden’s report for 1963 (the one annual report for this period to be held in the local Record Ofce) listed Jamaican (Merseyside) Ltd, the Caribbean Social Club, the Evangelical Church of God and the Ghana Union of Great Britain and Ireland.19 As decolonisation proceeded apace, the taint of Colonial Ofce involvement fnally dissipated. Te local branch of the Ghana Convention People’s Party held its inaugural meeting there in August 1963;20 a dinner was held to celebrate the independence of Guyana in May 1966;21 a few months later the new fag of Barbados was fown there for the frst time in Britain.22 ‘Te hand-clasp of black and white that is the symbol of Stanley House, is more frmly established in Liverpool than in any other town,’ the Daily Post proudly recorded.23 Stanley House, indeed, seemed to be leading the way forward towards community relations, ‘an example of integration which could well be copied by other parts of the country’, Alderman Cleary opined at the annual general meeting in 1965.24 Te following year, Liverpool acquired its frst black policeman, Neville George Brown. Although there had been black appointments in Coventry and Birmingham a few months before, PC Brown, son of a Jamaican father and English mother, was the frst British-born black policeman in the country.25 Despite such encouraging developments, the Stanley House annual report in January 1967, published in the press under the headline, ‘Complacency On Race Relations’, struck a note of caution. Recent improvements in relations had occurred in ‘comparatively easy years’, a period of relative peace afer ‘the earlier troubles between various race elements in other parts of Britain and the Commonwealth’. Furthermore, economic conditions had been favourable: ‘we have had bouts of unemployment on Merseyside, but nothing approaching a major recession.’ ‘Te problems of Liverpool’s coloured population may be out of sight at present,’ the report cautioned: ‘It is important that they are not allowed to drop out of mind.’26 Te following year any suggestion of complacency or optimism was cast aside by publication of Special but not separate: Te Report of a Working Party of the Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee on the situation of young coloured people in Liverpool. ‘Te title – “Special but not separate”’, the Working Party explained, ‘is to emphasise our concern that problems of colour should not be tackled separately from a total atack on community problems’. Te ideal, frst articulated by Roy Jenkins in a speech to the National Co-ordinating

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Conference of Voluntary Liaison Commitees and reiterated in the recently published Hunt Report on Immigrants and the Youth Service, was for ‘full integration’, defned ‘not as a fatening process of assimilation but as equal opportunity, accompanied by cultural diversity, in an atmosphere of mutual tolerance’. Leters and questionnaires were sent out to the widest range of social service agencies (statutory and voluntary), local government departments, youth organisations, community centres and churches in Liverpool, but the information thereby acquired came mainly from ‘white professional and business people’. Tese ‘limitations’ notwithstanding, the Working Party decided to publish its Report ‘for urgent but sober discussion, since our fndings compel us to believe that there is a need for more positive thinking about the question of colour in Liverpool’.27 Where the Personal Service Society had tended to indulge in self-congratulation the Working Party brought a critical edge to discussion of Liverpool’s vaunted pre-eminence in race relations: Since coloured people have lived in Liverpool for much longer than in most other cities in this country, we thought that anything we could show of the consequences and particularly the problems of their life here might help people in other places where frst generation immigrants are now trying to setle.

Liverpool might still serve as role model, but, as became apparent during the research, race relations in the city needed to be understood as a unique (and worrying) case apart. Obscured by the national preoccupation with immigration, the discrimination and disadvantage experienced by Liverpool-born black youths lay concealed (and festering) beneath the spurious local rhetoric of harmonious relations. ‘We were concerned that, although Liverpool has ofen been described as the most integrated city in this country’, the Preface explained, ‘we should seek to assess the situation and ensure that harmonious relationships between white and coloured sections of the community are in fact continued.’ Although of limited numerical impact in Liverpool, immigration led to further fracture within the black ‘community’, accentuating the discrimination and disadvantage experienced by Liverpool-born blacks: … the exclusive cultures of the immigrants are as alien to a Liverpoolborn coloured child as to his white neighbours; and that locally born coloured people are ofen rejected by immigrant groups, possibly because immigrants generally have middle-class aspirations and reject the locally

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born coloured as part of the white sub-culture, which is disapproved of by the middle-class.

Research for the Report focused on the half-mile ‘area’ to the southward side of Upper Parliament Street, where the population was 40% black and ‘the coloured person is generally taken for granted but not necessarily fully accepted.’ Particular atention was accorded to those youth clubs catering for ‘coloured teenagers’, listed in descending order of importance: Stanley House; Princes Park Methodist Youth Club, Scouts and Guides; Rodney Youth Centre; David Lewis Mixed Youth Club; Unity Boys’ Club; York House Boys Club; and Wellington Avenue Methodist Youth Club. At the time of the enquiry, Stanley House was closed for redecoration and the Youth Club temporarily suspended pending the appointment of a new leader – a report in the Daily Post noted the resignation of the previous leader, Samuel Mercier, who, to the dismay of the management commitee, had allowed a reduction in activities and teenage focus, regarding the main purpose of the club as ‘to act as a refuge for the children of the neighbourhood, in particular coloured children … if an elder child were lef to look afer younger children, then the elder should be allowed to bring them to the club’.28 Even so, the Working Party applauded the two-fold mission of the Community Centre: Tis is to present Stanley House as a place where standards both of provision and behaviour are visibly maintained; and secondly, to foster the integration of Stanley House members into the community as a whole by promoting opportunities for service by them.

Such provision notwithstanding, employment prospects for young black adults were bleak. Investigation of 10,000 jobs in the retail sector found that only 0.75% of the employees were ‘coloured’, a fgure which dropped even lower, to 0.1%, in city centre stores; seven stores had no ‘coloured’ employees at all, while others restricted their employment to locations out of public view, such as stock rooms and staf canteens. In factories, 2% of employees were ‘coloured’ (one factory alone employed 500 black workers, without which the percentage would have fallen to the retail fgure of 0.75%). Concealed from the local public, ‘coloured’ workers were, however, welcomed in some industries directed to the export market: Some frms employing a relatively high proportion of skilled coloured workers said that this was deliberate policy. Tey had many connections

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overseas and many trainees from overseas subsidiary frms. Tey were convinced that their reputation for complete racial impartiality helped their high export record considerably.

Before they encountered discrimination in the labour market, Liverpool-born black teenagers, the Working Party reported with concern, found themselves vulnerable and insecure whenever away from ‘the area’, their local schools (where, however, it was the Chinese and new immigrants who tended to be chosen rather than the locally born as ‘coloured’ prefects) and their own youth clubs: In the Liverpool 8 area they were taken for granted, but consciousness of their colour became extreme when they went outside the area. Tere was no overt colour bar in the city’s shops or amusement centres, but young coloured people felt very insecure in public spaces with which they were not familiar and felt that they were ofen rebufed. As in the city centre, so too in all-white working-class districts, coloured youth felt particularly insecure. Tey tried to go out in groups especially with some white friends. Tey felt that any atempt to visit an all-white youth club was an open invitation to violence, and they were quite sure that when violence did break out between white and coloured, the Police ofen discriminated against the coloured.

Hence the Working Party concluded their inquiry ‘with a deep sense of unease’: We have come to believe that the long-established myth in Liverpool of non-discrimination between people of diferent racial characteristics, however well-meaning in intention, disguises a lamentable indiference and lack of understanding. Within the areas where considerable numbers of coloured people are living there is some overt hostility, but hostility is more evident in all-white down-town areas; in middle-class areas prejudice is expressed by indiference. In this situation, especially considering the publicity given to overt racial prejudice in other parts of the country, there are the seeds of confict which we believe will grow unless steps are urgently and deliberately taken to encourage real integration.

Te Report duly concluded with a list of recommendations, combining moves to what would subsequently be dubbed ‘political correctness’ with a tentative excursion into positive discrimination. Ofensive language such as ‘half-castes’, the continuing legacy of the Fletcher Report, should be abandoned; the school curriculum should be expanded in all local

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schools to include the rich cultural heritage of Africa, Asia and the West Indies, along with improved afer-care provision for all school-leavers – ‘the difculties with which young coloured people usually have to cope on their own are considerable, but we do not recommend separate provision for them.’ However, there should be positive discrimination in the Youth Employment Service with colour-aware record keeping and ‘at least one person in each Youth Employment Ofce who knows the social and psychological difculties of the locally born coloured and who should be responsible for the creation of an on-going policy to overcome these difculties’. To encourage progress towards full integration, the City Council should recognise ‘Special Priority Areas’ and a proper framework of Community Relations should replace the Overseas Welfare Commitee of the Personal Service Society as the co-ordinating body. For all the unease and concern, the Report came to a conclusion with an evocation of Merseypride as it looked forward to a new era in race relations: In concluding our Report we should like to express our belief that the citizens of Liverpool with their long tradition of social experiment and hospitality will be able to respond to the challenge to build a richly integrated community and we commend a consideration of our Report as a contribution to this end.

Tis startling report notwithstanding, complacent orthodoxy persisted among the local establishment. While other areas grappled with problems of immigrants from the new commonwealth, Liverpool sought to rest on its laurels, proud of its long record of ‘colour-blind’ policies. Given such self-assurance, funds for research into race relations in the city were not forthcoming, still a mater of regret to Professor Lord Simey and the Department of Social Science: ‘since it has been commonly assumed that Liverpool has no colour problem, aid for the subject has been, and still is, sparse.’29 In a reprise of the response to the wartime report by John Carter of the LCP, the Local Education Authority, still preening itself on its ‘colour-blind’ stance, took the lead in condemning Special but not separate, castigating its contents as contradictory, infammatory and dangerous. Such a view was shared by the overwhelming majority of witnesses who appeared before the House of Commons Select Commitee on Race Relations and Immigration as it prepared for its frst feld of investigation: ‘the problems of coloured school-leavers’. Te Commitee spent two days gathering evidence in the city in March

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1969, 30 much to the vexation of those who resented any questioning of Liverpool’s racial harmony: Employers were bafed, and trade unionists irritated, by the commitee’s energy in trying to uncover a problem which Liverpudlians emphatically deny exists … Employers and unions agreed that they had received no complaint about discrimination in Liverpool and that if, as was suggested, coloured people felt they were less than welcome in some occupations, it could be that they were oversensitive. 31

A united phalanx of councillors, council ofcers, employers and trade unionists upheld the city’s proud record of cordial race relations, an equilibrium not to be put at risk by unnecessary, unwise and counterproductive ‘sociological’ experiments in ethnic monitoring or positive discrimination. Tere was one employer, however, who broke ranks. Litlewoods Stores stood forward as an equal opportunities employer with a target of achieving at least 5% of local staf as ‘coloured’. Despite recruitment visits to Stanley House, however, a lack of applicants kept the fgure below target, at 3.4%, in telling contrast to its Oxford Street store in London where 32% of the staf were ‘non-European’ and the word ‘coloured’ was banned. 32 (In their evidence, Lewis’s confrmed that they had no ‘coloured’ employees as counter staf in their Liverpool departmental store, but employed ‘blacks’ at Selfridge’s in London’s West End). 33 Te orthodox line was propounded with particular fervour by representatives of the trades unions and the Trades Council, although with ill-concealed regret at a recent change in atitude among the local ‘coloured communities’. Deference within organised labour had given way to new independent aspirations, ‘or what is very ofen looked on as aggressiveness’: ‘Tey no longer, if you like, look on Mrs Braddock as being the queen mother who will do everything for them. Tey are going to do it for themselves.’ Gone were the good old days of the ‘coloured people’s commitee’ established under Eric Hefer’s presidency of the Trades Council: ‘Tere was hostility in 1969 where in 1959 we were welcomed and they even allowed us to organise them. Tey would not allow us to organise them in 1969.’34 Hefer, now MP for Walton in the city’s (almost exclusively white working-class) north end, and a member of the Select Commitee, was unremitingly critical of the minority of witnesses who dared to contest Liverpool’s proverbial racial harmony (and by implication its essential proletarian solidarity). In gruf manner, he lambasted the

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evidence presented by the Working Party of Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee as selective, impressionistic and lacking any ‘factual’ or statistical basis, while simultaneously applauding the refusal of authorities and employers (Litlewoods apart) to keep records based on colour. 35 Although stunned by the hostile reception to their report and by the tone (and illogicality) of some of the questioning in commitee, the Working Party representatives stood their ground, insisting (in the words of Miss Press, their secretary) that the problem in Liverpool ‘is a colour problem, and not a straight immigrant problem’. ‘Experience in Liverpool’, they asserted in defance of the conventional wisdom, ‘seems to suggest that problems of race relations become even more intractable as time goes on’. Hence the urgent need for some form of record keeping based on ‘colour’ (although this was still contentious in some parts of the black community) as a necessary preliminary to measures of positive discrimination: ‘if you do not discriminate in favour of, you are discriminating against by what you are failing to do.’36 One of the members of the Working Party, Patrick McNabb, research lecturer in the Department of Social Science (and Liverpool 8 resident), submited a lengthy individual memorandum surveying generational, gender and class tensions within the black and minority ethnic communities in Liverpool before criticising the authorities for their failure to act, their ‘sins of omission’: It should be remembered that the sins of omission are probably more signifcant in their consequences than the sins of commission. For example, the refusal of those in positions of authority to recognise the existence of racial problems until the situation becomes critical and it is too late to take efective action. Or the refusal to keep records however unpleasant a task this may be, when this is essential for the control of the problem. Or the omission by planning and housing authorities to consider seriously the consequences of their activities for race relations. Tis is particularly signifcant where the paterns of clearance and re-housing may break economic and social structures … Tis may also accelerate the growth of deprivation in certain areas as well as producing, more or less accidentally, segregation. 37

What caused McNabb particular concern was the disturbing evidence of increased segregation among youths, most notably in youth clubs and gangs, a trend (accompanied by escalating violence) vividly portrayed in Timeri Murari’s ‘documentary’ novel of the period, Te New Savages. 38 In the context of Liverpool, ‘the problems of coloured school-leavers’

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related mainly to local-born youths of mixed parentage, still described by most witnesses at the Select Commitee in the vocabulary of the Fletcher Report. Yet again, the ‘half caste youth’ was categorised as anti-social and violent, ‘responsible for a very large number of the serious crimes against the person which occur in Liverpool in the early hours of the morning and late at night’. Mugging was a particular concern. ‘Almost invariably the description of the ofenders is that they are a number of half-caste youths who rob and knock the person down and beat him up and get away,’ the Deputy Chief Constable reported, adding that ‘the pure immigrant does not give us any problem at all.’39 Charles Mougne, the warden of Stanley House, addressed the Commitee in similar but more sympathetic vein: I fnd it that it is not the pure-blooded youngsters, but the products of mixed marriages, the Liverpool-born people, who are the ones who are most up against it, who refuse to accept help on the whole … when they leave school they have no proper qualifcations and they get the lowest sort of jobs, the menial jobs, the labouring jobs. Tey get fed up with that very quickly. Some of them are of quite high intelligence and active-minded, and they turn to crime. Terefore, we have a lot of our Liverpool-born youngsters, who are in trouble with the police. It is these youngsters who I feel are our biggest problem in this city.40

McNabb’s articulation of the ‘problem’ was on an altogether diferent plane, sounding a siren call for post-colonial Britain. Denied acceptance as white British, adolescent Liverpudlians of mixed parentage were now adopting a militant black identity, charting a path which others might follow: Te locally born young coloured people of mixed parentage present the most difcult problem for the future of race relations in Liverpool … It is fairly certain that in present circumstances, if young people of other races who are in rebellion against the traditions of their own culture, fnd that through discrimination, full participation in English culture is also barred, then they are very likely to follow the lead to [sic] the Liverpool-born coloured. It is my opinion that the polarization of white and coloured into two opposing groups will be initiated and developed by the Liverpool-born coloured.41

Challenged by Hefer, McNabb rejected the notion that polarisation was simply a response to Enoch Powell’s emotive rhetoric.42 Over time, Liverpool-born black youths, or Afro-English as he preferred to call

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them, had become acutely self-conscious of ‘colour’ and as such were now ‘over-prepared for prejudice and discrimination’: Although the physical and economic conditions prevailing in the district handicap both white and coloured, colour is, in a very special way, an additional alienating factor for the Afro-English, which cannot be surmounted by improvement in these conditions alone. Unlike the immigrant, the Afro-English are acutely conscious of their colour as a disability … Tey discover they cannot be accepted as white simply by choice: colour remains an insurmountable barrier.43

Denied entry into mainstream white culture, they were now turning to ‘black power’ in which organised violence – through segregated youth clubs and gang membership – led to black self-esteem.44 Te New Savages provided descriptions of the evening training in the Cathedral grounds of the Young Panthers, ‘scaling walls, sprinting, physical jerks, atacks, defence. Like faint shadows, always one step behind, they followed the movements of the American Black Panthers’. ‘Apart from one or two of the older boys, who became the leaders, none of them read much philosophy,’ Murari observed: What had reached them across the Atlantic was the image. Te leather coats, the dark glasses, the clenched fsts raised in salute. For the frst time they belonged to something and it gave them a brief and exhilarating sense of identity. It wasn’t only the uniforms – brown leather jackets – but also the knowledge that across the ocean were a people similar to themselves. A black population, like themselves, the descendants of slaves, besieged in a white country, with no country of their own to return to.45

A badge of identity, style and esteem rather than a politicised roots culture, ‘Black power’ of this order also infltrated the school system, most notoriously at Paddington Comprehensive, a purpose-built ‘multiracial’ secondary school opened in 1968 with a planned 12 form entry. Headquarters of the Liverpool Education Priority Area, a pioneer exercise in ‘positive discrimination’ (or additional resources) in line with the Plowden Report, the school – surrounded by older, decaying property and slum clearance schemes – served an area characterised by ‘social incompetence, educational under-achievement, unsuitable families, low ambition and alienation from the mainstream of society’. Having visited the school on its return to Liverpool in 1973, the Select Commitee lef with ‘a profound sense of unease’, regarding Paddington as ‘symbolic of

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the situation in Liverpool as a whole’. Although properly appointed, the school stood half empty, shunned by white parents ‘unwilling to send their children to a school where there were many coloured children’. At 24% of the roll in 1973, ‘Liverpool-born coloured’ pupils had come to regard the school as their own (although there was only one ‘Liverpoolborn coloured’ on the teaching staf and there were no plans to introduce a Black Studies department). Group solidarity ensured on-premises immunity from racialist atack, but it also fostered an atitude which caused problems for some teachers, who hesitated to criticise pupils for fear of being accused of prejudice. Out of school, group solidarity took physical and violent form: on some occasions, white and black would unite against ‘peaceful and industrious’ Chinese pupils; stone throwing and atacks on innocent bystanders became ‘accepted as normal’. ‘Te Chinese and the English parents do not want to send their children to Paddington because of the violence afer school fnishes,’ the Commitee was informed: ‘Tere is one school which deliberately sends its pupils home earlier than Paddington because of this.’ Out-of-school gangs were the most serious source of concern: ‘Coloured youths move about in a group for protection. Tey get into fghts and may appear in court. Te result has been a development of anti-police, anti-establishment, anti-adult atitude among coloured youths.’ Ten there was the feeling of hopelessness at the end of the school career with litle prospect of employment: ‘Political activists have used this despair. Black Power, ill understood by our pupils has had the efect of causing pupils to become educational drop-outs.’ While there were some white youths who also rejected school, it had become a mater of self-esteem among Liverpoolborn blacks, a major problem which the school did not know how to handle: ‘the coloured can feel a kind of pride in their rejection of school. It is a blow struck for black freedom and against white tyranny.’46 Stanley House, picked out for praise in Special but not separate, failed to adjust to the new black youth culture, despite the introduction of an experimental regime when the Youth Club re-opened. Appointed in September 1971 (afer a three-year period of high staf turnover and no full-time leader) Chris Elphick abolished membership and subscription (‘we aimed to create a free environment for anyone to feel free to use when they wished’) and tried to implement a ‘group method’ of running the club in line with ‘total community control’. A number of long-standing obstacles hindered the project: inadequate fnances (the Management Commitee did their best, but were busy businessmen overburdened by

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the huge overdraf they had to carry on their shoulders); the poor state of the basement premises, ‘certainly not conducive to any form of creative environment’; and difcult relationships with the Community Centre upstairs: Tere is a history of problems between the community centre and the youth club – in the past it has been between the immigrants who use the centre upstairs and the Liverpool born black kids who use the club. Tere is ofen confict between the two groups. We had litle help from staf of the centre.

Te main problem, however, was within the group, riven by tensions and jealousies, and composed for the most part of non-Liverpool 8 residents. A white outsider himself, Elphick was forced to abandon the experiment and close the club in the spring of 1972 following police complaints: I realise that most youth leaders, social workers, teachers etc. are appointed in similar ways with litle or no knowledge of the areas into which they are going. Tis must change – no number of outsiders will ever help an area like Liverpool 8. Organisation must come from within and action likewise. Unfortunately at Stanley House we were not open long enough to see community control become a reality but it is important and necessary for the survival of areas like Liverpool 8.47

Once a fagship project, the Stanley House Youth Club came under withering criticism in the evidence presented by Liverpool’s recently formed Community Relations Council (LCRC) to the Select Commitee: Most Youth Leaders/Workers in Liverpool tend to treat black people in the same manner as their white counterpart. Not recognising the additional pressure the black youngster meets with, the result being the closure from time to time of youth clubs which the black youngsters atend. Te obvious need is for local black people to run these clubs. Stanley House Community Centre is an example. Te Management Commitee (predominantly comprising of [sic] people who live outside the area) appoint a Youth leader to work at the club, who has never met or spoken to a black person. One does not need to expand on the future of such a club.48

White middle-class leadership, however, remained the norm. Afer the closure of Stanley House, local black youths transferred either to Princes Park Methodist Youth Centre (where Ewen Gilhespy struggled to cope with the popularity of the Tursday evening disco),49 or to the Blackie,

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Figure 14: Troughout the 1960s to the 1981 riots and beyond, the ‘Methodist’ on Princes Avenue ofered local black youth much-needed recreational amenities and facilities. Tere was considerable controversy in 1969, however, when ‘a Chinese-negroid Jesus Christ, fying upwards, as if on a trampoline, away from the rude grafti’ appeared on the church wall. Expressively portrayed by Arthur Dooley, the avowedly working-class ‘communist/Catholic’ Liverpool sculptor, the ‘black Christ’, located at the heart of Liverpool 8, has since become a distinctive symbol of the area’s resilience.

