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Ambition
Wealthy Europeans often employed Africans and Asians as 'exotic'
symbols of wealth. But what of African and Asian people themselves?
Did riches come to any of them? Before 1850, there were people
of African and Asian descent of diverse backgrounds and social
origins in Britain. Some came as traders, on private business
visits; others were sent to Britain to further their education.
George II welcomed two sons of the African King of Annamaboe
at his court. To assist in trading, African kings sent young
men to Britain for language training.
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Dean
Mahomed's Baths
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There are several accounts of individuals who did extremely
well in British society. Dean Mohamed was born in Patna in
1759 to an elite Muslim family. His ancestors had served the
Mughal rulers. He joined the British army in 1769 and later
accompanied his employer, Captain Baker, to Cork in Ireland.
By 1810, he had started a new life in London, establishing
the Hindoostanee Coffee House in Portman Square. His customers
were Anglo-Indians, and he offered them Indian tobacco and
Indian dishes. Later, Mohamed was able to expand his business
to George Street, near Marble Arch. This early Indian entrepreneur
met with difficult times and eventually took a job as a 'shampooing
surgeon' in fashionable Brighton. But soon he was back in
business, opening his own Medicated Vapour Baths, where he
used special herbs and oils brought from his homeland.
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The Wells Family of Cardiff and St Kitts
Africans, West Indians and Asians from wealthy families were
sent to England to be educated. One such man was Nathaniel
Wells, the son of Welshman William Wells - who owned plantations
on St Kitts - and Juggy, a slave woman from the same island.
Nathaniel was baptised and declared free in 1783. When he
was old enough, he was sent to England to study, with a view
to obtaining higher qualifications so that he could enrol
at Oxford University.
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Will of William Wells,
Owner of West Indian
Plantations (355KB)
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| Later, Nathaniel settled in Bath
and then moved to London, where he married Harriet Este, the
daughter of Charles Este, a former chaplain to King George II.
In 1803, one Colonel Wood sold his 2,200-acres Piercefield estate,
near Chepstow, to 'Mr Wells a West Indian of large fortune,
a man of very gentlemanly manners, but so much a man of colour
as to be little removed from a Negro'. Wells also inherited
his father's plantations and slaves in St Kitts. When slavery
was abolished in the colonies in 1833, Wells was compensated
by the Treasury, along with white slave owners. |
Britain's First Black
Justice of the Peace?
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Nathaniel Wells was active in his local community; he was
appointed justice of the peace in 1803 and subsequently sheriff
of Monmouthshire in 1818. His death at the age of 72 was recorded
in the Gentleman's Magazine of 13
May 1852.
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And First Black Sheriff?
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References and Further Reading
Debrunner, H. W., Presence and Prestige: Africans in Europe,
Basel, 1979
Evans, J., 'Nathaniel Wells of Monmouthshire and St Kitts:
from slave to sheriff', in Black and Asian Studies Association
Newsletter No. 33