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the Great George Project run by Bill and Wendy Harp, the very personifcation, Murari noted, of middle-class disciplines of control, of success, of achievement: ‘However, no mater how much they succeeded in making the Blackie work, they couldn’t get the kids to identify with them always. Tey came from a diferent civilisation.’ As black youths took over the Blackie, white youths – or ‘boot boys’ – claimed York House, run by the University Setlement, as their exclusive club. When youth clubs closed for the summer, the gangs came into their own. 50 According to some commentators, the ‘so-called “race riots”’ of August 1972 were no more than ‘fghts between gangs from three adjacent territories, trying to gain control of the no-man’s-land between them’. ‘True, in the main, the groups were black and white’, New Society noted in its ‘Anatomy of a riot’ (accompanied by a large-scale map of the ‘batle zone’ in the Myrtle Gardens and Falkner Street area), ‘but, it is now quite clear that this has as much signifcance for racial harmony as the one-time batles between Mods and Rockers at the sea-side on a bank holiday Monday’. 51 Tere was some suggestion too that the disturbances were a copy-cat reaction to television coverage of the troubles in Northern Ireland. For some months there had been skirmishes in the area between the white ‘John Bulls, jays or skins’ and the black ‘niggers’, but tension increased considerably following the summer closure of youth clubs (including that frequented by the Earle Road skinheads) and as a result of what an ofcer of the Liverpool Community Relations Council (LCRC) described as ‘the total lack of facilities for young people during the holidays’. In four nights of rioting in early August, hundreds of windows were broken, several cars damaged, rival barricades erected, a crude petrol bomb thrown, a policeman concussed afer a brick was thrown through the window of his Police Land Rover, and a black youth stabbed. Having discharged himself from hospital, Delroy Burris returned to join his mates preparing to rush the barricades and refused to make a statement to the police, considering it a waste of time: ‘Te atitude refects what seems to be one of the basic problems’, the Guardian reported: ‘Most of the coloured and half-caste youths in the area believe the police favour the white gangs, and allege that on several occasions police have been called to help coloured youths under atack and have not done so.’ Te Daily Post rued the cost of the riots, which had lef ‘not only damage to Corporation houses and fats but also confusion, anger and mistrust between members of the white and coloured communities’. 52 Looking back a year or so later, the Neighbourhood Projects Group

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sought to put the events (which had led to 11 arrests and the jailing of community worker Roy Murphy) in perspective: Te riots, although they received much lurid publicity at the time, were a tempest in a teapot compared to their American gheto counterparts. Still, they were extreme manifestations of violence that was usually contained or rationed out in small skirmishes between rival gangs. Basically, the riots were fghts between two young local gangs, one mainly white, the other mainly coloured, on a site between their two territories. 53

Te disputed territory – the Falkner Street/Myrtle Gardens area – was at the heart of one of the city’s biggest slum clearance zones. Initial reports of the rioting (subsequently refuted by investigation of gang involvement) atributed the outbreak of violence to ‘jealousy’ over re-housing, to ‘white resentment at shining new houses for niggers’. Some 85% of the new Falkner Place development, with its modern facilities and gardens, had gone to ‘coloured or mixed’ families, hence its prompt designation as the ‘nig-nog centre’ by the established white residents of Windsor Gardens, an adjacent and rather tired late 1930s tenement block. Tere was no question of preferential allocation, however, simply the logical outcome of choice given the colour-blind operation of Council policy: white families re-housed from Liverpool 8 tended to opt for outer estates while black families chose to stay as close as possible. Te Council, along with community workers, endeavoured to play the violence down, ‘not so much because they feel there is deep-seated racial hatred’, the Daily Post observed, ‘but because they fear that the atentions of television and the Press are likely to infame what is already a delicate situation’. 54 1972 marked a turning point in racial atitudes and in police/ community relations, a few years ahead of watershed confrontations elsewhere between blacks and the police during the long hot summer of 1976. 55 ‘It wasn’t the physical side of the fghting that hurt’, Murari observed: Te wounds were inficted by words and emotions. Both had lain dormant for so many years and now, when they spewed out, like acid they stung and scarred the combatants. Te black man in Liverpool, conditioned for so long into believing himself an equal, had his eyes suddenly opened. It was as if the lids had been ripped of and now the eyes would forever remain wide open. He was black, alien and unwanted.

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Te white, who in turn had been conditioned to believe himself racially tolerant, discovered an antagonism he never knew existed. Neither side has ever recovered. 56

Some journalists, most notably John Charters in Te Times, clung to the old myth once relative order was restored afer the ‘clif-hanger’ violence of the August riots: ‘Liverpool really is a racially integrated city with all its ancient history of men of all types, creeds and colours arriving from over the seas, setling down, marrying and living here reasonably happily.’ Other commentators, however, were far less complacent, viewing the riots as confrmation of McNabb’s pessimistic and prescient comments to the Select Commitee, an early warning of trouble ahead elsewhere as British-born black children of the Empire Windrush generation approached adolescence, alienation and racial polarisation. Prompted by McNabb’s siren call, Colin McGlashan of the Observer began a journey through young black England, starting ‘Inside England’s Oldest Gheto’: Te district that is called simply Liverpool 8 is England’s oldest gheto, an area of the recognisably deprived whose children rarely escape to advancement. Yet in its crumbling terraces black and white have lived side by side and inter-married for 40–50 years. Te brown-skinned boys and girls on the streets are not immigrants. Tey are third-generation Afro-English, and more English than African. Tey speak Scouse. Most have white mothers … Tey have litle in common with West Indians. Tey don’t look alike. Yet they are alike. Tis article begins a report of a 3,500 mile journey through young black England, its schools, youth clubs, community centres, shebeens, cafés, blues dances, communes; an atempt to listen to its voice. What is clear is that the conditions that created the youngsters of Granby Street and Lodge Lane are beginning to be visible elsewhere – in London, in the Midlands, in the North, in the cities where a new generation of black children is growing up, far too ofen without confdence, without identity and without work.

Liverpool, he contended, ‘should not be stigmatised as a city of bigots. Te point is that it has had a coloured minority for longer, and what it has done to them shows’. Te point was echoed by Sir Geofrey Wilson, chair of Race Relations Board: ‘Far from being a success story Liverpool in some quarters is viewed as a warning about what happens when a section of the population does not get a fair deal over a long period of time.’ In his study Police Power and Black People, Derek Humphry drew

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atention to the curious ‘double viewpoint’ about race in Liverpool in the years immediately before the riots: ‘Look how well things are going in our city! Intermarriage, racial harmony, no Black Power’ has been one view: while the other was: ‘Te half-castes have sensed their isolated position and are biter, withdrawn and near to violence’.

Te riots followed a period of ‘over-policing’ in black areas by the notorious Task Force, ‘a hated and dreaded unit as stories of their seizures, beatings up and plantings went the rounds’. Between September 1970 and May 1971, Dorothy Kuya, Community Relations Ofcer of the LCRC, recorded 17 complaints of alleged unfair arrest, 12 of alleged harassment and 11 of alleged violence either before or afer being charged with an ofence. Tanks to the investigative journalism of the local underground press, cases of notorious ‘planting’ of drugs (or ‘agriculture’ as it was known in the force) led to the acquital of two prominent members of the black community. 57 ‘Deeply concerned about relations between public and police’, Margaret Simey, Labour councillor for Granby, contacted the National Council for Civil Liberties in July 1971 seeking advice and ‘direction’ about ‘a complex of worries’ relating to police behaviour in her ward. 58 Fearing that relations might deteriorate further afer the riots, LCRC established a Special Executive Working Party on the Police. Recommendations included dialogue of a diferent order from the old (and previously much-vaunted) liaison arrangements, with open discussion ‘between the Police Constable (man on the beat) and the young people who are in confict with each other, rather than senior ofcers within the police force and the community workers’. A list of the home telephone numbers of solicitors willing to give advice to youths on arrest was provided. Tere were also eforts to rejuvenate community centres (given on-going problems at Stanley House, the Education Department established the Rialto Community Centre in 1973) and open new youth clubs (including the proposed conversion of the Sir Robert Jones Memorial Workshop in Parliament Street) in the hope that ‘young people will respond to positive action on their behalf and will show restraint if appealed to and if there is plenty of provision within the community organised by themselves.’59 By this time, however, teenage inter-racial confict had become ‘entrenched’, even during cold winter months – between October 1972 and January

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1973 over 80 youths were arrested following clashes around the Windsor Street and Sussex Gardens racial boundary.60 Sexual jealousy added to the tension.61 Skinhead boot boys resented the facility with which their stylish black counterparts (‘with their mythical pricks, their sharp clothes, their rhythm, and fnally the beauty of their half-caste faces and bodies’) atracted the best white girls or ‘beef ’ as they were known in local parlance. ‘Te sexual batling reached far deeper into their psyche than did the batling over territory,’ Murari observed: ‘it was their race batling.’62 While black boys were generally well-liked and ofen atracted white girls, their sisters were less favoured. McNabb described the situation of the Afro-English girl as ‘exceptionally difcult and indeed somewhat tragic … Because of their rejection both by white and coloured these girls are an easy prey for those who wish to exploit them’.63 Afer the events of 1972, however, black youths ofered protection to all within their territory: Te kids resented honky motorists cruising their streets looking for black pussy. Tey’d stopped the cars by hurling bricks through the windscreens or else batering any honky that got out to approach a whore. Tey were good times la.64

A series of studies in the 1970s noted how young Liverpool-born blacks were no longer prepared to accept rejection like their parents. According to the Inner Area Study, they were developing ‘an aggressive culture and life-style of their own’: Te move must be seen as encouraging to those who want to see black groups assert their identity more strongly on English society rather than as individuals making their way up the social scale. But it must equally be seen as a threatening tendency for those who cling to ideas of a single, universal culture.65

Alienated from ‘parents or grandparents whom they never knew, whether African, West Indian, Arab or Asian’ and ‘excluded from the English culture into which they were born’, Liverpool-born black teenagers turned to other role models. Liverpool 8, Colin McGlashan noted, was ‘Soul City for black United States servicemen, who travel across Britain to its clubs. Te Afro-English girls dance the funky penguin, the boys say “right on bro’r”, as though they grew up in Oakland, California’.66 Youth workers at the Rialto Centre installed a library to encourage young

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Liverpool-born blacks to look beyond distorted images from across the Atlantic: Liverpool is a very Americanized city, our kids take their heroes exported from America. Te view from the American for export is badly balanced. So the pushers, pimps, etc are glorifed. It is only in literature that we begin to perceive a full picture of the black race. Te reasoning behind the Rialto Library is to give the Black Briton a chance to redress the balance, to see the many-sided abilities that insured [sic] the survival of the black people. 67

Although there were tensions, generational (and gender) factors served to reinforce (rather than counteract) the defant, street-wise and stylish black identity adopted by young males still labelled as ‘half caste’ by censorious outsiders. ‘It is not so much the coloured father but the white mother who is usually anti-police and will not co-operate in any way,’ the Deputy Chief Constable informed the Select Commitee, as he bemoaned the ‘arrogance’ which now accompanied the delinquent behaviour of ‘half-caste’ youths. With the father ofen absent at sea, ‘the infuence in the home is the mother, and the mother will not respond to any sort of suggestion that the police make with regard to the son at all.’68 An ambivalent fgure, ofen misjudged and maligned by social commentators, the white mother was crucial to the construction of the Liverpool-born black identity of Toxteth teenagers: She encourages her children to associate with whites; she denigrates the cultural background of her husband yet, at the same time, she will tell them that they can expect nothing good from whites. If the children get into trouble, or have difculties at school, or cannot get a job, she immediately assumes they are being discriminated against, and will have no hesitation in telling them, ‘Tey are down on you because you are coloured.’69

Notes 1 Paul Gilroy, Tere Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: Te cultural politics of race and nation, London: Routledge, 2002, pp. 98–99. 2 John Barron Mays, Growing up in the City: A study of juvenile delinquency in an urban neighbourhood, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1954, pp. v and 23–45. 3 Daily Post 3 June 1961. 4 Daily Post 31 July 1961.

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5 Echo 13 July and 15 Nov. 1962. 6 Echo 28 Oct. 1963. 7 Daily Post 18 Oct. 1963. 8 ‘Princes Park is a tough place’, Liverpool Weekly News 17 Nov. 1963. 9 ‘Coloured Teenagers Get Teir Own Club’, Echo 28 Oct. 1963. 10 Liverpool Weekly News 25 April 1963. 11 Jack and Bessie Braddock, Te Braddocks, London: Macdonald, 1963, pp. 175–77. 12 Echo 21 Oct. 1963 and 4 Nov. 1965. 13 Ed Vulliamy, ‘Te Real Ting: Soundtrack to the Toxteth riots’, Observer 3 July 2011. Bryan Biggs kindly provided information on the Chants and drew my atention to a website including footage of their performing in front of swooning white girls, htp://www.gregwilson.co.uk/2010/06/ the-one-that-got-away/. 14 Rosemary Boateng’s 1996 BBC TV documentary Who Put the Beat in Merseybeat, see htp://explore.bf.org.uk/4ce2b7f1799a5. My thanks to Bryan Biggs for this reference. 15 James McGrath, ‘Liverpool’s black community and the Beatles’, Soundscapes, 12, 2010; and ‘A litle help from their friends’, Big Issue, 29 March April 2010, pp. 18–19. 16 Te photograph is reproduced in John Belchem and Bryan Biggs (eds), Liverpool: City of Radicals, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011, which also includes Paul du Noyer’s essay, ‘Te Heavens Above and the Dirt Below: Liverpool’s Radical Music’, pp. 96–107. 17 ED 69/580: Stanley House Nursery School, 1954–59; Echo and Evening Express 5 Aug. 1960. 18 ‘Te handclasp symbol that spans the oceans’, Daily Post 29 June 1961. 19 Stanley House: Warden’s Report 1963. 20 Liverpool Weekly News 8 Aug. 1963. 21 Daily Post 27 May 1966. 22 Echo 29 Nov. 1966. 23 Daily Post 29 June 1961. 24 Liverpool Weekly News 25 Nov. 1965. 25 HO287/1458: Appointment of coloured policemen: Policy 1965–69. 26 ‘Complacency on Race Relations’, Echo 11 Jan. 1967. 27 Special but not separate: Te Report of a Working Party of the Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee on the situation of young coloured people in Liverpool, Liverpool, 1968. Te Working Party was chaired by A.W. Stone with Alison Press as secretary; the members were: T.  Ansel, Overseas Welfare Ofce, Personal Service Society; J.M.  Buterfeld, Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee; W.H.  Cooper, Adviser for Youth and Community, Liverpool Education Authority; W.B.  Harbert, Personal

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Service Society; M.O. Jebson, Youth Ofcer, Liverpool District Methodist Youth Council; J.  Tecwyn Jones, Community Development Ofcer, Toxteth Community Council; K.S.  McDermot, Probation Service, Liverpool; S. Mason, County Commonwealth Adviser, Girl Guides; Rev. D.W.E. May, Princes Park Methodist Church and chairman, Princes Park and Granby Community Council; P. McNabb, Research Lecturer, Dept of Social Science, University of Liverpool; R.H. Morris, City Councillor; R.  Osborn, Vice-Chair, Women’s International League; S.  SharpeySchafer; M.B.  Simey, City Councillor; E.  Simmons, member, Women’s International League; E.B. Spencer, County Secretary, Liverpool County Boy Scouts Association; and K. Vaux, headmaster, Paddington Comprehensive School. 28 ‘Story behind a resignation’, Daily Post 22 Nov. 1968. 29 Select Commitee on Race Relations and Immigration: Te Problem of Coloured School-Leavers. Session 1968–69 (SCRRI, 1968–9). Volume IV: Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence, pp. 86–88. 30 SCRRI, 1968–9. Minutes of evidence taken at Liverpool, Wednesday, 26th and Tursday, 27th March, 1969. 31 ‘Race relations inquiry vexes Liverpool’, Guardian 28 March 1969. 32 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes, 840–43 and 845–47. Te Commitee began its hearings on 27 March at Litlewoods Stores. 33 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 852. 34 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 863–76 35 See for example, SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 792–93 and 797. 36 See the evidence of Michael Jebson, Rev. Donald May, Ruth Osborn, Alison Press and Susan Sharpey-Schafer, SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 788–800. See also the Supplementary Memorandum by the Working Party of the Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee, SCRRI, 1968–9, vol. IV, 63–65. 37 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 813–28. 38 Timeri Murari, Te New Savages, London: Macmillan, 1975. Murari ‘spent two months round the clock on street corners, stairwells, cafes, derelict houses, night and day, rain and shine, researching Te New Savages’. 39 Evidence of D.E. Dalzell. SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes, 800–03. 40 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 830. 41 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 823–28. 42 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 834. 43 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 824 44 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 828 45 Murari, Te New Savages, p. 29. 46 Select Commitee on Race Relations and Immigration. Education vol. 3.

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Evidence. Session 1972–3. (SCRRI, 1972–3), 538–42, 578–79 and 589. Te most violent inter-school clashes were between Paddington and St Tomas à Becket, with old scores being setled in the ‘race riots’ of 1972, see Daily Post 9 Aug. 1972. 47 See Elphick’s typed report, 31 July 1972 in University of Liverpool Special Collections and Archives, Margaret Simey papers, D396/48: Miscellaneous correspondence, copies of publications etc, some of it relating to the Toxteth area of Liverpool (1970–95). 48 SCRRI, 1972–3, 580. 49 Leter from Ewen R.  Gilhespy, 15 Jan. 1975 in Simey papers D396/48. On the side of the church hung Arthur Dooley’s sculpture of ‘a Chinesenegroid Jesus Christ, fying upwards, as if on a trampoline, away from the rude grafti. Local people thought it a bad idea: “colour” is rarely mentioned in Liverpool’, Shelter Neighbourhood Action Project, Another chance for cities- SNAP 69/72, 1972, p. 52. 50 Murari, Te New Savages, pp. 8 and 64. Perhaps the most respected and trusted of the white middle-class leaders was Sue Schafer of South Liverpool Personnel Limited, an employment agency originally funded by the Martin Luther King Foundation as International Personnel, and subsequently assisted by funds from the John Moores Foundation and the City Council. A non-proft making organisation, it specialised in placing black people in jobs and helping school leavers to choose careers and training programmes, see Guardian 20 April 1972 and 21 June 1974. For critical assessment of the ‘white liberal apparatus’, see Mark Christian, ‘Black Identity in Liverpool: An Appraisal’ in William Ackah and Mark Christian, (eds), Black Organisation and Identity in Liverpool: A local, national and global perspective, Liverpool: Charles Wooton College Press, 1997, pp. 73–76. 51 ‘Anatomy of a riot’, New Society 17 Aug. 1972. 52 ‘Jealousy may be the cause of fghting’, Daily Post 9 Aug. 1972; ‘White and coloured gangs riot for four nights’, Te Times 9 Aug. 1972; ‘Housing “war” in city denied’, Guardian 9 Aug. 1972; and ‘Boredom, not race, lights the fuse in Liverpool 8, Sunday Times 13 Aug. 1972. 53 Quoted in Change or Decay: Final Report of the Liverpool Inner Area Study, 1977, p. 165. 54 ‘Jealousy may be the cause of fghting’, Daily Post 9 Aug. 1972. 55 Gilroy, Tere Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, ch. 3. 56 Murari, Te New Savages, p. 42. 57 Derek Humphry, Police Power and Black People, London: Panther, 1972, ch. 1, ‘“Agriculture” in Liverpool’. 58 Margaret Simey to Lyne, 18 July 1971, in National Council for Civil Liberties papers, Hull History Centre, U DCL/352/4. Te local liaison

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group of the NCCL had already decided to call a special meeting to investigate the increasing numbers of complaints about police behaviour, see circular to members and sympathisers, 21 June 1971. 59 ‘Notes on the Special Executive Working Party on the police’ 12 March 1973 and undated LCRC newsleter in M364PSS7/5. 60 ‘Race prejudice “entrenched in Liverpool”’, Guardian 29 Sept. 1973. Te fremen’s union complained that their members came under atack when dealing with fres on the streets. 61 McNabb atributed the escalating inter-racial violence to ‘sexual jealousy on the part of white boys’, SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 825. 62 Murari, Te New Savages, p. 116. 63 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 825–26. 64 Murari, Te New Savages, pp. 16–17. 65 Change or Decay: Final Report of the Liverpool Inner Area Study, London: HMSO, 1977, p. 92. 66 ‘Inside England’s Oldest Gheto’, Observer 13 Aug. 1972. 67 Merseyside Community Relations Council, Te Dragon’s Teeth, Liverpool, n.d. (1975?), p. 8. 68 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 801–02. 69 SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes 825. As a necessary counter-balance to external comments about white women who married black men, see the booklet produced in 1994–95 by the Second Chance to Learn Women’s History Group, No-one ever mentions Love: An inside view of black and white relationships. See also, Diane Frost, ‘Te maligned, the despised and the ostracised: Working-class white women, interracial relationships and colonial ideologies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Liverpool’ in Sheryllyne Haggerty, Anthony Webster and Nicholas J.  White, (eds), Te empire in one city? Liverpool’s inconvenient imperial past, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008, pp. 143–64.

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Ch a pter sev en

Te failure of community relations

Prescient warnings from ‘black’ Liverpool went largely unheeded in the burgeoning race relations ‘industry’ prompted by legislation in the late 1960s and the mounting hysteria about immigration. A comparatively rare sight in the city, new arrivals from the West Indies, India and Pakistan constituted a mere 0.4% of the local population, well below the threshold for resource investment and concern. Blighted by recession and shunned by ‘new Commonwealth’ migrants, Liverpool, the once proud second city of empire, was in seemingly unstoppable collapse, careering down the urban hierarchy to unenviable designation (and denigration) as the ‘shock city’ of post-industrial, post-colonial Britain. Although meriting special atention as a timely warning and object lesson, the problematic Liverpool experience of race relations was ignored as the city was marginalised, stigmatised and traduced. Te proverbial (and irredeemable) exception, Liverpool was portrayed as an internal ‘other’ at odds with positive developments elsewhere in enterprise Britain. Against this backcloth, community relations continued to deteriorate as hard-pressed agencies seeking to regenerate and rehabilitate the city seldom bothered to include (yet alone prioritise) measures to address racial discrimination and disadvantage in a succession of ill-fated plans and projects to tackle multiple deprivation. Along with most of the local media, councillors remained wedded to the fction of racial harmony, dismissing all who argued otherwise as ‘interfering do-gooders and sensationalist sociologists’. Still to acknowledge the ‘special but not

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separate’ needs of the long-resident black British population in the city, the Council simply sought to catch up with developments elsewhere, implementing English language centres and other forms of reception provision for new arrivals. Of litle relevance to long-established (and long-sufering) black Liverpudlians, such projects caused anger and ofence, hindering the eforts of those seeking to promote community relations. A perceived increase in levels of police harassment of black youths exacerbated the tension, leading to the formation of the Merseyside Anti-Racialist Alliance ‘to combat the institutionalized forms of racial discrimination that have existed on Merseyside for a very long time’. Working with this umbrella organization, a panoply of black groups, supported by the under-resourced Merseyside Community Relations Council and atendant academics in the Merseyside Area Profle Group campaigned hard to force the City Council to fulfl its legal obligations and implement a long-overdue equal opportunities policy. Once accepted, however, the policy was accompanied by local authority cuts in funding to the Community Relations Council and various voluntary agencies in the feld. Shortly aferwards, within a month of the outbreak of rioting in Liverpool 8 in 1981, the Select Commitee on Race Relations, having heeded the warning signs, issued an ominous report acknowledging that Liverpool was ‘the most disturbing case of racial disadvantage in the United Kingdom … a grim warning to all of Britain’s cities that racial disadvantage cannot be expected to disappear by natural causes’. Te only compensation was the recently instituted annual Caribbean carnival, a brief opportunity for celebration, saturnalia and inversion.1

*** Established by new legislation in 1965, the Race Relations Board saw no need to accord special atention to Liverpool, a city with a ‘long tradition of accepting strangers’, and hence did not appoint a locally based Conciliation Ofcer. Resources were concentrated on areas where ‘a relatively large and sudden infux of immigrants has produced conditions in which there are more grounds for complaint and a greater readiness to complain.’ In operational terms, this applied to towns and regions where newly arrived immigrants from the West Indies, India and Pakistan constituted at least 2% of the population. Liverpool and Merseyside registered a mere 0.4% and 0.3% respectively.2 Te North West Conciliation Commitee reported that in its frst 27 months only nine out of 162

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Figure 15: Liverpool 8 street trader and dealer, ‘Shadow’ took pride in the wity inversion of his carnival foat designs, for example a giant 50 pence piece in which he appeared (as depicted here by his fellow club habitué John Cornelius) as Britannia in drag, trident in hand. Te design failed to impress the eponymous insurance company from whom he sought sponsorship, but ‘Shadow waives the rules’ duly won frst prize in the Caribbean carnival.

complaints received had come from Liverpool. 3 Te merchant marine, however, remained a case apart, even afer the strengthening of the Race Relations Act in 1968. A complaint of unlawful discrimination by 27 Somali seamen in Liverpool was not upheld by the Board as Section 8 (10) of the legislation allowed discrimination in employment on a ship where persons of diferent race, colour, national or ethnic origins would otherwise have to share sleeping rooms, mess room or sanitary accommodation.4 Te 1968 Act established the Community Relations Commission and marked a seemingly welcome change from laissez faire to interventionism with a commitment to anti-discrimination legislation and positive measures to promote integration. Here, too, however, the focus

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was on immigration and restrictive control. ‘Discussion of community relations policies has been inextricably linked with discussion of what constitutes an acceptable number of “coloured” citizens,’ the Commission rued, noting how the media represented ‘discussion of race relations policies and immigration as being synonymous’. 5 In consequence, the frst Community Relations Councils, funded by the Commission, were established in those areas of recent immigration from the new commonwealth highlighted by the Race Relations Board. Tere were 70 such bodies in existence before the Liverpool Community Relations Council (LCRC), a key recommendation of Special but not separate, was eventually established.6 Given the hostile reception to the report, the Working Party of the Youth Organisations Commitee was somewhat surprised to receive a leter of invitation from the Town Clerk in January 1970, sent to voluntary and statutory organisations, churches and other interested parties, seeking assistance in the formation of a Community Relations Council: Liverpool has a long tradition of harmonious relations between its white and coloured citizens … However, recent research indicates that the situation is not all that it should be, and that indeed, much more could be done to foster racial harmony in Liverpool. One of the ways in which this may be achieved is by the formation of a Community Relations Council, as advocated by the Community Relations Commission … Liverpool is the only large city in this country that does not, at present, have the beneft of such a Council.7

Progress was rapid thereafer, led by a working group chaired by Edward Patey, Dean of Liverpool, with Ludwig Hesse, a veteran of the CPDA, as deputy.8 By the early summer an Executive Council was in place: Sue Sharpey-Schafer, a teacher at Paddington Comprehensive (and one of the authors of Special but not separate) served as secretary, and L.A.  Nwagwu, a Nigerian with a degree in management, as treasurer.9 A few months later, Dorothy Kuya, another CPDA veteran, moved into 2 Rialto Buildings as the Community Relations Ofcer (funded through Community Relations Commission grant aid) and began a major research project into racial bias in children’s books.10 McNabb, who (in the words of his nominator) spent his life ‘wandering round Liverpool 8’, was the most radical voice on the Executive Council, calling for structural intervention to tackle the critical problem of school leavers

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and the young unemployed. ‘Solving their grievances would not make a radical change in the situation,’ he insisted, as ‘they would still be looking for jobs in dead-end situations’: A long-term solution was essential – the improvement of employment opportunities … we should consider the seting up of an Economic Development Corporation with the backing of the Government and the Local Authority to make more and varied employment available.11

McNabb resigned in February 1972, claiming his time was wasted on the Executive Council given its preference to discuss operational maters rather than policy issues – he was also keen to quell rumours that he used cases brought to the LCRC for his own research.12 In an efort to enhance its profle, the LCRC decided to transfer ofce operations from the Rialto to larger and more accessible premises in Mount Pleasant in the city centre, ahead of its re-designation as the Merseyside Community Relations Council (MCRC) in 1974.13 As Edward Patey later recorded, the Council ‘quickly became a target of criticism. For some it was too radical. Others saw it a pawn of the establishment … it was not possible to please everybody at the same time’.14 Relationships with the local authorities across the metropolitan county (not all of whom ofered fnancial support) tended to be strained, but the voluntary sector was supportive: the local liaison group of the NCCL ofered help with problems outside the scope of Race Relations legislation, taking up cases with ‘general civil liberties implications’, and subsequently explored the possibility of flling in when the LCRC had to abandon 24-hour cover.15 As well as a hefy casework load (and contingency preparations for the arrival of Ugandan Asians in the reception camp at Kirkby Fields), much efort continued to be expended on the Dragon’s Teeth project, exposing the racial bias in school textbooks, ‘analysed for distortions, omissions of facts and stereotypes’.16 At the same time, the LCRC compiled a ‘very pessimistic’ memorandum to present to the Select Commitee on its return to Liverpool, evidence of how ‘in the four years since the Commitee’s previous visit the situation had worsened.’ Hard statistics were still lacking – given suspicions prevailing in black and ethnic minority communities, the LCRC chose not to push for record keeping and monitoring – but the indictment was damning. Liverpool stood accused of institutionalised racism, a charge repeated in its published reports:

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Figure 16: A member of the Young Communist League and the Colonial People’s Defence Association in the 1950s, Dorothy Kuya, a Liverpool-born black with a Nigerian father and local mother, brought a wealth of experience to her role as Community Relations Ofcer in the 1970s, leading a campaign to expose and expunge racial bias from children’s literature.

Neglect of the problems of the original non-white immigrants had led to the many difculties of the present-day English-born black community. Racial discrimination was not a phenomenon which arrived in the city with the wave of new Commonwealth immigrants in the 1950s–1960s, but had operated as long as black people had lived there. It had, to a large extent, become institutionalised. It was rare to see black people in positions of authority or ‘face to face’ jobs and they were under-represented in most day-to-day situations. Tey had no black probation ofcers, matrons or deputies in hospitals or nurseries, heads or deputies of schools.17

Te Select Commitee recognised that all was not well. ‘When we last came to Liverpool, this was a city with no problems,’ the Chairman averred as he registered serious disquiet at the altered state of afairs during the ‘rather depressing’ return visit: Cities which have lived longest with racially mixed communities may react less swifly and less imaginatively to signals of danger than those suddenly confronted with a large infux … Liverpool, for all its long

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experience with a mixed population, lef us with a profound sense of uneasiness.18

Liverpool, the Commitee feared, might be a harbinger of things to come in multi-racial Britain: How much is it a portent of the future? It has difculties of its own. A proud record as a port, renown as the prime city of the coton industry lie behind it. Te future is less assured. It is an extreme example of the city explosion, the centre fragmented by commercial redevelopment; slum clearance and displacement of population; the fringes an indiferent mix of new industry and unsetled communities. Te resulting imbalance was refected in the sphere of particular concern to us.19

Te Community Relations Commission expressed similar concern, following the fndings of the Runnymede Trust that 32% of Liverpoolborn black youths were unemployed in September 1972:20 Te fact that they had been unemployed ofen several times, the high proportion unregistered, the cynicism and hostility felt about statutory employment services, all point to the increasing gap between some black young people and white society. Tis alienation despite involving a comparatively small number of people is bound to seek some outlet which may result in confict within the family, confict with society or political militancy. Te situation in Liverpool, where race is a much more important factor than newness, could be seen as a portent of the future if present trends continue. 21

Seen in these terms, Liverpool underlined the need for major change in race relations policy as the British-born children of the Empire Windrush generation reached adolescence: It was accurate in 1966 to describe the ethnic minority population in this country as ‘immigrants’. Te largest fow of immigration from the Caribbean and the sub-continent of India took place in the ffies and early sixties. Today over 40 per cent of the black population in this country were born here … Tis proportion will steadily increase in the years to come. In many respects they do not share the atitude of their parents. Tey are not newcomers nor do they expect to be treated as newcomers. Tey are not prepared to be treated as second class citizens in exchange for a higher standard of living and the prospect of some employment. Tey are British: and they take the phrase equality of opportunity for what it means. Tey expect to be taken into account and

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their views to be listened to. Tey will not accept discrimination, public hostility or twice the national level of unemployment without protest. 22

Tese ominous warnings notwithstanding, the lessons from Liverpool went unheeded. Hardest hit by recession, Liverpool – Britain’s Beirut – was a doomed city apart. Once development aid and other short-term advantages were exhausted, industrial combines were apt to close their new Merseyside plants ahead of branches elsewhere. Here, of course, Merseyside militancy – a myth in the making – helped to justify a boardroom decision taken far away from Liverpool.23 Tereafer, with the collapse of the colonial economic system and global restructuring – the ‘triple whammy’ of the end of empire, the introduction of containerisation and Britain’s eventual entry into the European Economic Community – Liverpool’s descent appeared unstoppable. By the early 1970s there were more young people registered as unemployed in Liverpool than in London and Birmingham combined.24 In a worsening context of multiple deprivation, racial discrimination was by no means always considered the priority issue to address, the ominous warnings of the Select Commitee and others notwithstanding. Te City Council continued to reject positive discrimination for any of its residents, but felt the need to catch up with developments elsewhere, implementing English language centres and other race relations initiatives designed for new arrivals. However, with less than 2% of new Commonwealth immigrants in its population, Liverpool failed to meet the criteria for additional funding under Section 11 of the Local Government Act of 1966. Of litle relevance to long-established (and long-sufering) black Liverpudlians, such projects caused anger and ofence to those who were, as the Merseyside Area Profle Group (MAPG) afrmed, ‘in no sense “immigrant”; indeed the ofcial ignorance displayed in persistent descriptions of this group as “Non-European” or “Tird Generation Immigrant” is quite extraordinary’.25 Tere were some positive developments. Te Race Relations Board opened a local ofce in Leece Street in October 1973;26 new teachers in the city atended an induction course on ‘Liverpool – a multiracial city’, delivered in suitably ironic manner by Patrick McNabb, Dorothy Kuya, Gideon Ben-Tovin and others: ‘Te opinion has ofen been expressed that Liverpool exemplifes a harmonious multiracial society: an overstatement not entirely borne out by history, nor by the present situation.’27 Te Black Social Workers’ Project set up (with Urban Aid

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funding) in 1975 within the Social Services Department, however, had a problematic early history, in part through recruitment of immigrant graduates rather than locally born blacks.28 While racial problems were acknowledged, there was reluctance in some planning and policy quarters to prioritise the needs of Liverpool blacks as ‘special’. Race was simply one component of Liverpool’s inner-city social malaise. Some sections of the local press, indeed, still refused to admit race was a factor. ‘Te situation in Liverpool is simply this’, an editorial in the Daily Post asserted in 1978: ‘Tere is no racial problem. Tere are problems of unemployment, of crime, of hooliganism. Tey are problems which trouble both black and white communities.’29 Te local Communist Party was denounced as ‘reactionary’ by the MCRC when it opposed a public grant to a Chinese community centre in the Cornwallis Street area. Te Abercromby and St James Branch was duly reminded of ‘the clear and generally acknowledged need for ethnic minority groups to be relieved of their special, racial disadvantages. Tese are disadvantages over and above the urban depression as sufered by the whites’. 30 In desperate need of urban renewal, inner city Liverpool was a fertile ground for experimental projects and social surveys: in terms of ‘stop-start’ urban policy, Liverpool, as Richard Meegan has noted, was both experimental testing-ground and main site of resistance. 31 Afer the Planning Department’s pioneer investigation into ‘Social Malaise’, applying ‘multivariate analysis to small area social data’, the city featured in the gamut of ‘priority’ projects introduced by the government: educational priority in Paddington, the neighbourhood project in Brunswick, community development in Vauxhall and the Shelter Neighbourhood Action Project (SNAP) in Granby. 32 Liverpool 8, indeed, became known as an area that ‘provides plenty of work for sociologists and very litle for anybody else’. 33 In an unsophisticated but poignant statistical exercise, SNAP developed a sliding scale with ten ‘problem points’ accorded to the wards with the highest score (one for the lowest) on each of the 36 social malaise indicators. Granby topped the deprivation league with 250 problem points, followed by Central Ward 177, Abercromby 170 and St James 160. 34 Technically not a gheto in the American sense as the majority of the population were white, Granby was the focal point of the local black population, with the highest level of black concentration, about 30%. Te blitz, slum clearance and other displacements had driven the black community up the hill from dockland areas into the Granby Triangle,

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in previous decades, as Margaret Simey reminisced, ‘very sedate rather old-fashioned … Eleanor Rathbone’s ward, a very respectable area’. 35 Te middle-class fight to the suburbs and the movement of the working class into council housing on outer estates had produced what social scientists described euphemistically as ‘a fltering down process in the housing market’. 36 ‘Here lies Liverpool’s shame, and its skeleton,’ the Echo reported, ‘without the grace of a cupboard to hide its dereliction, and the grievances of its depressed occupants’. 37 Table 7.1: Indicators of multiple deprivation in Granby compared with the national average Category Unskilled

National (%) 8

Granby Ward (%) 19

Shared dwellings No hot water tap Overcrowded houses

3.3 12.5 1.6

34 54.5 10

Source: SNAP, p. 55.

‘If ever questions come to us, from the Government, on problems of this sort – over-population, bad housing, social problems, social security problems, etc., it would be this area they would all visit,’ John Hamilton informed the Select Commitee, as (in line with Labour policy) he sought to place worsening race relations in Granby in wider socioeconomic perspective: In other words, it is not merely race relations problems but multideprivation problems … when people have these conditions, and when a city cannot lif itself out of them very easily without massive help of one sort or another, then people go around and look for an easy answer, and one is racial prejudice. 38

Tere was no escape from discrimination out in the suburbs, however. Te Race Relations Board upheld a complaint from a young married couple, both fourth-generation Liverpool-born ‘coloured’, who, having signed a contract to purchase a new suburban dwelling, were informed by the developer that they would lose the sale unless they agreed to purchase the adjacent property as well, because of ‘fears from potential

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buyers that having coloured neighbours would adversely afect the market value of their property’. 39 For SNAP, the ‘twilight trap’ of Granby demonstrated the urgent need for a new holistic approach to the inner city by ‘creating a process where the whole range of welfare subsidies and concerted programmes of work could combine with the energies of the mass of the people to some good structural purpose’: When the citizen’s problem is an education problem, a health problem, an employment problem, a housing problem and, too ofen also a racial problem, then it is unlikely that remedial action concentrating on any one of these many aspects of one of these problems is likely to succeed. Te really intractable nature of multiple deprivation is that to solve one problem is but to succumb to another and, since public action is always conceived in a fragmented fashion, resulting programmes have not been relevant to the real circumstances of the inner city.40

Despite internal restructuring, as recommended by management consultants McKinsey, demarcation and bureaucracy still prevailed in the City Council, testing the patience of SNAP and its Director, Des McConaghy. With its ambitious slogan, ‘A New Town for Granby’, SNAP raised many hopes, but it fell far short of its great aim, a communitybased general improvement area founded on a truly co-operative efort between local community and local authority. Te project closed in 1972, having ‘underestimated the difculties of generating mass interest in a very poor area and stimulating any kind of efective response by the local authority’.41 SNAP’s ‘total’ approach to urban renewal was endorsed by the next main exercise, the Inner Area Study, a comparative project involving London and Birmingham as well as the inner area of Liverpool embracing Granby, Smithdown and Edge Hill. With the ominous title Change or Decay, the fnal Liverpool report, published in 1977 afer four years of research, catalogued yet further ‘accumulated disadvantage’ in the Granby area: a labour market which compared unfavourably with those elsewhere in Merseyside; a housing market similarly disadvantaged; a legacy of industrial dereliction, decaying housing and a squalid environment; an accumulated and exaggerated bad reputation (also a mater of concern to the MCRC); and an unequal provision of basic government services in relation to need. While poverty crossed racial

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lines, there was growing evidence of a new black separatism, a challenge to the orthodox race relations prescription of integration: Te impression is of a fragile truce maintained locally by an equality of poverty between black and white, and further afeld by ignorance, indiference, or the presumed security of distance. Liverpool born blacks sufer most. Many have litle knowledge of their original culture but feel rejected from the same one into which they were born … Tey are turning for identity and pride to black music, African history and in some cases the politics of black power, rather than the culture of English society from which they have felt rejected for so long. Although their position in society is closely paralleled by poor whites, they feel they have litle in common with them. Whether their future position in society is to remain one of confict and rejection or whether it can be accepted that peaceful separatism is a feasible alternative depends to a great extent on how well our institutions can respond.42

To the consternation of the MAPG, subsequent major planning documents, the Liverpool Partnership Programme (1979) and the Merseyside County Structure Plan (1979), contained no explicit reference to the special needs and problems of what is in fact one of the most long-standing black communities in Britain … Te failure to move beyond ad hoc and cosmetic responses has, so far, put the local authorities, however unwitingly, in the position of perpetuating existing paterns of racial discrimination and disadvantage.43

While planners and politicians struggled with the problems of multiple deprivation, black and minority ethnic groups in Liverpool decided to co-ordinate eforts to tackle discrimination, dismayed by the failure of local institutions to keep pace with community relations initiatives elsewhere. Under Don Henry as chair, the Afro Asian Caribbean Standing Commitee brought together the Merseyside Caribbean Council, Somali Welfare, Bangladesh [sic], the Indian Association, the Merseyside Asian Social and Cultural Organisation, the Ghana Union, the Ibo Union, the Pakistan Association, the Yoruba Federal Nigeria and the National Union of Nigeria: To safeguard their civil rights and combat Racial discrimination in Housing, Employment, Education and social standing, the resident Black Immigrant groups, as they are called felt it necessary to form an umbrella organisation for all oversea [sic] organisations … While on the National level there has been a conscious move and some awareness

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in recognising the fact that the structure of the British society is fast becoming a multi-racial, multi-cultural and multi-religious [sic]. Te apathy to accept these changes in the patern, on the local level, has been most disconcerting.44

Henry was kept very busy as unemployed Merseyside slid into ‘a black depression’. He was quoted in Te Times, under the headline ‘Black violence simmers in unemployment-hit Liverpool’, as ‘having to work harder than ever since he started doing community work under Bessie Braddock in the 1950s to keep tempers cool. Te atmosphere in Liverpool 8 is ripe for agitators, he believes’.45 Complaints to the North West Conciliation Commitee increased dramatically: in 1975, 40 of the 60 received from the Merseyside area concerned discrimination against ‘young coloureds’ aged 16 to 25. A complaint brought by Miss Clovis, an 18-year-old kitchen assistant in the municipal canteen, against the City Council was not upheld, however, as the supervisor treated the young white workers in similarly harsh manner.46 Some of the cases were brought to the Race Relations Board by South Liverpool Personnel, which issued a disturbing report on Black Prospects in 1978. Over 50% of local black people registered with the agency had been discriminated against in job interviews. (Mention of an L8 postcode address, a Guardian reporter was told, was sufcient to ‘make an employer lose interest’.) ‘Employers who have no intention of taking on black workers except under pressure’, the report adduced, ‘have built up sophisticated methods to ensure that as few as possible are taken on. Tose who are taken on to keep up appearances are shunted into jobs where promotion is unlikely and public contact minimal’.47 Echoing the earlier comments of the LCRC, the fnal report of the North West Conciliation Commitee of the Race Relations Board (prior to its replacement by the Commission for Racial Equality) condemned paterns of discrimination and disadvantage ‘institutionalised and hardened over a very long period of time’: Liverpool has still to recognise that within its boundaries an entire group of people, not immigrants but black Liverpudlians, not only share the disadvantages felt by many white Liverpudlians but also sufer the additional disadvantages brought about by racial prejudice and discrimination – simply because they are black. It is the interaction between social and racial disadvantage, so devastating in its consequences, which

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makes the Liverpool experience so important for multi-racial Britain as a whole. Liverpool’s warning is surely too serious to be ignored.48

Tere were still no hard statistics, but the deduction that ‘however bad things are for the whites, they are twice as bad for the blacks,’ went unchallenged. In his report for Te Times on ‘Liverpool’s unique “local born blacks”’, Ross Davies calculated that in central Liverpool, where most blacks live, the chances of unemployment are four times greater than on the periphery … Liverpool youth unemployment is about 40 per cent, for young blacks it is nearer 60 per cent, and for the women it is worse than for the men.

Like other observers (then and since), he was shocked by the absence of blacks in the city centre: In Liverpool, a city with possibly the oldest “black” community in Britain, a multi-racial country, hardly a non-white face is to be seen serving in the shops of Lord, Dale or Church Street. Yet many of the city’s “local-born blacks” live within half an hour’s walk.

‘Te strange status of the “local-born blacks”’, he concluded, ‘and the inability of the white community to see, let alone to change that position, mock the hopes of those who trust to time and to assimilation to improve the lot of more recently arrived black immigrants in Brixton or Southall’.49 ‘Being “born-blacks” in the city’s language only makes it worse’, Jeremy Bugler of the Guardian was informed while embedded with the ‘Down and out in the Harlem of Liverpool’: ‘As one black said: “If we were foreign blacks we might at least get a job in a store on the exotic foods counter.”’50 Tere were plans to picket the large city centre stores to draw atention to ‘the unwillingness of Liverpool employers to admit black people into jobs where they come into contact with the public’. 51 Another new grouping, the Liverpool Black Organisation (established in 1979) successfully lobbied the Trades Council to investigate the under-representation of black workers, particularly in shops. 52 Afer its frst ten years of efort, the MCRC had to record that, afer a presence since time immemorial, blacks in Liverpool remained ‘a sub-working class; a cushion at the botom of the economic hierarchy more likely to be unemployed, poorly paid, badly housed, inadequately educated and socially deprived than any other group’. 53 In tackling the specifc circumstances of Liverpool, the MCRC came under criticism within the black community as it sought to ‘respond

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adequately to all the diferent and sometimes divergent interests of the various cultural, age and class groups and in particular to handle the diference between “immigrant” and “British-born” groups’. Te later, mobilised by the Liverpool 8 Action Commitee, picketed the MCRC ofces in March 1978, convinced that the MCRC was ‘not adequately representing their interests’. A feld-worker was promptly appointed for Liverpool 8, the MCRC recognising that it had ‘in some sense acted as a lightning conductor for the anger of a section of the community who sufer most so long as public policy is concerned more with the adaptation of immigrants than with the pressures that all blacks sufer from racism in Britain’: Our ability to refect the needs of local-born blacks and the willingness of society as a whole to respond to those needs will continue to be a yardstick for the success of our work and the extent to which racism is being overcome in this country. 54

To the dismay of the MCRC, however, race relations projects and initiatives remained at the margins of local authority spending and service delivery in the late 1970s – local councillors were still apt to dismiss those who raised racial issues as (in the words of Labour leader Bill Sefon) ‘interfering do-gooders and sensationalist sociologists’. 55 Funds were no longer accorded to Stanley House, but there were limited grants (using Urban Aid and Partnership funding) for ethnic community centres and voluntary eforts, such as the Methodist Youth Centre and associated ‘Elimu Wa Nane’ multi-racial education project, 56 South Liverpool Personnel and the Charles Wooton Centre, a voluntary black further education (or ‘second chance’) project. ‘Te local authority has by and large been responding in an “ad hoc” way to local projects or other agencies rather than using main spending budgets and developing its own mainstream race relations strategy,’ the MAPG observed critically: As the sources of funding of some of these posts or projects may not be available for much longer, the need for a move away from piece-meal responses towards corporate planning with respect to ethnic minority needs becomes ever more urgent. 57

Afer negotiations between the Commission for Racial Equality and the Liberal chair of the Housing Commitee, an Ethnic Minorities Liaison Commitee was set up within the Housing Department but met infrequently. When it suggested that the Council establish a working

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party ‘to Plan for a Multi-Racial Britain’, the proposal was ‘referred back’ by members of the Labour Group with no discussion. Te MCRC lobbied for an ethnic dimension in Partnership, leading to the Race Relations Sub-Group of the Social and Environmental Working Party, but with the change in government in 1979, it disappeared afer three inconclusive meetings, along with ‘all other mechanisms for popular involvement in Liverpool’s Partnership initiative’. 58 At the end of 1980, however, there seemed to be a major breakthrough when the City Council, somewhat belatedly, adopted an Equal Opportunity Policy. Tere had been a lengthy campaign to force the City Council to implement the 1976 Race Relations Act and adopt equal opportunities as formal policy. Te lobbying extended from the MCRC, the Liverpool Black Organisation, the various black and ethnic minority groups, to a new umbrella organisation, the Merseyside Anti-Racialist Alliance (MAR). Launched at the Caribbean Centre in April 1978, MAR had two main aims: ‘to combat the institutionalized forms of racial discrimination that have existed on Merseyside for a very long time’; and ‘to develop a unifed opposition to the overt racism manifested by extreme right-wing organizations such as the National Front’. Determined to promote ‘a positive view of Britain as a multicultural and multiracial society to counter the divisive racist propaganda currently gaining ground in British political life’, MAR was outraged to encounter the old slurs of the Fletcher Report not from resurgent fascists but from a respectable quarter. 59 In Te Listener Martin Young reported on a month-long assignment for the BBC TV programme, ‘Nationwide’, working with the police ‘On the Mersey beat’: Policemen in general, and detectives in particular, are not racialist, despite what many black groups believe. Like any individual who deals with a vast cross-section of society, they tend to recognise that good and evil exist, irrespective of colour or creed. Yet they are the frst to defne the problem of half-castes in Liverpool. Many are the product of liaisons between black seamen and white prostitutes in Liverpool 8, the red-light district. Naturally, they do not grow up with any kind of recognisable home life. Worse still, afer they have done the round of homes and institutions, they gradually realise that they are nothing. Te Negroes will not accept them as blacks, and the whites just assume they are coloureds. As a result, the half caste community of Merseyside – or, more particularly, Liverpool – is well outside recognised society. 60

‘Don’t let this slander go unchallenged!’ MAR asserted as it convened

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a protest meeting at the Sir Joseph Cleary (Stanley House) Community Centre, followed by a mass petition and march through the streets. Police investigation, however, failed to identify the culprits and the BBC issued no apology.61 Concern over deeply held prejudice in the Merseyside police was reinforced by anger (channelled into protest by the Liverpool Black Organisation and MAR) at the changed patern of policing in Liverpool 8 introduced by Chief Constable Ken Oxford. Te ‘fre-brigade tactics’ of the Task Force were replaced by so-called ‘community policing’, involving, as the MAPG explained, ‘a heightened degree of surveillance and control, with increased measures against illegal and late night drinking, street gambling and street activities’: As a part of this changing method of control there has been an increasing use against the black community of not so much the ‘sus’ law (Suspected Person Loitering 1824 Vagrancy Act: though this is widely used in Liverpool despite increasing public concern including that of the Parliamentary Home Afairs Commitee who have recently suggested its abolition) as Liverpool’s own unique ‘Stop and Search’ powers. Te powers to stop and search individuals were given to the Liverpool police under a Corporation Act of 1922, and are further enshrined in the recent Merseyside County Act … research suggests that young unemployed men from the Inner City can be expected to be searched a minimum of three times during the course of a year. Tese encounters involve a degree of physical and verbal confrontation between police and black youth, resulting in the youth ‘becoming known to the police’ and possibly in escalation to a criminal charge. Te upshot of these powers is the intimidation of a large majority of the black population in Liverpool 8, who sufer from the tendency of the police to defne every black person as a potential suspect of some illegal activity.62

On-going eforts since the 1972 riots to develop ‘a more “grass-roots” dialogue between police on the beat and black people on the streets’ fnally foundered on mutual suspicion and hostility. As for the CommunityLiaison scheme run by the police, its ofcers were now regarded as ‘being litle more than spies on the black community’.63 In July 1980 the MCRC wrote to the Chief Constable stating that unless positive action was taken by the police to improve their atitudes, particularly towards black youth, they could no longer co-operate in police/community liaison schemes.64 Home Ofce fgures noted that black people were 7.5 times more likely

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than white to be stopped and searched, and 6.5 times more likely than whites to be arrested on Merseyside.65 As community relations deteriorated, the campaign for an equal opportunities policy in the city acquired talismanic signifcance. Te essential components of such a policy – statement, mechanism and monitoring – were expounded in a formal request to the City Council in September 1980, signed by Wally Brown, chair of the MCRC (and member of the Liverpool Black Organisation), on behalf of an array of organisations (judiciously) listed in alphabetical order: the Afro Asian Caribbean Standing Commitee, Black Workers Association, Charles Wooton Centre for Adult Education, Elimu-Wa-Nane Multi-Racial Education Project, Hindu Cultural Organisation, Liverpool Black Organisation, Merseyside African Council, MAR, Merseyside Bangladesh Association, Merseyside Bengali Association, Merseyside Caribbean Council, Merseyside Chinese Community Services, Merseyside Somali Community Association, Pakistan Association, Princes Park Methodist Youth Club and South Liverpool Personnel Limited.66 Monitoring was still the most contentious aspect, given continued opposition in ethnic and minority groups (and in some other quarters) to ‘permanent personalised record-keeping’, let alone methodological difculties in compiling the statistics that really matered, based on ‘colour’ rather than such markers as ethnicity or country of origin: We, therefore, ask at this stage only for a commitment to anonymous surveys of maters of interest at any given moment (e.g. numbers of blacks employed, black children in care, blacks in school, blacks in housing, etc) and not for permanent personalised record-keeping. Most important is that any monitoring process should take place in consultation with the black community.67

While lobbying the Council, the various community relations organisations, together with black and minority ethnic groups, were preparing for the imminent visit of the Select Commitee to investigate ‘racial disadvantage’. Te evidence presented on 14 October 1980 in a hard-hiting memorandum revealed a depressing lack of progress since the last visit: Black Liverpudlians continue to fnd themselves for the most part blocked at the botom of the economic hierarchy of the area, constituting a sub-working class more likely to be unemployed, poorly educated and poorly housed than any other sector of the community … Tis is

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the result over a long period of time of prejudice and discrimination by society as a whole, compounded by indiference and an unwillingness to confront the issue from local ‘establishment’ organisations … Troughout Britain the proportion of black people born in this country and whose only experience is of being Black British, is constantly increasing – Liverpool illustrates the dangers if public policy makers do not move from the pathological fxation with immigration control to puting real energy and resources into improving relations between people of diferent races setled in this country, and combating racism and the disadvantage that it causes. 68

More powerful still was the ‘area profle’ of ‘racial disadvantage’ compiled by the MAPG, warning that ‘time is running out. A combination of one of Britain’s bleakest employment areas with one of Britain’s most disadvantaged black communities could be disastrous.’ Led by members of the Sociology Department at the University of Liverpool, the MAPG worked in close collaboration with the MCRC, MAR, Liverpool Black Organisation, South Liverpool Personnel, Black Workers Association, Merseyside African Council and the Black Social Workers Group. ‘Liverpool’s population has been surveyed ad nauseam,’ the Select Commitee observed, but the Area Profle brought social scientifc depth and rigour, and was thus particularly ‘worthy of further study’. 69 Still awaiting the Council’s response to the formal request to become an equal opportunities employer, the Profle spelt out the consequences of the continuing ‘colour-blind’ approach, while placing the ‘widespread myth of racial harmony and racial equality’ in due historical and geo-political cultural context: The reasons for Liverpool’s continued ‘colour blindness’ seem to be several. It is felt by some politicians and officials that to pay attention to race is itself divisive or racist, a concern held particularly tenaciously in a city where sectarian Catholic/Protestant divisions have always been a cause of concern. The very longstanding nature of Liverpool’s black community, and the extent of local inter-marriage, has perhaps encouraged a complacency that ‘there isn’t really a race problem in Liverpool’, which may be combined with the observation that there are relatively few black people here compared to other British cities. Thus across the whole political spectrum in Liverpool has developed a consensus that any explicit reference to the needs of black people is to be avoided wherever possible. In the local situation,

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however, in which there are widespread racial inequalities and areas of under-achievement, these attitudes, even though of possibly benevolent origin, have the effect of reinforcing the disadvantages of the black population.70

Te central thrust of the Profle underlined the need for special and urgent action, beginning with adoption of an equal opportunities policy, to reverse racial disadvantage: … considerable racial disadvantage persists as a major problem within Liverpool, which cannot be simply equated with problems of class, urban deprivation, or Inner City malaise; or with problems of linguistic and cultural diferences. Te factor of racial bias and racial discrimination must be seen as an additional burden facing Liverpool’s minorities, especially the locally born black population who are in no sense ‘immigrants’ … problems of occupational discrimination and insecurity, educational under-achievement, residential segregation, mental stress, encounters with the police, media insensitivity, and racist remarks or atacks combine to create an oppressing and alienating situation, which may in fact be deteriorating in the current economic and political climate.71

In its report, published in July 1981, the Select Commitee averred that Liverpool was ‘the most disturbing case of racial disadvantage in the United Kingdom … a grim warning to all of Britain’s cities that racial disadvantage cannot be expected to disappear by natural causes’: Te Liverpool Black Organisation warned the Sub-Commitee, ‘what you see in Liverpool is a sign of things to come’. We echo that warning … paterns of disadvantage in employment, education and housing, so far from disappearing with the passage of time, have if anything been reinforced over the years, to the extent that Chinese or Asian ‘newcomers’ are in a beter position than Liverpool’s indigenous blacks. If we cannot combat racial disadvantage in our other cities now, we will soon have a dozen Liverpools but on a far greater scale.72

In the interim between the visit to Liverpool and publication of the report, the City Council adopted an equal opportunities policy in December 1980. Te Commitee thus declined to cast the Council as the villains of the piece: we hope their recent decision to declare themselves an equal opportunity employer is evidence of greater determination on their part to break down the barriers of mistrust and should

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help to change the prevalent feeling that no local politician would stand up for equal opportunity.73

Tere was no dramatic change however. Te number of black workers in the Council workforce of 30,000 registered a nominal rise from 225 in 1980 to just over 250 in October 1982. Hindered by lack of clarity, commitment and resources, the new Race Relations Liaison Commitee encountered a number of other obstacles: meetings were prevented by industrial dispute within the Council; activities were curtailed by Liberal and Tory cuts to voluntary bodies including the MCRC and the Charles Wooton Centre; and the ‘black’ unity which had proved so forceful in the campaign for equal opportunities fractured in dispute over the Caribbean Centre.74 Te Liverpool Black Organisation organised a takeover of the Centre in May 1981 afer its director, Frederick Reese, was quoted in the tabloid press denigrating ‘the browns’, the Liverpool-born blacks, the products of mixed marriages. Te half caste population is well over 50 percent of the non-white population of Liverpool. Tey are concentrated in Liverpool 8 and if they ever come together, they would swarm over everybody else.75

Shortly aferwards, within a month of the Select Commitee’s ominous report, came the ‘Toxteth riots’ of 1981.

Notes 1 Instituted in the late 1970s, the Caribbean Carnival fell into desuetude but subsequently served to inspire other Liverpool 8 festivities, such as the Brouhaha International Festival and Africa Oyé. See Sonia Bassey, ‘Carnival in Liverpool’ in Diverse, available online at www.diversemag. co.uk. 2 Report of North West Conciliation Commitee, Report of the Race Relations Board, 1967–8, pp. 26–27. 3 Report of North West Conciliation Commitee, Report of the Race Relations Board, 1968–9, p. 37. 4 Report of the Race Relations Board, 1971–2, pp. 14–15. 5 Community Relations 1975–1975, pp. 1–3. 6 LvRO: M364 PSS7/5, Liverpool Council of Social Service, ‘Working Party for Liverpool Community Relations Council’, May 1970. 7 M364 PSS7/5, Town Clerk, 21 Jan. 1970. 8 A maintenance Electrician at Merseyside Passenger Transport Executive, and a Shop Steward of Electrical, Electronic, Telecommunications and

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Plumbing Union, Hesse was appointed to the North West Conciliation Commitee of the Race Relations Board in 1974. He also chaired the Liverpool 8 Detached Youth Work Project. 9 M364 PSS7/5, minutes 10 June and 1 July 1970. 10 M364 PSS7/5, leter from Dorothy Kuya, 30 Nov. 1970. Kuya’s father was Nigerian; her mother, like herself, was born locally. 11 M364 PSS7/5, minutes 1 and 22 July 1970. 12 M364 PSS7/5, minutes 19 Feb. 1972. 13 M364 PSS7/5, LCRC minutes 30 Sept. 1971. It was also hoped that the move away from the Rialto would encourage Stanley House to take a more active role in the area. 14 Merseyside Community Relations Council, 10 th Anniversary Annual Report, Sept. 1980, Introduction. 15 Hull History Centre: U DCL/352/4, Newsleter Sept. 1970; and /349/11 Minutes, Group Meeting, 1 Dec. 1973. 16 SCRRI, 1972, Evidence, 566. Te LCRC provided numerous examples of textbooks which, by refecting the British colonial heritage, provided a negative self-image for black school pupils, leading to their underachievement in the education system. An exhibition displaying some of the worst examples as well as laudable alternatives was mounted in the LCRC ofces, see ‘Race bias test on text books’, Guardian 6 Sept. 1972. Te MCRC subsequently published a series of articles on racism in children’s books, Merseyside Community Relations Council, Te Dragon’s Teeth, Liverpool, n.d. (1975?). 17 Guardian 29 Sept. 1973 quoted the LCRC annual report under the headline, ‘Race prejudice “entrenched” in Liverpool’. 18 SCRRI, 1972, Evidence, 561 and Report, 5. 19 SCRRI, 1972, Report, 5. 20 Runnymede Trust, Industrial Survey, cited in Gideon Ben-Tovim’s chronology of events, 1968–80 in Merseyside Community Relations Council, 10th Anniversary Annual Report, Sept. 1980, p. 7. Te fgure for unemployed white youths in Liverpool 8 was 19%. 21 Reference Division, Community Relations Commission, Unemployment and Homelessness: A Report, London: HMSO, 1974, p. 42. 22 Preface by Mark Bonham Carter in Community Relations 1975–1975: Te Report of the Community Relations Commission July 1975-November 1976, London: HMSO, 1976, p. v. 23 Merseyside Socialist Research Group, Merseyside in Crisis, Birkenhead: Merseyside Socialist Research Group, 1980. 24 Unemployment and Homelessness, p. 42. 25 Home Afairs Commitee: Race Relations and Immigration Sub-Commitee:

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Racial Disadvantage, Session 1979–80, Minutes of Evidence together with Appendices, (SCRRI, 1980), 607. 26 M364 PSS7/5, leter from Race Relations Board, 10 Oct. 1973. 27 Liverpool – A Multiracial City, pamphlet in uncatalogued MCRC papers, Liverpool Record Ofce. 28 Liverpool Black Caucus, Te Racial Politics of Militant in Liverpool: Te Black Community’s Struggle for Participation in Local Politics, 1980–1986, London and Liverpool: Runnymede Trust, 1986, p. 24. 29 Daily Post 24 Nov. 1978. 30 LvRO: 329COM/10/15, MCRC to Frank Carroll, 14 Feb. 1978. 31 Richard Meegan, ‘Urban Policy: National, Local and European Perspectives’ in William Ackah and Mark Christian (eds), Black Organisation and Identity in Liverpool, pp. 13–41. 32 Planning Research Applications Group, Liverpool Social Area Study Interim Report (1966 Data), 1975. 33 ‘Tough times in Toxteth’, Guardian 6 Oct. 1975. 34 Shelter Neighbourhood Action Project, Another chance for cities- SNAP 69/72, 1972, p. 149. 35 Margaret Simey’s evidence, SCRRI, 1968–9, Minutes, 833. 36 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 555–56. 37 ‘Te Ugly Facts’, Echo 15 Jan. 1973. 38 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 551. 39 Report of the Race Relations Board for 1974, p. 36–37. 40 SNAP, p. 17. 41 Change or Decay: Final Report of the Liverpool Inner Area Study, London: HMSO, 1977, 171. 42 Change or Decay, 93 and 192–93. 43 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 574 and 580. 44 M364 PSS7/5, Afro Asian Caribbean Standing Commitee, undated press statement. 45 Te Times 16 July 1976. 46 CK 2/3130: Miss Clovis v Liverpool City Council, 1976. Miss Clovis may well have been a relative of Mr C. Clovis, representative of the Merseyside Caribbean Council on the Afro Asian Caribbean Standing Commitee, member of the Trinidad and Tobago Association and of the local liaison group of the National Council for Civil Liberties. 47 Quoted in SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 542. See also Guardian 14 Sept. 1975. 48 Quoted in MAR: Why an anti-racist campaign on Merseyside, undated leafet in 329COM/10/15. 49 ‘Liverpool’s unique “local born blacks”’, Te Times, 1 Sept. 1980. 50 ‘Down and out in the Harlem of Liverpool’, Guardian 14 Sept. 1975.

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51 ‘Black violence simmers in unemployment-hit Liverpool’, Te Times 16 July 1976. 52 329COM/10/15, Report of Trades Council Race Relations SubCommitee: Racialism and Employment in Liverpool. 53 Merseyside Community Relations Council, 10 th Anniversary Annual Report, Sept. 1980, p. 13. 54 ‘Local-Born Blacks and the C.R.C.’ in Merseyside Community Relations Council, 10 th Anniversary Annual Report, Sept. 1980, p. 15. 55 Quoted in Liverpool Black Caucus, Racial Politics of Militant in Liverpool, p. 22. 56 Established by Wally Brown, subsequently the Principal of Liverpool Community College, Ellimu Wa Nane was Swahili for ‘education for eight’, in other words Education for Liverpool 8. Princes Park Methodist Centre also received funding from the Community Relations Commission under the ‘Moggie’ scheme, for trips to and from Liverpool. When the Commission questioned the expenses claimed for a trip to Manchester, it was explained that the group had ‘predominantly black youth membership from the Liverpool 8 area and an exchange would help broaden perspectives … the awareness of life in another big city particularly in the case of my lads the notice taken of black and white integration’, see CK3/162 and CK3/204. 57 For details of the various centres and organisations, see section ix, ‘Community Organisations’ of the Area Profle, SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 598–602. 58 Racial Politics of Militant, pp. 24–25. SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 579. 59 See the collection of MAR pamphlets and leafets in 329 COM/10/15. 60 ‘On the Mersey beat’, Listener 2 Nov. 1978. 61 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 583–84. 62 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 583. See also the evidence presented by MCRC, 517. In their Sick City report in 1974, the North West Area Young Conservatives expressed concern at the ‘special surveillance of the Liverpool 8 area which leads to antagonism between the community and the police’, quoted in Kenneth Leech, Te Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee, London: Race, Pluralism and Community Group, 1981. 63 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 585. 64 Merseyside Community Relations Council, 10 th Anniversary Annual Report, Sept. 1980, p. 12. 65 Cited in Diane Frost and Richard Phillips (eds) Liverpool ’81: Remembering the riots, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011, p. 61. 66 Te ‘fnal version’ of the leter sent to the City Council was included in the MCRC memorandum, see SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 518–21. 67 ‘Te defnition of “coloured” is more a mater of opinion than a fact,’

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Professor Simey had advised the Select Commitee back in 1969; ‘Alternative methods could, however, be devised. For instance, following the lead of Charles Booth, satisfactory estimates could be derived by the comparative study of returns made by those ofcials whose duties take them into the homes of the people (rent collectors, education welfare ofcers, nurses, teachers, etc),’ SCRRI, 1968–9, Appendices, 86. Te Working Party on Departmental Statistics for Commonwealth Immigrants, 1970 agonised over the difculties, recognising that there was ‘a distinction between problems of colour and problems of recent immigrants’, HO332/58. 68 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 510. 69 House of Commons: Fifh Report of the Home Afairs Commitee, 1980–81: Racial Disadvantage, London: HMSO, 1981, p. xlvii. Te Profle Group comprised Gideon Ben-Tovim, Dave Clay, Linda McGowen, Vivienne Brown, Ian Law and Protasia Torkington. 70 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 605. 71 SCRRI, 1980, Evidence, 607. Te MAPG published their memorandum, see Evidence submited to the Parliamentary Home Afairs Commitee, Race Relations Sub-Commitee October 1980 by the Merseyside Area Profle Group Department of Sociology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool. 72 House of Commons: Fifh Report of the Home Afairs Commitee, 1980–81: Racial Disadvantage, p. xlvi. 73 House of Commons: Fifh Report of the Home Afairs Commitee, 1980–81: Racial Disadvantage, pp. xlvii–xlviii. 74 Liverpool Black Caucus, Racial Politics of Militant in Liverpool, p. 41. On the decision to stop the annual grant to the Charles Wooton Centre, see ‘Toxteth centre’s grant axed’, Guardian 22 Sept. 1981. 75 See the discussion of the controversy in Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Dropping Anchor, Seting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005, p. 111. See also the correspondence about the afair in HO266/58 Inquiry into the Brixton Disturbances. Phase II visits: Liverpool, 1981, including the leter from the MCRC: ‘We would disassociate ourselves entirely from the suggestion that local born blacks are a “threat” to other blacks.’

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C h a p t e r e ig h t

‘It took a riot’

Te violent and intense disturbances designated as the ‘Toxteth’ riots were triggered by harassment in the deprived Granby area of Liverpool 8, where, as Margaret Simey, chair of the Merseyside Police Commitee rued, ‘policing by consent has become policing by confrontation’. Powerless to restrain the ‘fortress mentality’ and ill-concealed racism of Ken Oxford, the Chief Constable, the exasperated but redoubtable Simey (impervious to media and other criticism) all but welcomed the disturbances, noting that given the circumstances in Granby, people ‘ought to riot’.1 Te frst wave of riots, 3–6 July, developed out of a fracas when police in an unmarked car, having stopped a young black motor cyclist, brought in a further eight vehicles as back up as a crowd began to gather. A scufe ensued during which the original youngster ran free but 20-year-old Leroy Cooper was arrested for assault. Cooper was well known among young local blacks as coming from a family which had been the subject of excessive police atention: his father Lester, who had come to Britain from Jamaica 18 years previously, had no criminal record and was currently suing the Chief Constable in a civil action for damages alleging harassment of himself and his son Paul, Leroy’s younger brother. Te 18-year-old had been arrested 14 times since May 1979, had been required to atend over a dozen identity parades, but had not been convicted – indeed, he had been acquited of a charge in the Crown Court only the day before Leroy’s arrest. Intense rioting followed for the next three days, during which the situation became ‘out of control’,

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prompting the police to use CS gas for the frst time in mainland Britain (fred directly into the crowd contrary to the manufacturer’s explicit instructions, some of the 74 high-velocity projectiles caused considerable injuries). As a serving Probation Ofcer subsequently recorded, a relatively minor incident had provided the motivation and opportunity for members of a marginalised community to assert their right to equal concern and respect by means of violence, exposing the weak position of the police, severely outnumbered, as otherwise law-abiding citizens condoned – or exploited – the ‘rioting’. 2 With the police batling to regain control in Upper Parliament Street, outsiders (mainly white) took the opportunity to loot shops along nearby (un-policed) Lodge Lane – there were also some minor ‘copy-cat’ incidents across Merseyside with stones thrown at police ofcers and shop windows smashed (but without extensive looting) in Kirkby, Birkenhead, Leasowe, West Derby, Cantril Farm and Netherley. Rioting recurred spasmodically thereafer in and around Granby, with renewed peaks on 26–28 July when a disabled man, David Moore, was run over and killed by a police vehicle, on 11 August, David Moore’s funeral, and on 15 August, when an anti-police march (itself well marshalled) was followed by a number of disturbances, including the stoning of police vehicles, and an atack on Wavertree Police Station. Overall, in what was ‘the greatest outbreak of civil unrest mainland Britain has experienced since the War’, 150 buildings were burnt down (by no means an indiscriminate selection, care being taken to ensure the safe evacuation of elderly patients from the Princes Park Geriatric Hospital, adjacent to the judge-frequented Racquets Club, a prime target along with Swainbank’s nearby furniture store in the Rialto); countless shops were looted (as noted above, ofen by outsiders, predominantly white), with damages estimated at £11 million (nearly twice the fgure for the 1981 riots in London); 781 police ofcers were injured (258 of whom required hospital treatment), 214 police vehicles were damaged, and there were 462 arrests. 3 Te Chief Constable, seemingly oblivious to the infammatory consequences of his remarks, had a ready explanation for the events, branding the rioters as ‘a crowd of black hooligans intent on making life unbearable and indulging in criminal activities’ in an area notorious for its ‘natural proclivities towards violence’.4 Others, such as Archbishop Worlock, a close observer of events along with his Anglican counterpart Bishop Sheppard, were more circumspect in their references to race,

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noting how black and white had joined together in the riot. In a mid-disturbance address to the Merseyside Probation and Afer-Care Service (the lead agency in establishing the Emergency Community Activities Co-ordinating Group ‘to occupy young people during the evenings and at weekends to break them away from the hypnotic efects of the rioting’), 5 Worlock stressed that ‘black and white youths were not fghting each other in Toxteth last weekend. Tey were united against the common foe. Tere was an explosion of anger against the “powers that be”, local and national – against the establishment.’6 Sir Trevor Jones, Liberal leader of the Council, refused to categorise the disorders as racial: ‘both black and white youths had been involved. Rather, they had been a revolt against authority, particularly the police, fuelled by the central problem of unemployment.’ 7 At an emergency meeting of the City Council on 10 July, the Labour opposition portrayed the on-going disturbances as ‘manifestations of a fundamental dissatisfaction with the basic make-up of society’. John Hamilton called for immediate reversal of catastrophic national and local government policies in a motion demanding increased public spending as opposed to penalties, and restrictions on the Block Grant allocation to urban councils, abrogation of local cuts in social service facilities and in grants to voluntary organisations, and removal of the threat to close Paddington Comprehensive and other schools in Toxteth. Concentrating on the depredations of the Tory government and the Liberal-led council, the motion made litle more than passing reference to the conduct of the police and their ‘harassment of people, particularly black and white youths’. Te motion was defeated by a Liberal amendment moved by Trevor Jones, which, so far from criticising the police (or the Chief Constable), praised their heroism and devotion, and then drew (laudatory) atention to the ‘vast amount of public money’ expended in the last decade ‘in the area of the disturbances’. While regreting the high level of unemployment, the Liberals eschewed any hasty action as they sought to gain time (and restore calm) through a consultation exercise: We therefore authorise the appropriate Ofcers to take urgent steps to consult the residents by way of Questionnaire, to enter into discussions with community groups and local tradespeople in order to establish the views of persons as to (a) the outstanding needs and requirements of the area and (b) how the community, as a whole, can be involved in repairing the damage to the area and in adding to or managing its community and other services.

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Backed by Council ofcials who prepared a ‘Brief Overview of Services within the Toxteth Area up to the Present Time’, Jones was able to afrm to Lord Scarman on his visit to the city (while preparing his report on the earlier disturbances in Brixton) that Council intervention had lifed Liverpool 8 above the nadir of relative deprivation: ‘very substantial local authority resources had been spent in Liverpool 8 over the years: it would not therefore be correct, in their view, to describe the area as substantially more deprived than certain other parts of Liverpool.’8 Te disturbances, it seemed, could not be understood simply in terms of economic reductionism, despite the alacrity with which lef-wing activists portrayed the events as ‘a revolt of the unemployed, a riot of the dispossessed’.9 ‘Tough circumstances of multiple economic deprivation were very important pre-conditions of the rioting in Toxteth, they could not alone cause it,’ Philip Waller commented in an astute analysis of the riots. Other areas of Merseyside (and, for that mater, Clydeside) endured worse levels of deprivation but had been riot-free: ‘Poverty on its own is more likely to extinguish passion than to rouse it, and cumulative misery produces more listlessness, debility, and fatalism than militancy, demonstration and rebellion.’ Having published his magisterial study of the social and political history of the city just a few months before the riots, Waller appreciated that what set Liverpool 8 apart (amid endemic deprivation) was the conjuncture of disillusion, alienation and race – factors aggravated by the very atention accorded to the area: ‘hopelessness and alienation are compounded when inquiries are made and programmes debated, and no substantial redress of conditions results.’10 Innumerable studies and surveys of Liverpool 8 (enough to top the Liver Building if placed in a pile, another commentator observed),11 had produced litle of positive beneft. Planning, indeed, had led to blight, accompanied by what Beryl Bainbridge (in a return visit to her native city) described as ‘Te Lullaby Sound of Houses Falling Down’.12 As staf at the Methodist Centre, Princes Park noted, the proliferation of research projects had antagonised residents, ‘reinforcing the feeling to the ordinary people of the area that they are in a human zoo, of passing interest to the outside world, but in the long run a place not to stay in too long’. Notwithstanding the resources vaunted by Jones and the Liberals, Granby remained a ‘stigmatised’ and ‘unstable’ district with a relative lack of outward (and upward) mobility, particularly for its black population.13 Disillusion and alienation were compounded by the

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Liverpudlian infexion of race relations, which, as Archbishop Worlock still found necessary to point out, difered from the national preoccupation with immigration: Only now are people outside Liverpool beginning to understand that – for very clear reasons of economy and common sense – frst generation immigrants are not to be found in our community. Even the Irish have found their way south in search of employment.

Problems in Liverpool 8 were of a diferent order, a more worrying portent for the future of multi-racial, multi-cultural Britain: What we have instead is a multi-racial community, in some parts mostly black, trying to share life in an area of acute social deprivation … even without any deliberate segregation there has arisen a situation where the section of our community living in Toxteth has felt to a great extent alienated from the life of the rest of the city. We are dealing with a situation of the alienation of ethnic groups living in Toxteth rather than with conscious and deliberate racism.14

Te vast majority of Granby’s black residents were British-born, of British parents, staf at the Methodist Centre (themselves mainly black) reminded Lord Scarman: they are of mixed racial origins, so white and black families are inter-woven in a complex web of loyalties, friendship and kinship networks; a mutual lack of trust and feeling of isolation and rejection in relation to the rest of the city.15

In this distinctive context, as Waller appreciated, racial factors served as proximate (and defning) cause of the riots: Black animosity against the police was a central reason for the rioting. Tat many young whites shared this grievance, that whites subsequently were active in the disturbances and, apparently, even more prominent in the looting, does not negate this statement. Te rioting was not a race riot, in that the struggle was not white against black or vice versa; but there was a strong racial component to it, in that rioting would probably never have occurred without the lead being taken by the blacks who were aggrieved at police practices.16

Community leaders in Granby were determined to focus post-riot inquiry on the crucial question of police harassment and institutional racism. With a bulging dossier of complaints stretching back to 1972

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and beyond, staf at the Methodist Centre trusted that the riots would succeed in securing changes to police practices, accountability, training and complaints procedure where years of rational argument and campaigning had failed: ‘It may be the most salutary lesson of all, that it takes street violence, appalling injuries to both police and civilians, to make people listen to constructive suggestions, and positive criticisms made in the interests of harmony.’17 With the riots having forced the issue, staf advised the young black members of the Youth Club, ‘Let’s Play it Cool Now’: Your statement is made and don’t let others now use you to further their own political ends. You know very well that more White than Black have been involved in the latest incidents and that extreme political opportunists are out to exploit you.18

A new grassroots organisation, the Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee, hastily established at Stanley House on 6 July, and based thereafer at the Charles Wooton Centre, took the lead in campaigning for the dismissal of the Chief Constable, considered the essential frst step in rooting out racism in the Merseyside Police (in which only four ofcers in a force of 5,000 were black). While stigmatised in the local press, the Commitee gained the support of the MCRC, now chaired by Wally Brown, the frst Liverpool black to hold the position. Tey joined forces immediately to castigate the Liberals for their ‘questionnaire’, a ‘cheap political trick’ to divert atention away from the police, ‘the real issue and cause of the disturbances’.19 What was required, the MCRC insisted, was engagement and dialogue with the central group whose biter sense of resentment and alienation is at the heart of the trouble – young people and especially blacks … It cannot be stressed too strongly that the single most immediate cause of the riots is the deep anger and resentment felt by young people against the Police.20

Leters were sent to all Merseyside MPs expressing the hope that political leaders both nationally and locally as well as our Chief Constable will come to grips with the fundamental problem of the manner of policing of the Liverpool 8 area as it was a deep and biter resentment by young people against the Police which triggered and fuelled last week’s riots.21

A four-page dossier of cases of police harassment over the previous 18 months was prepared for Michael Heseltine, the Environment Secretary,

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ahead of his headline-grabbing fact-fnding mission to Merseyside.22 Oxford, however, continued to enjoy the unquestioning support of the City Council and most of the local media, hindering the eforts of Simey and the Police Authority (responsible to the County Council) to call him to account. In the absence of other infuence or restraint, Merseyside County Council approached the Scarman Inquiry hoping that it might recommend an independent inquiry into the ‘actual policing of the Toxteth riots’ and would itself examine ‘allegations that relationships between the police and the public were a major contributory factor’.23 Te Inquiry stuck rigidly to its specifc remit, however, even as it progressed to ‘Phase Two’, an examination of the ‘underlying causes of the Brixton disturbances, viewed in a national context’ by ‘taking account of the experience of areas outside London where the community is multi-racial’.24 At this stage, the Chief Constable took the opportunity to submit to Scarman 68 pages of evidence on the ‘Toxteth Disturbances’, accompanied by a number of appendices, to vindicate his conduct, besmirch Liverpool and traduce his critics.25 Drawing upon the work of Ramsay Muir, the submission began with an historical survey showing how Liverpool ‘has been beset by problems of violence and public disorder throughout the centuries’. With its rough waterfront culture and ferce sectarian animosities, Liverpool still ‘fulflled her reputation as a tough, violent city, to the present day’: All seaports have a reputation for drunkenness and violence. Liverpool was for many years a Colossus among seaports and her inhabitants have long been reputed to be proportionately tougher, more violent and more pugnacious. It has been said that the aggressive nature of the true ‘Liverpudlian’ is such that on occasion this belligerent atitude has found expression in violent disturbances similar to, though perhaps in miniscule, the most recent outbreaks in Toxteth. In the past these outbreaks tended to coincide with the inter-denominational religious disturbances peculiar to Liverpool, Glasgow and Belfast.

Having set the historical context, Oxford turned to statistics of ‘the current crime scene’, showing how Merseyside topped the league table for crimes of violence against the person (with fgures ten times higher than the national average) and robbery (fve times higher). Since the formation of the county of Merseyside in 1974, crimes of violence against the person had risen by 74.6%, with a disproportionately high incidence

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of street violence – or ‘muggings’ to use the current media terminology26 – in the Upper Parliament Street area of Liverpool, specifcally within the number 2 sub-divisional area of ‘E’ Division, based in Admiral Street Police Station. Signifcantly, there was no reference to diferent styles of policing between and within divisions: another submission to Scarman noted that Admiral Street and Copperas Hill Police Stations were ‘responsible for similar localities – but there were riots in one and not in the other’, so ‘it would seem worth investigating any diference in style or policy between the two police areas.’27 For Oxford, the fgures spoke for themselves: Te statistics show that Merseyside has a particularly high incidence of crimes of violence, including robbery, and that, in turn, the area which saw the recent disturbances is also the scene for a high proportion of such crime. It is against this background that one should consider the allegations of police harassment which rank so highly on the list of causes atributed by the local community groups to the ‘Toxteth Riots’.

Dismissing any suggestion of harassment, Oxford’s narrative account of the disturbances began with ‘police baiting’, a favoured past-time (along with motor vehicle thef) of Granby youth: Members of the Force, working in Toxteth, quote instances when motor cycles were driven past them at fast speeds, encouraging the police vehicle to chase them. Ofen, the rear number plate would be covered over with brown paper to prevent identifcation and the police vehicle would be led into a tenement block area, where the motor cycle would disappear and a large number of youths emerge. Te youths were generally black, local born, but ofen white youths would be present. Tis tactic would be used in an efort to generate an incident, which could result in confrontation with the police.

It was yet another incident of this kind, Oxford averred, which was the frst link in the chain of events leading to the rioting of 3–6 July. When trouble on the streets recurred later in the month, Oxford was outraged to observe that ‘several members of the Merseyside Community Relations Council and the Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee were among the mob.’28 Tenceforth, his criticism of these and similar groups was unrestrained. In a lengthy chapter assuring Lord Scarman of the whole-hearted commitment of his Force to community relations, Oxford rebuked the MCRC for its reluctance ‘to cement a relationship with the police’, a consequence of ‘the antipathetic personalities of some of the executive,

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and their political ambitions, also the continued bickering and internecine strife of those who form or have formed the executive over the years’. 29 He also included, as an appendix, an unapologetically polemical address he had recently delivered to a joint seminar of the Association of Chief Police Ofcers and the Commission for Racial Equality, a strident atack on those in the race relations industry, condemned by association with ‘other libertarian and pseudo-academic agencies’: … it is becoming more and more apparent that the agencies which overtly seek to improve the position of ethnic minority groups are, through their own uncompromising dialectic, guilty of a chauvinism which is at least equal to that they are supposedly seeking to diminish. In this way, rather than eradicating prejudice, there is a tendency to justify or even harden the more rigid atitudes which are held to be characteristic of each group. 30

Oxford was furious when the MCRC joined the Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee, the Charles Wooton Centre and the Liverpool Black Organisation in a noisy and abusive picket outside the Moot Room of the Faculty of Law at the University on 3 August, physically preventing representatives from community groups atending a meeting he had arranged, chaired by Archbishop Worlock, to ‘ventilate the question of police/community relations’. 31 When these ‘vociferous and militant’ groups (‘membership of which is largely interchangeable’) organised a march on 15 August seeking ‘my dismissal from the post of Chief Constable and more democratic control of the police’, Oxford wrote to the secretary of the Scarman Inquiry to provide a supplement to his submission. Having previously refrained from reference to ‘the political aspects of the disturbances’, he now felt it ‘necessary to include some indication of my views in this respect for the beneft of Lord Scarman, but not for publication’. 32 Oxford’s ire was not directed at the gamut of lef-wing extra-parliamentary groups seeking to exploit the march, an opportunity to mobilise the working class and unemployed. ‘THE ISSUE IS POLICING’, the revolutionary group Big Flame acknowledged, but placed this in context of economic struggle not racial harassment. As ‘resistance to the atempts to make the working class and oppressed groups pay for the economic crisis intensifes,’ the police were no longer a neutral force ‘just upholding the law’: they had transmogrifed into the establishment’s ‘front line of defence’. 33 ‘Te people have only one path to follow,’ the newly formed

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Liverpool Commitee of the People’s Democratic Front advised, ‘and that is to step up the struggle, to escalate the struggle against the police repression, to fght against all encrouchments [sic] on our rights’. 34 As Oxford appreciated, such groups were later-day opportunists, not the initiators of the riots: Whilst there is abundant evidence that organisations such as the Socialist Workers Party (S.W.P.), the Labour Party Young Socialists (L.P. Y.S.) and the Liverpool Trades Council (L.T.C.), were quick to take advantage of the post-riot situation, there is no clear indication that they exerted any infuence prior to the disturbances.

In Oxford’s view trouble arose not from would-be class warriors but from Liverpool-born blacks, rendered militant (not just criminal) by recent disputes with their West Indian counterparts: … they are to be found in the main, in the Charles Wooton Centre in Upper Parliament Street, and they are either members of the Centre or of the other two groups located there, namely the Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee and the Liverpool Black Organisation … Te Centre has now become the focal point for most coloured anti-police agitation. Its Management Commitee consists largely of local coloured residents, many of whom have previous convictions for serious crime. It would seem that Liverpool born black people have adopted the Charles Wooton Centre as their headquarters whilst the resident West Indian population avails itself of a purpose-built community and social facility at the Caribbean Centre … prior to the disturbances members of the Liverpool Black Organisation occupied the Caribbean Centre in protest against a criticism of Liverpool born blacks by a West Indian commitee member … Tis dispute to date has not been resolved and it is a fact that this was the frst demonstrable sign of militancy which revealed itself within the Liverpool Black Organisation, and may well be the catalyst in recent events.

It was the intransigence of this hard core, Oxford claimed, that undercut any atempt at improved community relations: Te problem faced by the police is that the groups based at the Charles Wooton Centre, having made their main aim my resignation or dismissal, have to date declined to discuss the problems of the area with police representatives. Tis efectively forms a barrier to communication which needs to be overcome if progress is to be made. 35

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As atitudes polarised, ‘moderate’ voices found it difcult to gain a hearing. In calling upon Oxford to account for his actions during the riots, the Princes Park and Granby Community Council, advocates of old-style ‘Bobbies on the beat’, struggled hard to convince the local press that they were neither ‘anti-police’ nor ‘pro-rioter’. ‘Although they have the strongest cause for complaint, the black community is not the only part of the Liverpool 8 community who fnd themselves victims of a dehumanised Police Force,’ the Council later advised the Merseyside Police Commitee Working Party studying Police/Community Liaison: Many residents feel that the Police can at best be uneven in their approach to the community, and at worst openly racist. Tey feel that many Police Ofcers have the atitude that ‘if you’re not white then you must be a criminal’, or ‘if you live in Liverpool 8, whatever your colour, then you must be a third class citizen’. 36

Outside observers, such as Michael Leroy of the London-based Evangelical Coalition for Urban Mission, sought to assess (if not justify) police behaviour within a stereotyped notion of Liverpudlian culture and character, extending beyond Liverpool 8: Tere is a violent streak in the culture of Liverpool, as well as a buoyancy and idiosyncratic sense of humour. It is difcult to tell whether the exceptional toughness for which Merseyside policemen are reputed is part of the same stream or merely an atempt to restrain the excesses of anti-authoritarian Liverpool citizens. 37

While the police were generally upheld as true and good Liverpudlians, tough but fair upholders of law and order, those calling for Oxford’s dismissal encountered the full force of media misrepresentation and vilifcation. According to the Daily Mail the Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee consisted of outsiders, lef-wing activists and local criminals, while in the Catholic Herald David Alton directed his ire at the presence of ‘highly paid lecturers’. Tere was considerable controversy (indeed, outrage in some quarters) when the Commitee received a grant of £500 from the Community and Race Relations Unit of the British Council of Churches, an award criticised by local clergy, such as the Rev. Colin Bedford of the Toxteth Team Ministry and the Rev. Alan Godson of St Mary’s Edge Hill. In a robust defence, Kenneth Leech, the Race Relations Ofcer at the Board of Social Responsibility set the record straight about the

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composition and purpose of the Commitee, ‘a genuinely grass-roots group’: In fact the Defence Commitee consists almost entirely of local-born Liverpool black people who are well known and widely respected in the area. Far from encouraging violence, rioting and looting, they have been a major force towards peace, and have been able to exercise infuence in a way which other groups have not and could not. I believe it is a serious error to blame them for recent violence: indeed, were it not for the work of the Commitee, the violence might have been worse.

While adverse press comment concentrated on the Commitee’s role in promoting the anti-police march on 15 August, Leech drew atention to the ways in which the grant would help with its main day-to-day functions: 1. To arrange legal aid and proper representation for those arrested and charged 2. To locate detainees and transport friends and family to visit them in remand centres and hospitals 3. To co-ordinate information about what is happening to those in custody 4. To collect statements and bring witnesses together 5. To give assistance in making claims to the police etc, to those whose properties were lost or afected during the disturbances.

Te grant, he concluded, ‘has done a great deal of good for the reputation and credibility of the Church in the eyes of many who associate it with the uncritical support of law and order, at any cost’. While the media continued to denigrate the Commitee, Leech insisted that ‘the work they are doing, and the positive role they are playing in the post-riot atmosphere is most impressive and is of the greatest importance.’38 Disputes over the Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee and its credentials were to merge into arguments over the representativeness of the 12 minority group members of the recently formed (but as yet far from fully functioning) Race Relations Liaison Commitee. Observers drawn to the area in the wake of the riots were amazed by Granby’s ethnic diversity: Strung along Upper Parliament Street are the Charles Wooton Adult Education Centre, Merseyside Caribbean Centre, Stanley House youth club, a Somali restaurant and a Nigerian club; with the Ibo Club, Ghana Union Social club, Merseyside Somali Community Centre and the Sierra

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Leone Social club placed at the western edge of the triangle along Princes Avenue. Within the triangle is the Pakistan Association community centre and an Islamic mosque. Even the Granby triangle is a collection of communities, with no one group able to speak for all. 39

Out of this remarkable mosaic, the members of the Race Relations Liaison Commitee ‘emerged’ through ‘grassroots’ election within the various organisations involved in the original submission to the City Council. While not directly representing these groups, they reported back to them on a regular basis as well as holding their own ‘caucus’ meetings to organise policy input and tactics. No less traduced than the Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee, the Liverpool Black Caucus (as it soon became known) sought to channel anger over Oxford’s continued tenure and impenitent behaviour into implementation of the long-delayed equal opportunity policy.40 In its annual report, presented within weeks of the disturbances, the embatled MCRC, struggling to ‘maintain enough credability [sic] to keep in contact with the diferent interest groups involved, including the Police and Politicians’, registered its protest at the decision by the City Council to freeze its grant. ‘It is a sad irony that the City Council should have been prepared to make our fnancial situation so precarious in the same year as they declared an Equal Opportunity Policy and set up a Race Relations Commitee,’ Gideon Ben-Tovim, the treasurer, lamented: Perhaps the recent disturbances in Liverpool 8 will fnally convince our political leaders in Liverpool, and on Merseyside as a whole, that the creation of racial justice, racial equality and racial harmony must be a social priority requiring an unstinting fnancial commitment.

Tere was a harsh unremiting tone throughout the report, refecting anger not only with the City Council but also with Oxford’s ‘very serious criticisms and allegations against our organisation’, duly repudiated in the MCRC’s own submission to Scarman as ‘quite improper, ill-founded, and extremely selective in the presentation of facts’. For all the calumny they endured, the MCRC welcomed the events of 1981 as a decisive watershed: No longer will it be possible, as so many have done over the past twenty years, to sweep real issues out of sight by claiming Liverpool as a mythical example of racial harmony. People within the Community, and agencies such as our own, have for years pointed

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to the constant day-to-day tensions generated by Police behaviour and to the social and economic deprivations suffered so acutely by the black community. Up to now there has been little willingness to accept or understand the reality of this experience and there has been a severe lack of political will behind attempts to confront the issues and work for a genuinely multi-racial community in which all people irrespective of race are treated with respect by institutions such as the Police and provided with equal opportunity in access to employment and services. 41

Further historical perspective was provided by a pamphlet published by the MCRC in October 1981, Ian Law’s History of Race and Racism in Liverpool, 1660–1950, ofering new insight into key areas: the structure and development of white racism, the making of the black community in Liverpool and ‘the many forms of resistance developed by that community to the complex patern of white oppression’.42 In the hope that 1981 would prove a watershed, Archbishop Worlock contemplated an agenda for change, a project extending beyond politics, economics and policing to embrace cultural and psychological transformation on all sides. To eradicate racism, to engage the alienated, there could be neither white paternalism nor black withdrawal: the path to a truly multi-racial and multi-cultural Liverpool was necessarily shared but pluralist: Tere are no black city councillors. I understand that there are no black members of the bar. In how many of the large department stores in the centre of the city are there black shop assistants? Is it just a psychological ‘no-go’ area? How do we share? For I suspect the hard truth is that there are few amongst the alienated who would wish to identify themselves with what they regard as ‘dangerously establishment’ by moving into such spheres … If we are looking for methods of how to involve them and to help them to overcome the sense of alienation, the only short answer has to be ‘in their way’. If that sounds in itself separatist, let me say that I hope that in time ‘their way’ can also be ‘our way’. But if multi-racial is also to mean multi-cultural, then we have to think in terms of integration rather than absorption. Tat could mean that in the foreseeable future there will have to be more than one way of contributing to our common life.43

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*** For all the atention it atracted, the Merseyside Task Force (MTF) and other initiatives promoted by Michael Heseltine in the wake of the riots contributed litle to the required transformation. To his credit, Heseltine prevailed upon a sceptical Tory Cabinet to facilitate the Merseyside experiment in urban renewal. Recently released documents at the National Archives have shown that Geofrey Howe, Chancellor of the Exchequer, argued against commiting scarce resources to Liverpool, ‘the hardest nut to crack’ in urban regeneration. While Howe advocated the city’s ‘managed decline’, the very extent of the challenge energised Heseltine, Secretary of State for the Environment.44 Appointed as Minister for Merseyside, he was supported by the MTF, a new administrative unit comprising civil servants from several government departments and managers seconded from a variety of private sector institutions, arrangements intended to encourage innovative approaches to urban regeneration and overcome the proverbial ‘immobilism’ of Liverpool politics – as political scientists had shown, Liverpool had long been held back by the atypical nature of its party system; excessive departmentalism within the local authority; difcult relations between city and county councils; and strained relationships between the City Council and community voluntary groups.45 Te gravity of the task at hand was underlined by a consultancy report by Coopers and Lybrand which noted that jobs on Merseyside had been declining at an annual rate of 10,000–12,000 in the late 1970s. Without ‘a radically diferent approach to regeneration and to the constitutional framework for development’, unemployment would ‘worsen over the next fve years, with the possibility that the numbers of unemployed might double their current levels’. Within the metropolitan county, Liverpool itself would be hardest hit, leading to the stark conclusion: ‘Te prospects for the city’s (a) young, where unemployment rates are already high; (b) poorer districts, where large numbers of jobless are concentrated; are not good.’46 Tere were some achievements. Having previously struggled to atract inward commercial investment, the Merseyside Development Corporation (MDC) was encouraged to change tack and adopt a regeneration strategy based on tourism, leisure, housing and tertiary employment, the frst stirrings (although by no means apparent at the time) of the make-over of derelict Liverpool into twenty-frst-century Livercool.47 Without beneft of hindsight, local politicians and ofcials, denied direct input, became

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increasingly (and justifably) critical of the MTF and MDC, fritering away money instead of ofering ‘fundamental solutions to Merseyside’s problems’, compounded by failure to help the deprived communities of the inner city. Some streetscape improvements apart, there was litle of direct beneft to Liverpool 8, despite the initial commitment of the MTF to take account of the needs of ethnic minorities – and Heseltine’s acknowledgement in his (‘It took a riot’) memorandum to the Prime Minister that ‘in Liverpool 8 the problem is most acute’: Tere alone is there a black community – Liverpool people of several generations’ standing. Te crime rate is high, educational atainment low. Te reputation of the area is a barrier to work. Up to 45% of the 16–20 year olds are unemployed. Among the blacks the fgure is 60%.

Race relations, however, were not a priority. ‘As far as one can tell the relations between Blacks and Whites in Liverpool are acceptable,’ Heseltine reported.48 ‘All we got from Mr Heseltine was trees in Princes Avenue, and even they were planted by contractors from outside,’ a witnessed informed the Giford Inquiry some years later, adding that ‘the showpieces of the post 1981 period, the Liverpool Garden Festival and the Albert Dock development, had been irrelevant to the Black community although happening on its doorstep.’49 Projects of direct beneft to the black community were indeed few in number. Tere was a more serious defciency as money for ‘irrelevant’ initiatives came at the expense of central government fnancial support for local government, lessening the funds available for mainstream services utilised by Liverpool blacks. A poor deal for Liverpool blacks, the Heseltine exercise seemed just another phase in a long line of urban policies tested out on Liverpool without any conspicuous success. 50

*** Afer the frustrating lack of progress in implementing the equal opportunities policy, events seemed to have taken a turn for the beter in 1983. Following a conference sponsored and organised by Merseyside County Council in association with the MCRC, South Liverpool Personnel, Litlewoods and the MAPG, the Merseyside Association for Racial Equality in Employment came into being. As conference delegates had afrmed, ‘paying lip-service to the principle of Equal Opportunities

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and adopting cosmetic or token responses is uterly inadequate and unacceptable’: What is urgently required from employers and trade unionists in the public and private sectors and from the local authorities and statutory agencies is a real commitment of will and resources, comprehensive policies and detailed action programmes, to ensure that equality of opportunity is transformed from a slogan to a reality. 51

Persuading the City Council, however, was a diferent mater, despite the prospect of decisive action when Labour, galvanised by Militant, secured an absolute majority in 1983. For a decade (in the later part of which the minority Liberals had been ‘in ofce but not in power’) the chamber had been hung, contributing to the ‘immobilism’ bemoaned by political scientists. Te Black Caucus promptly seized the opportunity to call for the appointment of specialist experts to address the city’s deep-seated problems and bring it up to speed with provision elsewhere: the Caucus felt that, in the absence of dramatic party political conversions, real progress would only come through the appointment of a very capable team of race relations ofcers securely established deep within the local authority as was happening in an increasing number of local authorities at the national level.

As chair of the Race Relations Liaison Commitee, Derek Haton agreed to establish a central Race Relations Unit, but otherwise used his infuence to prohibit any form of positive action (or even ethnic monitoring) to tackle racial disadvantage and discrimination. Under Militant, the old political mantra of ‘colour-blindness’ was reinterpreted – and reinforced – within a ‘workerist’ ideology of absolute class solidarity, denying any ‘divisive’ concession to ethnic, sectional or voluntary groups. Te ‘racial politics’ of Militant were exposed when Haton engineered the appointment of Sampson Bond as Principal Race Relations Advisor to head the proposed new unit. Unqualifed and inexperienced in race relations, Bond, a Militant toady from London, was appointed in the face of unanimous opposition from the Black Caucus, Liberal and Conservative Councillors and his own union, the National Association of Local Government Ofcers (NALGO). Afer the protestors blockaded Haton’s ofce, Militant mounted an all-out ideological ofensive: accused of ‘thuggish, threatening behaviour’, the Black Caucus was denounced as undemocratic and unrepresentative, a ‘self-interested clique of the race

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relations industry’. Relations deteriorated rapidly thereafer, undermining any advance with the equal opportunities policy. In May 1985 Militant disbanded the Race Relations Liaison Commitee; Bond remained in post but inoperative, boycoted by NALGO and other agencies. 52 When the House of Commons Select Commitee on Employment visited Liverpool in 1986, the MCRC and the Black Caucus joined forces to present evidence, compiled with the assistance of the MAPG, atesting to the deleterious consequences of the ‘racial politics’ of Militant. Over the previous ffeen months, they rued, there had been ‘total regression’ on the equal opportunities policy as a result of the decision of the Labour leadership on the Council to appoint on purely sectarian political grounds a completely inexperienced, unqualifed and totally unacceptable candidate to the post Principal Race Adviser, and also to abolish the Race Relations Liaison Commitee … Te current administration has consistently opposed the principle of positive action in favour of a colour blind, class only approach which in efect perpetuates racial inequality.

Hence, much still needed to be done ‘to transform the employment profle and the general economic base of the black community in this city’. Although comprising at least 7%–8% of the population, Liverpool blacks still constituted less than 1% of the labour force of the City Council and the County Council, and of city centre employers and stores; the fgure for the Health Authority was slightly higher at 3% but those employed were ‘mainly recent immigrants rather than from local Merseyside black communities’. Te MCRC and the Black Caucus looked to the Select Commitee to reprimand Militant as a necessary frst step in tackling ‘the massive problem of racial discrimination and disadvantage in employment facing black people in Liverpool’: Te Select Commitee must use its infuence to urge the Council to end its divisive and confrontationist approach to the established black groups in the city, by trying to brand us as ‘violent’ and ‘unrepresentative’ … there is an urgent cry for the implementation of interventionist race relations policies in this city, so that steps towards greater equality of opportunities can be visibly seen to give some hope of a future for Liverpool’s black community … We call on this All Party Select Commitee – whose visit we welcome despite the scepticism felt by many people – to show its commitment to the long discriminated-against and disadvantaged black community in Liverpool by urging both the Government and

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the City council to take urgent positive action to rectify the continuing shame and scandal of Liverpool’s abysmal record with respect to the employment of black people. 53

*** Despite hopes for transformation following the Toxteth riots, Liverpool in the 1980s was certainly not the role model for multi-racial, multicultural Britain. Black Linx, published by the Charles Wooton Centre and the MCRC, was founded when the local newspaper, the Echo, refused to allow a regular ‘Black Column’ on the specious grounds that ‘racially based columns are not helpful in bringing about the multi-racial society that we all desire.’54 Liverpool, Black Linx subsequently contended, was ‘a city with a more subtle form of apartheid than Johannesburg’. Even its two football league teams were still all-white. 55 A research report by the Commission for Racial Equality on housing and race in Liverpool drew atention to three specifc areas of continued disadvantage for black households: Tey have achieved a lower quality of dwelling overall, they have been excluded from sheltered accommodation, and they have been concentrated in the original area of black post-war setlement, and virtually excluded from the beter quality environment of the suburban area of South City. 56

A Liverpool profle of the ‘racial politics of health’ revealed how racism took pernicious form in the National Health Service: by blaming black people’s ‘lifestyle’, ‘victims of racism are made to appear responsible for their experiences.’57 Te Swann Report (1985) into the education of children from ethnic minority groups found itself confronted by the familiar (but disturbing) ‘paradox’ of Liverpool. Te Liverpool Black group was ‘more closely assimilated with the “majority” by ancestry, culture and length of residence’ but yet fared worse than any other group studied, with the exception of travellers, in educational and career achievements. ‘Visiting Liverpool 8 and talking with witnesses there, the observer receives a very vivid impression of how strongly the situation of the Liverpool Black minority is afected by the special character of Merseyside itself,’ Swann recorded: ‘Te established social and political structures perpetuate old practices and atitudes formed at diferent periods of history. Te “blacks” are simply lef out of the patern.’58

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Assessing the ‘lessons from Liverpool’ on ‘race, politics and urban regeneration’, for a joint UK-US audience at a Fulbright Colloquium at the University in 1986, Gideon Ben-Tovim reached a critical conclusion about the impact of ‘the approaches adopted by both the Conservative government in Whitehall and the socialist administration in Liverpool’s Town Hall’: Both strategies have failed because of their underlying assumption that the issue of race is simply a general form of economic deprivation, to be addressed by general economic policies. Tis assumption has linked both lef and right, albeit in diferent modes, and has ensured practically zero impact on entrenched paterns of racial discrimination and disadvantage. But neither central nor local government has atempted a serious strategy of positive action in employment or the targeting of resources towards the black community. Neither at central nor at local level has there been any efort to involve the black community in the decision-making process. 59

In a gesture of goodwill and reconciliation, the new Labour administration which replaced Militant in 1987 called upon Lord Giford (who had recently chaired the Broadwater Farm inquiry) to examine race relations in the city.60 Assisted by Wally Brown and Ruth Bundey, Giford issued a declaration afer just nine days of hearing evidence, expressing ‘shock at the prevalence in Liverpool of racial atitudes, racial abuse and racial violence directed against black citizens of the city’. Drawing upon their long experience in London, Leeds, Bradford and Manchester, the inquiry team judged racism in Liverpool to be ‘uniquely horrifc’. Tis damning assessment was confrmed by the lengthy fnal report, published in 1989, accompanied by no less than 57 recommendations to transform atitudes and policies.61 A bleak report into Black Youth in Liverpool a few years later made clear that the time had passed simply for anti-discrimination initiatives. Positive action to meet special needs was essential and urgent to prevent Liverpool black youth descending into a permanent underclass: Te impediments to the young blacks’ progress extended beyond obstacles common to the entire Liverpool working class. Indeed, in certain senses the blacks were becoming a class apart, not only outside employment but also, in many cases, out-of-contact with the services that might have linked them to the wider labour market. One of the reasons was a lack of confdence that the services would respect the young

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blacks’ own ambitions. Another was the threat and fear of encountering discrimination and hostility when seeking, travelling to, and when at work. According to our evidence, by 1989 the time had passed, if it ever existed, when non-discrimination in hiring would have immediately bestowed genuinely equal opportunities. 62

Lacking the security and shelter which immigrants found in their respective ethnic forms of associational culture and collective mutuality, Liverpool-born blacks had no alternative but to adopt a lifestyle apart from their white British counterparts, a necessary means of ‘sheltering and coping in a hostile environment’. Hence, as Tony Crowley has shown, the ‘Yardie’ language of the black ‘Tocky’ lads from Granby is quite diferent and distinct within Liverpool speech.63 Ethnographical research conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s emphasised the extent of apartness as those once stigmatised as ‘half-caste’, having chosen to strive no further for white acceptance, adopted a ‘radical blackness’ in a process described by the anthropologist Jacqueline Nassy Brown as ‘localization as racialization’.64 A political category acknowledging ties of kinship and collective resistance, the ‘additive blackness’ of the Liverpool-born black incorporated white mothers – otherwise maligned, despised and ostracised – but tended to shun blacks from elsewhere.65 ‘Tis antagonism towards “new arrivants”’, Caryl Phillips observed ruefully, ‘has meant blacks from other parts of Britain have ofen been made to feel uncomfortable in Liverpool’.66 Relations within the city continued to deteriorate. Stanley House, the pioneer post-war exercise in community relations, was closed and fell (symbolically) into dereliction. Subsequent initiatives fared litle beter. Te Charles Wooton Centre and the Liverpool 8 Law Centre – perhaps the most positive outcome of the riots – had to close when the City Council withdrew funding. At end of the twentieth century, ‘cosmopolitan’ Liverpool still lacked the facilities and mentality to address the special but not separate needs of the black British in the city’s midst. Still struggling for historical recognition, Liverpool blacks – unlike their Liverpool-Irish counterparts – were yet to be acknowledged as ‘scousers’.67

*** Tere has been much change in ‘cosmopolitan’ Liverpool in recent decades, not least in consequence of generational, ethnic and racial tensions. From the mid-1980s, the welfare networks of the increasingly elderly Somali

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community of merchant seamen were fractured by splinter groups and new arrivals who, to the dismay of the Somali Nationals Association, ‘have done nothing except organize demonstrations against the Somali Government and play cards every afernoon’.68 Despite the reinvention and refurbishment of Chinatown with lacquered street furniture and a colossal arch – ‘an anachronistic structure, out of time and out of place’ – the old hybrid culture based round sailors from Shanghai and elsewhere has gone, replaced by a new ‘all-Chinese’ community drawn mainly from immigrants from post-1949 Hong Kong replete with grandparents and grandchildren, spread across the suburbs.69 Tere have been changes within the Granby Triangle itself, which, as Diane Frost and Richard Phillips have recently noted, is no longer as strongly identifed with Liverpool-born black people, as those communities have dispersed, and have been replaced to some extent by frst- and second-generation immigrants from other parts of the world, and by people who identify along religious rather than racial or ethnic lines, notably as Muslims.70

Dispersal has its problems, however, for racism persists further out, as the brutal and sickening murder of Anthony Walker in Huyton in 2005 atested. Te 2001 census confrmed that Liverpool had become one of the least ethnically diverse of British cities with small numbers of post-1945 ‘new Commonwealth’ migrants, although Liverpool Riverside registered the greatest range of change in the north west in the 2001 immigration map of Britain, mainly as a result of asylum dispersal out of London, an indication of how Liverpool has been perceived from outside.71 Figures released from the 2011 census suggest slightly more ethnic diversity, most notably through growth in the ‘Asian and Asian British’ categories (including Chinese), but the numbers of ‘born abroad’ living in Liverpool is signifcantly below the national average.72 No longer associated with depression, decline and despair, the new ‘Livercool’ aspires to be multicultural but the city – a troubled forerunner in British race relations – has a long way to go to recapture its former ‘cosmopolitan’ pre-eminence.73

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Notes 1 Diane Frost and Richard Phillips (eds), Liverpool ’81: Remembering the riots, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2011, p. 42. Tere is a particularly vituperative leter to Margaret Simey describing her as ‘one of the many well meaning, incompetent, small time Politicians, who actually add to the problem’, in AT 81/241: Secretary of State initiative on Merseyside, see J. Millar to Simey, 30 July 1981. 2 Paul Cooper, ‘Competing explanations of the Merseyside riots of 1981’, British Journal of Criminology, 25, 1985, pp. 60–68. 3 As well as the reconstructed narrative of events in Frost and Philips, see also the various contemporary accounts forwarded to Lord Scarman in HO266. See in particular, HO266/58: Inquiry into the Brixton Disturbances. Phase II visits: Liverpool, 1981; HO 266/119, Organisations and statements M-N (which includes the Chief Constable’s version of events); HO 266/135, Submissions and Correspondence. Organisations, L; and HO 266/136, Submissions and Correspondence. Organisations, M. See also, MCRC, 11th Annual Report, 1981, p. 6, and Michael G. Leroy, Riots in Liverpool 8: Some Christian Responses, London: Evangelical Coalition for Urban Mission, 1983. 4 Quoted in ‘Toxteth: Respect for the law, respect for the people’ Castle Street Circular, 130, July 1981 in HO 266/119. 5 See the submission from the Merseyside Probation and Afer-Care service, 3 Sept. 1981, in HO 266/119. 6 See the submission from the Catholic Press and Information Ofce in HO 266/58, Address of the Most Rev. Derek Worlock, Archbishop of Liverpool, to the AGM of the Merseyside Probation and Afer-Care Service, 15 July 1981. 7 Te Brixton Disorders 10–12 April 1981. Report of an Inquiry by the Rt. Hon. Te Lord Scarman, O.B.E., London: HMSO, 1981, pp. 152–53. 8 A report of the proceedings on 10 July was enclosed in the leter from A.J.  Stocks, Chief Executive of the City Council to P.J.C.  Mawer, Secretary to the Scarman Inquiry, 6 Aug 1981 in HO 266/135. See also Brixton Disorders, pp. 152–53. 9 Merseyside Right to Work Campaign, handbill in HO 266/58. Te fle also contains handbills issued by the Socialist Workers Party and the Workers Revolutionary Party insisting, ‘Liverpool 8 is NOT in the middle of a race riot. It is not black against white. It is an unemployed riot.’ 10 P.J. Waller, ‘Te riots in Toxteth, Liverpool: A survey’, Journal of Ethic and Migration Studies, 9, 1981, pp. 344–53. His Democracy and Sectarianism: A political and social history of Liverpool 1868–1939 was published by Liverpool University Press in early 1981.

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11 Colin Bedford, Weep for the City, Tring: Lion, 1982, p. 46. 12 Sunday Times 19 July 1981. 13 Evidence submited by the Methodist Centre, signed Rev. D.H.  Copley (chairman, Management Commitee), Ewen Gilhespy (Warden and Senior Youth and Community Worker) and Rev. R.E.G. Barret (responsible for pastoral afairs) in HO 266/136. 14 Worlock, 15 July 1981, HO 266/58. 15 Methodist Centre, HO 266/136. Beneath the three signatories to the submission, the majority of the six full-time and fve part-time workers at the Centre were black. 16 Waller, ‘Riots’, p. 346. 17 Methodist Centre, HO 266/136. 18 ‘From the Staf of the Methodist – to all Youth Club Members’, enclosed in HO 266/58. 19 Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee, ‘Riots are the Voices of the Unheard’, pamphlet in HO 266/58. 20 MCRC, Liverpool 8 Riots – 3.7.81 to 6.7.81, typescript in HO 266/58. 21 Leter signed by Wally Brown, 15 July 1981 in HO 266/136. 22 MCRC Evidence of Police Harassment, HO 266/136. 23 C.K. Wilson, County Solicitor and Secretary to Mawer, 17 Aug. 1981, HO 266/136. 24 N.F. Montgomery Pot to Wilson, 26 Aug. 1981, HO 266/136. 25 Tere are copies of Oxford’s submission, comprising seven chapters and fve appendices, in both HO 266/119 and 136. 26 Oxford gave his support to Joan Jonker’s Victims of Violence campaign, described by critics as ‘a misnamed campaign aimed at the young blacks it alleged were responsible for “mugging”’, Merseyside Communist Party, Police: Accountable to Whom?, Liverpool: Merseyside Area CPGB, 1984, p. 2. In her autobiography, Victims of Violence, London: Headline, 2003, p. 171, Jonker took pride in being described by the journalist Anne Robinson as ‘someone whose views on punishment were only slightly less severe than the Ayatollah Khomeini’. 27 Merseyside Probation and Afer-Care service, 3 Sept. 198, HO 266/119. 28 Details of the events immediately preceding 26 July involving an atack on a taxi driver have been deleted and replaced by the words, ‘redacted under FOI Exemption Section 40(2), closed until 2061’. Oxford acknowledged that there was ‘no evidence available’ to suggest that members of the MCRC and Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee ‘took part in the atack, but they are well known in the community and have been interviewed. Te only people they can identify as having been present at the scene is themselves’. 29 Oxford submission, ch. 5.

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30 Oxford submission, Appendix B, ACPO/CRE Joint Seminar, Derbyshire Police HQ , 10–11 Apr. 1979. 31 Oxford submission, ch. 7. 32 Oxford to ‘Philip’ (Mawer), 2 Sept. 1981, HO 266/136. 33 Big Flame handbill, HO 266/58. 34 See their ‘Bulletin’ in HO 266/58. 35 Oxford, 2 Sept. 1981, HO 266/136. 36 See the publications and correspondence of the Council in HO 266/58, including a lengthy leter published in the Liverpool Echo 31 July 1981 in which Bety Hunt, chair, and Tony Limont, vice-chair, having called upon the Chief Constable to account for his actions, took great care to explain their ‘balanced’ position: ‘this Community Council, representing many people in Toxteth, appreciates that the Police have a thoroughly difcult and unenviable task, condemns uterly violence in any shape or form; does not want no-go areas and approves of their duty to maintain law and order.’ Te Council’s advocacy of community constables was accorded short shrif by militant groups such as the People’s Democratic Front, who condemned ‘the reformist line for more community police. Oppose all atempts by the reformists to strengthen the arm of the State’. 37 Leroy, Riots in Liverpool 8, p. 23. 38 Kenneth Leech, Te Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee, 2nd (Revised) Edition, Dec. 1981, Race, Pluralism and Community Group, Church House, London. 39 Leroy, Riots in Liverpool 8, p. 8. 40 Liverpool Black Caucus, Te Racial Politics of Militant in Liverpool, London and Liverpool: Runnymede Trust, 1986, p. 35. 41 MCRC, 11th Annual Report, 1981. P.J.  Sommerfeld, NCRC Senior Community Relations Ofcer to Mawer, 21 Sept. 1981, HO 266/136. 42 Ian Law, A History of Race and Racism in Liverpool, 1660–1950, Liverpool: Merseyside Community Relations Council, 1981. Compiled by Ian Law, the book was edited by June Henfrey. 43 Worlock, 15 July 1981, HO 266/58. 44 ‘Tatcher urged “let Liverpool decline” afer 1981 riots’, BBC News website, 30 Dec. 2011. 45 Michael Parkinson and James Dufy, ‘Government’s response to inner-city riots: Te Minister for Merseyside and the Task Force’, Parliamentary Afairs, 37, 1984, pp. 76–96. 46 Merseyside Exercise: Consultancy by Coopers and Lybrand’, AT 81/241. 47 John Belchem, ‘Introduction: Te new “Livercool”’ in Merseypride: Essays in Liverpool exceptionalism, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2nd edition, 2006. 48 Tere are various iterations of the memorandum, some hand-writen, in AT 81/241. Downloaded from . , on , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at .

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49 Lord Giford, Wally Brown and Ruth Bundey, Loosen the Shackles: First Report of the Liverpool 8 Inquiry into Race Relations in Liverpool, London: Karia Press, 1989, p. 51. 50 Jon Murden, ‘“City of Change and Challenge: Liverpool since 1945’ in John Belchem (ed.), Liverpool 800: Culture, character and history, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2006, pp. 444–47. 51 Gideon Ben-Tovim (ed.), Equal Opportunities and the Employment of Black People and Ethnic Minorities on Merseyside, Liverpool: Merseyside Association for Racial Equality and the Merseyside Area Profle Group, 1983, p. 8. 52 Liverpool Black Caucus, Racial Politics of Militant, chs 3–6. 53 Te evidence was reprinted in booklet form in Racial Discrimination and Disadvantage in employment in Liverpool: Evidence submited to the House of Commons Select Commitee on Employment, 1986, Liverpool: Merseyside Area Profle Group, 1986. 54 Black Linx, Feb. 1984. 55 Black Linx, March 1986. Having sufered racial abuse at the hands of supporters of Everton, the ‘last of the elite football teams to sign a black player’, Caryl Phillips considered Liverpool to be ‘a place to be avoided. A dangerous place’, Te Atlantic Sound, London: Faber and Faber, 2000, pp. 75–77. Racism remains an issue despite the presence of considerable numbers of black players today, as the Luis Suarez afair indicates. 56 Commission for Racial Equality, Race and Housing in Liverpool: A research report, London: revised edition, 1986, p. 19. 57 Ntombenhie Protasia Khotle Torkington, Te Racial Politics of Health: A Liverpool profle, Liverpool: Merseyside Area Profle Group, 1983, p. 74. 58 Education for All: Te Report of the Commitee of Enquiry into the Education of Children fom Ethnic Minority Group, London: HMSO, March 1985, pp. 733–38. 59 Gideon Ben-Tovim, ‘Race, politics and urban regeneration: Lessons from Liverpool’ in M. Parkinson, B. Foley and D.R. Judd, (eds), Regenerating the Cities: Te UK Crisis and the US Experience, Glenview: Scot, Foresman, 1989, pp. 141–55. 60 On the disturbances in Totenham, October 1985, see Michael Rowe, Te Racialisation of Disorder in Twentieth Century Britain. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998, ch. 5, which notes how ‘the racist criminalisation of the black community served to simplify the complex story of the Broadwater Farm disorders.’ 61 For a summary of the recommendations, see Giford, Brown and Bundey, Loosen the Shackles, pp. 227–32. 62 Michelle Connolly, Gideon Ben-Tovim, Kenneth Roberts and Protasia Torkington, Black Youth in Liverpool, Utrecht: Giordano Bruno Culemborg, 1992, pp. 35 and 94. Downloaded from . , on , subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at .

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63 Tony Crowley, Scouse: A social and cultural history, Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2012, p. 130. 64 Jacqueline Nassy Brown, Dropping Anchor, Seting Sail: Geographies of Race in Black Liverpool, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. See also the extensive ‘review symposium’ of this book in Antipode, 39, 2, 2007, pp. 355–81. For a more critical perspective of this ‘exoticized and jargon-layered anthropological perspective’, see Mark Christian’s review in Journal of Black Studies, 39, 2009, pp. 657–59, and note too his comments in ‘Te Fletcher Report 1930: A Historical Case Study of Contested Black Mixed Heritage Britishness’, Journal of Historical Sociology, 21, 2008, p. 238, where he describes Brown’s ethnographic study of Black Liverpool as ‘an example of an anthropological voyeuristic voyage into historical amnesia by an “outsider” researcher who fails miserably in understanding the struggle Liverpool Born Blacks have encountered in forging a positive “Black” identity beyond the Fletcher Report’. 65 Diane Frost, ‘Te maligned, the despised and the ostracised: Workingclass white women, interracial relationships and colonial ideologies in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Liverpool’ in Sheryllyne Haggerty, Anthony Webster and Nicholas J.  White, (eds), Te empire in one city? Liverpool’s inconvenient imperial past, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008, pp. 143–64. 66 Phillips, Atlantic Sound, p. 88. 67 Diane Frost, ‘West Africans, Black Scousers and the Colour Problem in inter-war Liverpool’, North West Labour History, 20, 1995–6, pp. 50–57 and Mark Christian, ‘Black Struggle for Historical Recognition in Liverpool’, North West Labour History, 20, 1995–6, pp. 58–66. See also Alfred B. Zack-Williams, ‘African Diaspora Conditioning: Te case of Liverpool’, Journal of Black Studies, 27, 1997, pp. 528–42. 68 Leter from Somali Nationals Association, 4 Nov. 1985 in Liverpool Record Ofce, Merseyside Community Relations Council Archive 16/2: Somali Associations. 69 ‘Paddy’s Chinatown, or the Harlequin’s Coat’ in Gregory B. Lee., Chinas Unlimited: Making the Imaginaries of China and Chineseness, London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003, pp. 79–112. 70 Frost and Phillips, Liverpool ’81, pp. 130–31. 71 See the Born Abroad pages for the 2001 census on the BBC News website at htp://news.bbc.co.uk. 72 Te percentage of Black and Black British has risen from 1.2% to 2.6% and Asian and Asian British from 1.1% to 4.1%, which includes 1.7% Chinese. Te percentage ‘born abroad’ is 9.9%, the national average for England and Wales, 13%. 73 John Belchem, ‘Introduction: Te new “Livercool”’, pp. xi–xxix.

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Sources consulted

Tis study is based on extensive archival research, hence the detailed listing here of ‘primary’ sources consulted (including Parliamentary Papers and Ofcial Reports) rather than provision of a conventional bibliography. Full bibliographical details of ‘secondary’ material consulted are given in the footnotes. National Archives, Kew: Department of the Environment AT/241:

Secretary of State initiative on Merseyside, 1981 British Council

BW 1/61: BW 2/236: BW 2/240: BW 2/241: BW 2/298: BW 3/3:

Colonial Ofce Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Colonial People, 1947–49 Opening of British Council House, Liverpool April 1941 Residents in Northern Region: Liverpool, 1940–41 Residents in Northern Region: Liverpool 1941 Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Coloured People 1942–48 Northern region: Liverpool ofce reports 1942–46

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Cabinet Ofce CAB24:

Reports on Revolutionary Organisations in the UK Commission for Racial Equality and predecessors

CK 2/3130: CK 3/162: CK 3/204:

Miss Clovis v Liverpool City Council, 1976 Application for grant: Exchange visit with Princes Park Methodist Youth Centre, Liverpool, 1974 Orchard Manor Park Group Slough: Exchange visit with Princes Park Methodist Youth Centre, Liverpool, 1974 Colonial Ofce

CO 318/352: CO537/1224:

West Indies, 1919 Colour discrimination in the United Kingdom: Proposed legislation 1946 CO537/2558: Proposed legislation against colour discrimination in the United Kingdom 1948 CO537/4273: Colour discrimination in the United Kingdom. Proposed legislation 1949 CO537/5130: Relationship between anti-communist publicity and treatment of coloured people in the United Kingdom, 1949 CO 537/6764: Communism among Chinese seamen serving on British merchant ships CO 859/40/2: Treatment of coloured people by Elder Dempster Shipping Company CO 859/76/10: African Churches Mission and Nursing Home, 1941 CO 859/76/14: Recruitment of West African Seamen 1941–42 CO 876/17: Welfare of Colonial People Advisory Commitee: Memoranda 1942–43 CO 876/18: Welfare of Colonial People Advisory Commitee: Memoranda 1942–45 CO 876/36: Bishop of Liverpool’s scheme for community centre: Stanley House, 1943 CO 876/37: Representative of Welfare Department, Liverpool: Appointment, 1943 CO 876/38: Grants to the East and West Friendship Council and the African Churches Mission and Training House. Liverpool, 1943 CO 876/44: Natives of West Africa in UK: Possible employment in West Africa

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Sources consulted

281

CO 876/69:

Welfare of colonial people in UK: Advisory Commitee 1942–45 CO 876/167: Welfare of colonial seamen in UK: Repatriation of destitute seamen, accounts 1950 CO 876/168: Welfare of colonial seamen in UK: Merchant Navy Welfare Board CO 876/199: Stanley House, Liverpool, 1951 CO 876/223: Repatriation of destitute and incapacitated colonial people including seamen 1950 CO 876/236: Colonial seamen’s hostels, 1950 CO 876/275: Area Ofces: Liverpool, 1952 CO 1028/22: Working Party on Coloured People seeking Employment in the UK, 1952–3 CO 1028/23: Development of welfare facilities in the UK CO 1028/24: Inter-Departmental Commitee on Colonial Peoples in the UK, 1952–3 CO 1028/25: Consultative Group on the Problems of Colonial Peoples in the UK, 1952–3 CO 1028/26: PEP survey of Colonial people in the UK, 1952–3 CO 1028/30: Stowaways from Colonial territories to the UK, 1954–5 CO 1028/32: Requests by Racial Unity for a commitee of enquiry into the position of coloured people in the UK, 1954–6 CO 1028/33: Question of ministerial responsibility for West Indian immigrants, 1955 CO 1028/34: Leters from West Indian immigrants requesting help from the authorities upon their arrival at Liverpool, 1954–6 CO 1028/35: Report by Jamaican fact fnding mission on Jamaican migration to the UK, 1955–6 CO 1028/36: Reports by Jamaican Welfare Liaison Ofcer, 1954–5 CO 1032/119: Employment of coloured people in UK: Bill to restrict immigration of British subjects from overseas, 1954 CO 1032/195: UK policy on immigration from colonies 1957–58 Board of Education ED 69/580: ED 124/104:

Stanley House Nursery School Youth Centres for Coloured Children. Liverpool 1943–44

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Foreign Ofce FO 371/88835: Private Member’s Bill on the Colour Bar, 1950–51 Home Ofce HO45/11017/ 377969: HO45/11843: HO45/24471: HO45/24748:

Aliens. Repatriation of Coloured Seamen, etc. 1919–20 Aliens. Chinese Immigration etc. 1906–25 Police: complaints by coloured immigrants, 1941–50 Liquor licensing: Alleged colour bar in hotels and restaurants, 1930–48 HO45/25245: Commonwealth immigrants: Discrimination against coloured persons: Representations and reports of incidents HO45/25404: Aliens: Colour problems and white slave trafc in Liverpool and other ports; police reports; correspondence with the Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children HO45/11017/ Aliens, Repatriation of Coloured Seamen, etc, 1919–20 377969: HO45/25604: War: US Forces personnel stationed in the UK: Possibility of friction between white and coloured troops HO144/22498: Dangerous drugs and poisons: reports by Liverpool police on Chinese engaged in drug trafcking, 1923 HO213/244: West Indian migrant workers, 1948 HO213/808: Chinese seamen: Miscellaneous 1945–6 HO213/926: Compulsory repatriation of undesirable Chinese seamen HO213/2084: Coloured seamen who are British Protected Persons HO266/58: Inquiry into the Brixton Disturbances. Phase II visits: Liverpool, 1981 HO 266/119: Organisations and statements M–N HO 266/135: Submissions and Correspondence. Organisations, L HO 266/136: Submissions and Correspondence. Organisations, M HO287/1458: Appointment of coloured policemen: Policy 1965–69 HO332/58: Working Party on Departmental Statistics for Commonwealth Immigrants, 1970 HO344/100: Coloured people from British colonial territories: Draf Cabinet memorandum HO 344/106: Chief Constables’ replies to questionnaire on numbers and conduct of coloured people in their areas, 1953

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Sources consulted

283

Ministry of Labour LAB8/1519: LAB8/1560: LAB8/2289: LAB8/2290: LAB 12/242: LAB 26/134: LAB26/226:

Coloured people in the United Kingdom: General policy, registration and placing, 1948–49 Coloured people in United Kingdom: Numbers of coloured workers registered as unemployed at local ofces, 1949–52 Registration and placing of coloured workers: General policy, 1949–58 Coloured workers from British colonies: Special arrangements for circulation of suitable vacancies, 1949–53 Enquiry into the placing in employment of coloured British subjects Coloured colonials demobilisation, 1943–49 Colonial Ofce working party on the recruitment of West Indians for United Kingdom Industries 1948–49 Ministry of War Transport

MT9/3692:

Seamen-Foreign (Code 141): Request for recognition of the National Chinese Seamen’s Union Liverpool Treasury Papers

T1/12465:

Colonial Ofce. Payment of compensation to black British subjects for losses and injuries sufered in race riots in Liverpool, 1920

Liverpool Record Ofce Acc 2603: Acc 4910:

British Council: Merseyside Branch Material relating to Pastor G. Daniels Ekarte, deposited from the Institute of Commonwealth Studies 352CLE/CUT1: Town Clerk’s newspaper cutings 352MIN/WAT: Minutes of the Watch Commitee Town Clerk’s papers 4L: Box 405 M364 PSS: Liverpool Personal Service Society /5/1/4: /7: /7/5:

Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee ‘Special but not Separate’ Working Party. 1969 Race and Community Relations 1953–74 Liverpool (later Merseyside) Community Relations Council 1970–74

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M329COM: Merseyside Communist Party records /10/15: /14: MCRC:

Merseyside Anti-Racialist Alliance Colonial People’s Defence Association, 1950–53 Merseyside Community Relations Council (uncatalogued)

University of Liverpool Special Collections and Archives Margaret Simey Papers D396/47: D396/48:

Miscellaneous cutings from local and national press about Liverpool (1970s) Miscellaneous correspondence, copies of publications etc, some of it relating to the Toxteth area of Liverpool (1970–95)

Hull History Centre U DCL: /7/10: /80/10: /93/5:

National Council for Civil Liberties Archive Commitee for Freedom of Speech in Liverpool 1954 Liverpool Branch 1954–55 Conference on Race Relations in Britain, at Liverpool, 1960–61

Wellcome Library, London SA/EUG/D.179: Eugenics Education Society: Race Crossing Investigation, 1924–27 Parliamentary Papers and Ofcial Reports ‘Report of the Select Commitee on Teatrical Licenses and Regulations’, PP1866(373)XVI Report of the Commission Appointed by the City Council to inquire into the Chinese Setlements in Liverpool, Liverpool, 1907 Reports of the Race Relations Board, 1967–76 Select Commitee on Race Relations and Immigration: Te Problem of Coloured School-Leavers. Minutes of evidence taken at Liverpool, Wednesday, 26th and Tursday, 27th March, 1969. Session 1968–69 and Volume IV: Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence Select Commitee on Race Relations and Immigration. Education vol. 1. Report, Session 1972–3

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Sources consulted

285

Select Commitee on Race Relations and Immigration. Education vol. 3. Evidence. Session 1972–3 Reference Division, Community Relations Commission, Unemployment and Homelessness: A Report, London: HMSO, 1974 Community Relations 1975–1976: Te Report of the Community Relations Commission July 1975–November 1976 Change or Decay: Final Report of the Liverpool Inner Area Study, London: HMSO, 1977 House of Commons: Fifh Report of the Home Afairs Commitee, 1980–81: Racial Disadvantage Evidence submited to the Parliamentary Home Afairs Commitee, Race Relations Sub-Commitee October 1980 by the Merseyside Area Profle Group Department of Sociology, University of Liverpool, Liverpool Merseyside Community Relations Council: Submission to the Select Commitee on Race Relations and Immigration on the occasion of their visit to Liverpool 14th October 1980 Merseyside Community Relations Council, 10th Anniversary Annual Report, Sept. 1980 and 11th Annual Report, Sept. 1981 Te Brixton Disorders 10–12 April 1981. Report of an Inquiry by the Rt. Hon. Te Lord Scarman, O.B.E., London: HMSO, 1981 Education for All: Te Report of the Commitee of Enquiry into the Education of Children fom Ethnic Minority Group, London: HMSO, March 1985 (Swann Report) Racial Discrimination and Disadvantage in employment in Liverpool: Evidence submited to the House of Commons Select Commitee on Employment, 1986, Liverpool: Merseyside Area Profle Group, 1986 Commission for Racial Equality, Race and Housing in Liverpool: A research report, London: Commission for Racial Equality, revised edition, 1986 Lord Giford, Wally Brown and Ruth Bundey, Loosen the Shackles: First Report of the Liverpool 8 Inquiry into Race Relations in Liverpool, London: Karia Press, 1989 Te Parekh Report: Te Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. Report of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain, London, Profle Books, 2000

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Index

Numbers in bold indicate pages with illustrations Abosso, m.v. 81–2 Achong, L.S. 110 Aden 12, 57 Adkin, Rev. Ernest 59–60, 63 African and West Indian Mission 59, 63 African Churches Mission 5, 65–7, 87, 94, 101, 123, 166 African Progress Union 55 African Social and Technical Society 164–65 African Wesleyan Mission 58 Afro Asian Caribbean Standing Commitee 236, 242 Aggrey House 85, 115n28 Akomah, Tony 199–200 Aldous, Kenneth 174, 180–82, 183 Alfred Holt and Company 32 Alien Acts 28, 31 Allen, Elizabeth 170–71 Alton, David 261 American Civil War 26 American Red Cross 108 American War of Independence 2 Amoo, Eddie 200 Anglo-Negro Fellowship 96

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Anglo-Saxon Petroleum 125 Ansel(l), Ted 182 Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society 59, 131 Arabs 12, 22, 56–7, 140, 149, 162, 171, 219 Archer, John 54, 55 Atiti, John 177 Atlee, Miss 149 Australia 28, 29, 69 Bainbridge, Beryl 254 Baker, S.J. 95 Banda, Dr Hastings 94–5, 117n76 Bangladesh 236 Merseyside Bangladesh Association 242 Barbados 40, 51, 147, 203 Barry 3, 29, 39 Bassey, Hogan ‘Kid’ 200, 201 Bates, Rev. J.H.G. 61 Beatles, Te 201, 202 Bedford, Rev. Colin 261 Belfast 257 Belmont Road Military Auxiliary Hospital 40–1

Index Bennet, S. 141 Ben-Tovim, Gideon 232, 263, 270 Birkenhead 17, 185, 252 Birmingham 148, 178, 179, 198, 203, 232, 235 Black Linx 269 Black Panthers 211 black population discrimination against 6, 8–11, 27, 63, 65, 80, 82, 84, 85, 90, 93–5, 99, 129, 131, 132, 137–38, 142, 147, 163, 165, 166, 167, 168, 170, 182, 184, 187, 230, 232, 236, 237, 240, 270, 271 See also ‘colour bar’ education and training 5, 66, 71, 100–02, 123, 131, 159n59, 171, 173–74, 190, 206, 211–12, 232, 233, 239, 244, 269 See also Charles Wooton Centre, Dragon’s Teeth Project, Elimu Wa Nane Multi-Racial Education Project, and Paddington Comprehensive School employment profle 3, 27, 39, 49–53, 65, 72, 82, 111, 147, 167, 175, 185, 187, 189, 205–06, 208, 230, 238, 242, 245, 268 See also West Indian technicians scheme estimates of numbers 39, 44, 47–8, 58, 80, 100, 101, 135, 147, 148, 167, 185, 189, 225, 226, 232, 272 housing and residential patern 8, 26, 42, 49, 51–2, 85, 97, 99, 136, 161, 185, 188, 189, 205, 216, 219, 233–35, 244, 269 See also Granby and Liverpool 8 origins 1–2, 27, 147, 189 unemployment 42, 46, 53, 72, 129–30, 142, 143, 152,

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287

167, 178–79, 189, 231, 237, 238, 242 See also National Assistance youths 8, 9, 61, 63, 190, 197–200, 203, 204–07, 209–13, 215–20, 231, 241, 242, 253, 256, 258, 270 see also ‘half caste’ and Liverpoolborn blacks Black Power 211, 212, 218, 236 Black Social Workers Project 232–33, 243 Black Workers Association 242, 243 blackface minstrelsy 21 ‘Blackie’, Te 214–15 Blake, Claude 29 Bland, Lucy 43 Board of Education 100, 106, 173–74 Board of Trade 47 Bolton 83 Bond, Sampson 267–68 Bourne, Stephen 6 Bower, Fred 32 boxing 182, 200 Braddock, Bessie, M.P., 12, 128, 132, 147, 152, 153, 166, 199, 201, 202, 208, 237 Braddock, Jack 70, 200 Bradford 10, 270 Bremen 23 British Caribbean Welfare Service 179 British Council 91–3, 106, 107–08, 110–11, 153, 168, 175 British Council House (or Allied Centre) 90, 91, 92, 93, 95, 96, 98, 105, 107, 109, 110, 121, 153, 154, 155 British Council of Churches 171, 174, 261 British Empire xviii, 4, 6, 27, 33, 41, 46, 56, 65, 69, 79, 113, 122 British Guiana and Guianaians 48, 51, 72, 95, 99, 147

288

Before the Windrush

British Guiana Freedom Association 183 British Honduras Union 183, 190 British Nationality Act, 1948 6, 122 British Social Hygiene Council 64 Britishness xviii, 4, 6, 56, 122 Brixton 238, 254, 257 Broadwater Farm 10, 14n24, 270, 276n60 Brown, Jacqueline Nassy 11, 173, 271, 277n64 ‘brown babies’ 14n22, 123, 156n11 Brown, Neville George 203 Brown, Wally 242, 248n56, 256, 270 Brown, William Wells 23 Browne, Major General Orde 84–5, 86, 88 Bryans, J.B. 90 Bugler, Jeremy 238 Bukht. M.J. 108 Bundey, Ruth 270 Bunnell, Tim 11 Burris, Delroy 215 Burton, Antoinete xviii Burtonwood 171,173, 184, 185. see also United States troops Canada 69 Cardif 3, 5, 29, 39, 53, 57, 63, 64, 76n68, 88, 97, 108, 122, 129, 178 Caribbean carnival 226, 227 Caribbean Centre 188, 240, 245, 260, 262 Caribbean Social Club 203 Carter, John 82, 93, 95–7, 98, 100, 103, 207 census (2011) 13n2, 272 Chants, Te 200–02, 221n13 Charles Wooton Centre for Adult Education 239, 242, 245, 256, 259, 260, 262, 269, 271 Charleston 25

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Charter for Colonial Freedom 96, 98, 117n83 Charters, John 217 Chavasse, Bishop of Liverpool 47 Chen, C.Z. 107 Chinese 3–4, 7, 12, 19, 25–6, 28–33, 37n50, 40, 42, 45, 60–3, 68, 90, 102, 107–08, 121, 125–29, 136, 148, 171, 189, 206, 211, 233, 244, 272 Chinese Communist Party 125 Chinese Seamen’s Union 107, 125 Chinese Seamen’s Welfare Centre 90, 107 Chinese Seamen’s Welfare Commitee 93 Chinese-West Indian-West African Commitee 107 Gospel Hall Chinese Mission 31 Merseyside Chinese Community Services 242 see also deportation Christian, Jacob 28 Christian, Mark 5, 62, 277n64 Chungting, Peter 31 Cleary, Alderman Joseph 151, 173, 176, 190, 203, 241 Clovis, Miss 237, 247n46 Cole, Irene 97 Collet, Charles 64–7 colonial armed forces personnel 39, 41, 79, 80, 103, 140, 141, 154 Colonial Defence Commitee 140 Colonial Ofce 4–5, 7–8, 40, 46, 57, 80, 81, 82, 87, 88, 88, 89, 97, 98, 99, 100, 103, 105, 109, 110, 112, 129, 130, 131, 134, 138, 141, 142, 143, 147, 149, 151–52, 153, 154, 155, 161, 164, 174, 177, 178, 180 Advisory Commitee on the Welfare of Colonial Peoples in the United Kingdom 79, 83, 97,

Index 99, 110, 111, 131, 133, 134, 135, 147, 154 Colonial Information Policy Commitee 133, 134 Colonial Ofce Welfare Department 4–6, 80, 85, 100, 111, 121–22, 131, 136, 141 Colsea House 89, 97–8, 107, 131, 140 Colwel House 83 Liverpool Advisory Commitee 130, 152 Liverpool Ofce 94, 98, 110, 111, 152–53, 161, 177–78, 180 Colonial People’s Defence Association 7, 123, 130, 140, 152, 162, 165–68, 228, 230 Colonial Products Exhibition (1904) 33 colonial students 79, 110–11, 134, 140, 141, 154–55, 160n88, 167–68, 179, 181, 183, 187, 192n17 see also West African Students Union ‘colour bar’ 6, 80, 83, 90, 93, 94, 97, 101, 104, 108, 123, 132, 142, 147, 148, 155, 171, 206 ‘coloured colonials’ 3, 4, 7, 39–40, 44, 53, 69, 87, 147, 154, 155, 169, 170, 174, 176 Commonwealth Immigrants Advisory Council 189 communism 7, 57, 133–34, 157n33, 167, 168, 169 Communist Party 7, 70, 123, 165, 167, 168, 233 Young Communist League 230 Constantine, Learie 83, 84, 85, 86, 96, 103, 105, 112, 119n140, 123, 147, 154, 159n68 Cooper family (Leroy, Lester and Paul) 251 cosmopolitanism xviii–xx, 2–3, 11, 12, 17–28, 33, 38n65

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Costello, Ray 2 Cox, Idris 166–68 Cranborne, Lord 79 cricket 83, 147, 164 crime 12, 30, 60, 177, 179, 210, 233, 257–58, 266 see also mugging Cripps, Leonard 81 Crowley, Tony 271 Cummings, Ivor 85–8, 115n28 Cunard Line 42 Cypriots 148 dance halls 93, 94, 95, 109, 163 David, Bishop of Liverpool 69, 96, 98–9, 100, 102, 105, 106 David Lewis Institution 100 David Lewis Mixed Youth Club 205 Davies, Ross 238 decolonisation xvii, 1, 11, 154, 176, 183, 187, 203 Demerete, John 41 Dennis, Francis 199 Denvir, John 21 deportation 45, 47, 56, 65, 126–29, 135 de Souza, Ivo 179, 182, 188 de Valera, Eamon 70, 71 Dickens, Charles 21, 25 dockers 28, 167 Dragon’s Teeth Project, 229–30, 246n16 Drake, John St Clair 122 Drescher, Seymour 19 drugs 61, 177, 218 Dunning, Head Constable 27, 30 DuPlan, Eddie 105, 107, 118n111, 124, 156n11 Dutch Eddy 175 East-West Friendship Commitee 95, 190 Edgworth, Maria 2 Ekarte, Pastor Daniels 5,7,40, 65–7, 81–2, 85, 87–8, 94,95,

290

Before the Windrush

101,105, 107, 114n11, 122, 123–25, 166, 168, 187 Elder Dempster Lines 4, 41, 48, 58, 60, 80, 81–2, 85, 113n6, 130, 131, 200 Elder Dempster Hostel 58, 88, 98 Elimu Wa Nane Multi-Racial Education Project 239, 242, 248n56 Elliot, Miss 86 Elphick, Chris 212 Emigration 23, 122 Empire Windrush xvii, xix, 7–8, 122, 135, 158n37, 197, 217, 231 English Speaking Union 92 Epstein, Brian 201 Errington, Eric 169 Ethiopian Hall 44, 46 ethnic monitoring 147–48, 207, 208, 209, 229, 242, 248n67 eugenics 4, 60 Eugenics Education Society 60–2 European Volunteer Workers 122, 135, 139 Evangelical Church of God 203 Evangelical Coalition for Urban Mission 261 Evans, Neil 45 Farrag, Joe 89 Federated Pioneer Group 190 Filipinos 26 Fleming, Rachel 60–2, 75n59 Fletcher, Mabel 4, 62–3, 64, 71, 102 First World War xviii, 3, 7, 12, 32, 33, 39–41, 112, 122, 125 football 154, 199, 269, 276n55 Fraser, John 151, 152 Freetown 81, 90, 132 Freetown Union 166 Frost, Diane xiv, 272 Fryer, Peter 94 Gair, G.R. 69

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Gambia 147, 148 gangs 209, 211, 212, 215, 216 George, David Lloyd 39, 41 Giford, Lord 10, 270 Gilhespy, Ewen 213 Gillan, Sir Angus 111 Gilroy, Paul xx Gladstone, W.E. 2 Glasgow 3, 29, 39, 257 Goddard, Rev T.S. 183 Godson, Rev. Alan 261 Gold Coast (subsequently Ghana) 46, 48, 86, 147, 148, 164 Ghana Convention People’s Party, 203 Ghana Union 183, 190, 203, 236, 262 Granby 8, 10, 12, 162, 233–36, 25, 254–55, 271, 272 Grant, Linda 23, 36n28 Grant, Mary Ellen 26 Grifths, James, M.P. 141 Grigg, James 92 Grimsby 24 Gypsy Lore Society 18 Hague, Sam 21 ‘half-caste’ 5, 11, 20, 26, 29, 60, 61–4, 67, 68, 72, 86, 88, 101, 102, 179, 197, 206, 210, 215, 218, 220, 240, 271 Hall, Stuart xvii, 133, 186 Hamburg 24, 61 Hamilton, John 234, 253 Hardy, Bert 142, 144–46 Harp, Bill and Wendy 215 Harris, John 59–60, 63, 65, 66, 80 Haton, Derek 267 Hawaiians 25 Heenan, Archbishop 188 Henry, Don 236, 237 Heseltine, Michael 10, 256–57, 265–66 Hesse, Ludwig 168, 228, 245n8 Hinds. J.E.H. 93–4

Index Hindus 1 Hindu Cultural Organisation 242 Hoare, Emily 30–1 Home Ofce 4, 7, 44–6, 56, 57, 58, 69, 124, 126, 127, 128, 129, 132, 133, 141, 241 Hong Kong 30, 272 Howe, Geofrey 265 Hull 3, 39 Humphry, Derek 217–18 Hyde, forename unknown (African Welfare Worker, Royal Ordnance, Kirkby) 86, 87, 95 Ibo (or Igbo) Union see tribal unions immigration xvii, xx, 9, 64, 85, 204, 209, 225, 228, 239, 243, 255, 272 Immigration Ofce 127, 179 India and Indians 9, 12, 41, 45, 57, 90, 102, 108, 136, 148, 150, 180, 189, 225, 226, 231 High Commission for India Consular and Welfare Department 190 India Ofce 57 Indian Association 236 Indian High Commission 90 Indian Seamen’s Club 90 Liverpool Indian Association 57 Industrial Workers of the World 32 inter-marriage xix, 59, 100, 171, 179, 210, 217, 243 International Club 32 International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry (1886) 18 International Friendship League 190 Irish 18, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 40, 41, 45, 55, 61, 68–71, 98, 255 See also Liverpool-Irish anti-Irish atitudes xvii, 68–70 Irish Free State 68, 69, 70

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Irish Immigration Investigation Bureau 70 Italians 21, 40 Jamaica and Jamaicans 5, 12, 51, 82–3, 84, 97, 106, 112, 134, 135, 147, 148, 162, 164, 179, 188, 203 Jamaican (Merseyside) Ltd 203 Jamaican Migrant Service 187–88 Jenkins, Roy 203–04 Jenkinson, Jacqueline 42, 74n34 Jews 18, 21, 23, 36n32, 40, 68, 139 Board of Guardians for the Relief of the Jewish Poor 24 Johnson, Scot 125 Jones, D. Caradog 68, 72 Jones, Sydney (Lord Mayor) 91, 92, 96 Jones, Sir Trevor 253–54 Juvenile Employment Bureau 64, 102 Kee, Robert 142, 154 Keith, J.L. 85, 86, 87, 94, 98, 99–101, 103, 104–06, 109, 110, 131, 132, 133, 134, 135, 137, 138, 141, 150, 151, 152, 153, 154, 155, 178, 179, 180, 182 194n49 Keys, Te 65, 66 King, Harold 5,64, 66–7, 68, 80 Kingdom, Zachary 33 Kirkham, G.A. 31 Kru (or ‘Kroo’)19, 53, 57–8, 81 United Kroo National Society 183 Kuya, Dorothy 166, 218, 228, 229, 232 Labour Party 70, 132, 166, 178, 183, 253, 267, 268, 270 Labour Party Young Socialists 260 Lane, Tony 57 Lascars 19, 25, 26–7, 36n43, 57, 108, 148, 179 Law, Ian 264 Le Havre 23

292

Before the Windrush

League of Coloured Peoples 5–7, 63, 80, 82, 83, 93, 94, 95–7, 98, 99, 100, 106, 121, 122, 123, 130, 140, 207 Lee, Marion 127–8 Leech, Kenneth 261–62 Leeds 10, 270 Lemkin, James 169 Leroy, Michael 261 Leverhulme, Lord 96, 103, 109 Liberal Party 253, 254, 256, 267 Liberia 199 Liberian Union 166 Litle, Kenneth 96, 179 Litlewoods Organisation 208, 209, 266 ‘Liverpolis’ 19 Liverpool demographic profle xviii–xx, 1,3, 11, 14n16, 17–28, 55, 70, 77n90, 96, 217, 231, 271–72 denigration of xix, 9, 225 economic problems xix, 3, 5, 7, 19, 39, 42, 69, 71, 122, 197, 225, 232, 243 regeneration schemes 9, 10, 225, 233, 265–66 Liverpool 8 10–11, 167, 173, 185, 200, 206, 209, 213, 216, 217, 228, 233, 237, 239, 241, 251, 254–55, 261, 266, 269 Liverpool 8 Action Commitee 239 Liverpool 8 Defence Commitee 256, 258, 259, 260, 261–63 Liverpool 8 Law Centre 271 Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Coloured People 71, 81, 90, 95, 99 Liverpool Association for the Welfare of Half-Caste Children 4–5, 61–5, 67–8 Liverpool Black Caucus 263, 267, 268 Liverpool Black Organisation 238, 240, 242, 243, 244, 245, 260

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Liverpool Chamber of Commerce 175 Liverpool City Council 9, 10, 29, 153, 155, 161, 176, 178, 180, 181, 182, 198, 207, 216, 226, 232, 235, 240, 242, 244–45, 253–54, 257, 263, 267, 268, 269, 271 ‘colour blind’ policies 6, 10, 101, 207, 216, 243, 267, 268 employment of blacks 175, 245, 268 Equal Opportunities Policy 9, 226, 240, 242, 243, 244–45, 263–64, 267–68 Local Education Authority 100, 101–02, 201, 207 Race Relations Liaison Commitee 245, 262, 263, 267–68. See also Liverpool Black Caucus Liverpool Community Relations Council 213, 215, 218, 228, 229, 237. see also Merseyside Community Relations Council Liverpool Cosmopolitan Club 2 Liverpool Council of Social Service 190 Liverpool Group of the Conservative Commonwealth Association 177, 194n43 Liverpool Group of the Holiday Fellowship 95 Liverpool Islamic Institute 26–7 Liverpool Methodist Mission 59 Liverpool Museum 33 Liverpool Personal Service Society 8, 155, 173, 174, 180, 182–90, 204, 207 Colonial Welfare Commitee (subsequently Overseas Welfare Commitee) 8, 155, 161, 173–77, 181, 182–83, 185, 186, 187, 188, 193n34, 207 Welfare Worker 180, 182, 187, 188

Index Liverpool Youth Organisations Commitee 8, 197, 203, 209, 221n27, 228 Liverpool-born blacks xix, 2, 8–11, 15n27, 55, 80, 87, 150, 161, 162, 176, 184, 197, 204, 206, 210–11, 212, 213, 219, 220, 231, 234, 236, 238, 260, 262, 271, 272 Liverpool-Irish 11, 18, 21, 22, 26, 55, 68, 70, 271 London xviii, 3, 19, 18, 39, 185, 208, 217, 232, 235, 252, 267, 270 Longbotom, Pastor H.D. 70 Louis, Joe 124 Lowndes, F.W. 22 Lynch, E.A. 106 MacCarren-Walters Act (USA) 180 McConaghy, Des 235 MacDonald, forename unknown (Colonial Ofce Inspector) 83 MacDonald, Ramsay 32 McGlashan, Colin 217, 219 McGree, L. 139 McGuirk, B. 143, 147, 174 McLuckie, I. O. 92, 99, 103, 104, 106 Macmillan, Harold 6 McNabb, Patrick 209, 210, 217, 219, 221n27, 228–29, 232 Malan, D.F. 165, 176 see also South Africa Malaya and Malays 15n25, 56, 136 Malcolmson, Mrs J.R. 95 Malta and Maltese 21, 56, 148 Manchester 10, 19, 83, 88, 105, 140, 167, 178, 270 Moss Side 167 Manila 25, 29 Manley, D.R. 152, 162–65, 168, 171, 173, 179, 181 Manson, J.L. 102 Marke, Ernest 40, 42, 44, 48

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Mawson, forename unknown (Warden, West Indies House) 83, 95 Mays, J.B. 198 Meegan, Richard 233 Melville, Herman 18, 21, 22 merchant seamen 4, 7, 19, 22, 24, 26, 27, 28, 31, 33, 41–3, 56–9, 62–3, 66, 79, 81, 83, 85, 89, 90, 91, 94, 97, 100, 107, 108, 111, 114n12, 122, 125–27, 129–31, 134, 142, 143, 147, 148, 150, 152, 167, 176, 180, 185, 189, 200, 220, 227, 272 Asiatic (or Eastern) articles 26, 57, 58, 128 British Council for the Welfare of the Mercantile Marine 64 ‘Cunard Yanks’ 200 Gordon Smith Institute for Seamen 90 Hostels 48, 58, 59, 83, 89–90, 100, 101, 110, 130, 136–37, 138, 154–55 see also Elder Dempster Hostel and Colsea House Liverpool Seamen’s Welfare Centre 150 Merchant Navy Welfare Board 89, 130 Mersey Mission to Seamen 90, 108 National Sailors and Firemen’s Union 31–2, 62 National Union of Seamen 62, 63 Ocean Club 90 Plimsoll House 89, 97 Special Restriction (Coloured Alien Seamen) Order, 1925 55–8 see also ‘sailortown’ Mercier, Samuel 205 Merseybeat 8, 161, 197, 200 Merseyside African Council 242, 243 Merseyside Anti-Racialist Alliance 9, 226, 240, 242, 243 Merseyside Area Profle Group 9, 226,

294

Before the Windrush

232, 236, 239, 241, 243–44, 249n69, 266, 268 Merseyside Asian Social and Cultural Organisation 236 Merseyside Association for Racial Equality in Employment 266–67 Merseyside Bengali Association 242 Merseyside Caribbean Council 236, 242 Merseyside Community Relations Council 9, 226, 229, 233, 235, 238–43, 245, 256, 258–59, 263–64, 266, 268, 269 Merseyside County Council 257, 265, 266, 268 Merseyside Development Corporation 265–66 Merseyside Hospitality Council 80, 90, 91, 92, 93, 98, 107, 108, 109, 110 Merseyside International Friendship Commitee 183 Merseyside Probation and Afer-Care Service 253 Merseyside Task Force 265–66 Methodist International Hostel 190 Middleton, Maximo 94 Militant 10, 267–68 Milne, Graeme 15n33, 26 Ministry of Health 123, 124 Ministry of Labour 72, 80, 82, 83, 84, 89, 107, 111, 123, 129, 131, 136, 138–39, 143, 147–48, 153, 178, 189 Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance 175 Ministry of Shipping 82, 85 Ministry of Transport 128, 129, 130 Ministry of War Transport 107, 125 Momo, John 58 Moody, Harold 5, 63, 76n67, 93, 94, 95 Moore, David 252 Morant, Doris 97

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Mormons 23 Morris, S.U. 121 Morrison, Superintendent J.G. 190 Mosques 17, 108, 263 Mot, C.F. 101 Mougne, Charles 210 Movements for Colonial Freedom, 183 mugging 198, 210, 258, 274n26 Muir, Ramsay xviii, 3, 18, 27, 257 multi-culturalism xviii–xx, 11, 15n25, 264 munitions factories 39, 71, 82, 84, 85, 86, 87, 94, 95, 104 Munster, Lord 153 Murari, Timeri 209, 211, 215, 216–17, 219 Murphy, Roy 216 music 200–01, 236 Muslims 1, 100, 108, 151, 162, 272 see also Liverpool Islamic Institute and Lascars National Assistance 130, 135, 142, 148–49, 153, 175, 177, 189 National Association of Local Government Ofcers 267–68 National Citizens Advice Bureaux Commitee 186 National Council for Civil Liberties 169–71, 192n25, 218, 229 National Council of Social Service 174, 185, 195n66 Negro Welfare Centre 99, 104–05, 107 Neighbourhood Projects Group 215–16 Nelson, Edward Teophilus 53, 55 ‘New Commonwealth’ migrants 1, 9, 207, 225, 228, 230 New York 1, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29 New Zealand 28, 69 Nichols, E., Assistant Chief Constable 140–41 Nigeria and Nigerians 41, 48, 88, 147, 148, 177, 187, 200, 262

Index National Union of Nigeria 183, 186, 187, 236 Nigerian Union 164, 190 nightclubs 162, 171, 173, 183, 193n29 Notingham 186 Notingham Council of Social Service 188 Noting Hill 186 Nwagwu, L.A. 228 Ocean Steamship Company 31 Okonkwo, B. 99 O’Mara, Paddy 26 Ormonde, s.s. 134 Owen, Charles 98, 105–06, 107, 108, 110, 111, 112, 130, 137, 150, 151, 152, 153, 155, 168, 173, 174, 176, 177, 180 Oxford, Ken, Chief Constable 10, 241, 251, 252, 256, 257–61, 274n26 Oyo, E.Y. 166 Paddington Comprehensive School 211–12, 221n27, 228, 253 Paddy’s Market 24, 70 Padmore, George 105, 123, 192n17 Pakistan and Pakistanis 9, 12, 148, 162, 189, 225, 226 Pakistan Association 187, 190, 242, 263 Pakistani Seamen’s Welfare Ofcer 190 Pan African League 140, 167, 192n16 Pannell, N.A. 175, 176 Parkinson, Nancy 110, 155 Patey, Edward 228, 229 Paul, Kathleen 56, 122 Paul, R.B. 87, 108 Payton, Rev. Arnold 162, 174, 175, 176, 184 Pearson, Alan 182 Pearson, Jack 95, 105, 107, 108, 154–55 Peck, Miss 186, 188

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People’s Democratic Front 260 Phillips, Caryl 271 Phillips, Richard 272 Police 21, 26, 30, 40, 41, 42, 43–5, 47, 55, 56, 93, 105, 109, 128, 132, 137, 140, 142, 175, 179, 203, 210, 213, 215, 217, 240, 252, 256, 264 community liaison 185, 189, 190, 218, 241, 261 harassment 9, 10. 218. 226. 244. 248n62, 251, 253, 255 tactics 42, 43–4, 47, 93, 132, 140, 142, 218, 241, 258 Women’s Patrols 61, 108 see also Special Branch Polish-Hungarian refugees 2–3 post-colonialism xvii–xix Powell, Enoch 210 Prescod, Hilton 72, 99 Press, Miss 209 Priestley, J.B. 5, 70–1 Primavesi, Father 61 Princes Park Methodist Youth Club 205, 213, 214, 221n27, 223n49, 239, 242, 248n56, 254, 255–56 Princes Park and Granby Community Council 221n27, 261, 275n36 Pringle, forename unknown (West Indian Welfare Worker, Royal Ordnance, Kirkby) 86, 95 prostitution 22, 60, 64, 91, 126, 136, 150, 173, 177, 184, 219 see also ‘white slave trafcking’ Quilliam, W.H., Sheikh-ul-Islam 26 race relations xviii–xx, 1, 3, 7, 9, 41–2, 79, 80, 82, 88, 93, 95, 99, 110, 113, 121–22, 129, 155, 161, 169, 179, 190, 198, 203, 204, 207, 209, 225, 239, 255, 259, 266, 267–8

296

Before the Windrush

legislation 9, 131–33, 137, 225, 227, 229, 240 statutory bodies: Commission for Racial Equality 237, 239, 259, 269 Community Relations Commission 227–28, 231 Race Relations Board 217, 226, 228, 232, 234, 237 Select Commitee on Race Relations 8–10, 197, 207–08, 211–12, 213, 217, 220, 226, 229, 230–32, 234, 242, 243–44, 245 racism xvii, xix–xx, 3–5, 10, 28, 33, 60, 184, 186, 230, 244, 251, 255, 256, 264, 269, 270, 272 see also Dragon’s Teeth Project Ramdin, Ron 163 Raven, Canon 69 Redfearn, Miss 90, 91 Reese, Frederick 245 Reeves, Rev. R.A. 99 repatriation schemes 4, 7, 32–3, 45, 47–53, 58, 59, 60, 74n34, 80, 83, 84, 110, 111, 119n140, 122, 127, 128, 129–30, 131, 137, 143, 176, 177, 178, 187. See also deportation Report on an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and other Ports, 1930 (Fletcher Report) 4, 62–3, 101, 206, 210, 240 Rialto Community Centre 218, 219–20 Rich, Paul 60, 63, 79, 121, 155 Richmond, Anthony 82, 84, 96, 140, 150, 151, 171, 183 riots: 1915 (Lusitania) 40 1919 (racial) 3–4, 10, 39, 42–4, 55, 59, 125 1919 (police strike) 55 1947 (anti-Jewish) 139

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1948 7, 10, 122, 139–41, 158n53 1958 (Notingham, Noting Hill) 8, 186, 195n69, 198 1972 8, 10, 197, 215–18, 241 1981 xix, 6, 9–10, 245, 251–57 Roberts, George McGuire 94 Robeson, Paul 124 Rodney Youth Centre 205 Rollins, Owen 170 Roma 18 Roscoe, William 2, 19 Rose, Sonya 91–2, 93 Roterdam 61 Roxby, Professor P.M. 4–5, 62–3 Runnymede Trust 231 Rushton, Edward 19 ‘sailortown’ xviii, 2, 12, 15n33, 21–6, 40, 42 Salford 3, 39 San Francisco 28, 29 Save the Children Fund 103 Scandinavians 23, 25, 41, 43–4 Scarman Inquiry (Brixton disturbances) 254, 255, 257, 258, 259, 263 Schwarz, Bill xviii seaports xviii, 12, 101, 122, 135, 136, 142, 198, 257 Second World War xviii, 4–6, 79–80, 90, 103, 109, 110, 111, 113, 125 Sefon, Bill 239 Select Commitee on Employment 268–69 Senior, Clarence 179 Sexton, James 28–9 ‘Shadow’ 227 ‘sharpers’ 23, 35n27 Sharpey-Schafer, Sue 223n50, 228 shebeens 8, 162, 175, 217 Shelter Neighbourhood Action Project (SNAP) 233, 235 Sheppard, Bishop David 252

Index Sierra Leone 40, 48, 85, 97, 147, 148 Sierra Leone Social Club 263 Sierra Leone War Charities Fund 87 Sierra Leonian Union 164, 190 Sikhs 1 Simey, Margaret 63, 218, 221n27, 234, 251, 257 Simey, Prof. T.S. 190, 196n83, 207 Skinheads 215, 219 slave trade and slavery 1–2, 13n4, 19, 21, 23, 25, 34n10, 35n20, 173, 211 Small, Stephen xix, xxin11 Smieton, Dame Mary 136 Smith, James McCune 22–3 Society of the Friends of Foreigners in Distress 23 Somalia and Somalis 11, 140, 148, 189, 227, 262, 271–2 Merseyside Somali Community Association 242, 262 Somali Nationals Association 272 Somalia Society 162, 164 Somali Welfare 236 Sorensen, Reginald, M.P. 93, 132, 133, 157n33 South Africa and South Africans 28, 39, 41, 60, 148, 165 South Liverpool Personnel 223n50, 237, 239, 242, 243, 266 South Shields 57 Southall 238 Southampton 42 Special but Not Separate (1968) 8, 197, 203–07, 228 Special Branch 45, 55, 127, 148, 149, 151 Standing Inter-Departmental Commitee to Consider the Problems of Coloured People in the United Kingdom 122, 134, 138 Stanley House Community Centre 6, 8, 98–100, 102–04, 106, 107,

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110, 122, 131, 140, 149–52, 155, 159n68, 161, 164, 168–69, 171, 172, 173, 174, 181–83, 185–86, 188, 189, 190, 198–203, 205, 208, 210, 212, 218, 241, 256, 262, 271 Ladies Commitee 202 Nursery 106, 123, 150, 151, 201–02 transit centre 174, 180–81 Steers, Tomas 22 Stewart, J.G. 136–37 ‘Stop and search’ 241–42 Stowaways 7, 66, 122, 129, 134, 135–38, 141, 167, 173, 174, 177, 181 Suckling, Norman 91, 108 Swann Report (1985) 269 Tabili, Laura 27, 56 Teddy Boys, 198 Teh, S.E 107 Tomas, J.E. 130, 137 Tompson, W.B. 182, 186, 187–88 Titmuss, Richard 198 Toummanah, D.T. Aleifasakure 46, 53 Tow, Vinnie (later Ismail) 200–01 Toxteth 10, 26, 162, 220, 245, 251, 253–55, 257, 258, 261, 269 trade unions 4, 28, 41–2, 170, 208, 267 Trades Council 166, 183, 208, 238, 260 tribal unions 162, 163, 166, 191n5 Calabari 162, 166 Cameroons 186,187 Ewes 164 Fanti 162 I(g)bos 166, 183, 186, 187, 236, 262 Yoruba 162, 164, 166, 236 Trinidad and Trinidadians 44, 51, 147, 148, 201 United States troops 6, 80, 91–4, 105, 108, 123, 150, 171, 184, 219 Unity Boys Club 205

298

Before the Windrush

University School of Social Science 61, 62, 63, 142, 183, 207, 209 University Setlement 5, 59, 64, 92, 100, 155, 180, 215 Upadhayayam, Nathalal Jagjivan ‘Paddy’ 57 van den Bersselaar, Dmitri 33 Walker, Anthony 272 Waller, Philip 10, 254–55 Walvin, James xxn3, 34n12 War Ofce 45 Warburg, James P. 92 Warri 48, 81 Watkinson, Alex 83, 96 Watson, Arnold 84, 111 Welfare of Africans in Europe War Fund 60, 65, 80 Wellesley-Cole, A.B. 132 Wellington Avenue Methodist Youth Club 205 Welsh 18, 68 West Africans 2, 5–6, 12, 19, 26, 33, 41, 43–51, 57–60, 62, 72, 80, 81, 83, 85–8, 97, 98, 99, 102, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 123, 130, 136, 140, 142, 148, 162, 163, 171, 184, 186, 187, 189, 219 West African Students Union (WASU) 124–5 see also Aggrey House West Hartlepool 24 West Indies and West Indians 5, 9, 41, 43–7, 51–3, 55, 82, 83, 84, 85–7, 94, 106, 107, 108, 111, 123, 134, 135, 140, 141, 143, 148, 150, 151, 162, 163, 164, 171, 178, 180, 182, 184, 186, 187, 189, 198, 207, 217, 219, 225, 226, 260 British West Indies Regiment 41

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Merseyside West Indian Association 152, 162, 164, 165 West Indian Federation 183 West Indian technicians scheme 5, 80, 82–6, 90, 93, 94, 95, 96, 98, 111–13, 123, 140, 148, 154, 164 West Indies House 83, 84, 85, 94 White, Graham, M.P. 152–53 white mothers 217, 220, 224n69, 271 ‘white slave’ trafcking 56 Whitley Council 86 Whitington-Egan, Richard 173 Wilmot, Charles 92, 108 Wilson, Carlton 59, 60, 63 Wilson, Edith 95 Wilson, Sir Geofrey 217 Wilson, Havelock 31, 62 Wilson, Henry 40 Women’s International League 95, 221n27 Woodbine, ‘Lord’ (Harold Phillips) 201 Wooton, Charles 44 Working Party on the Employment in the United Kingdom of Surplus Colonial Labour 135 World Friendship House 183, 190 Worlock, Archbishop 252–53, 255, 259, 264 Yemen 56–7 YMCA 83 York House Boys Club 92, 205, 215 Yoshida, Kanso 12 Young, Martin 240 Young Panthers 211 Youth clubs 100, 101, 198–200, 205, 206, 209, 211, 212, 213, 215, 217, 218 Youth Employment Service 207 Zaid 22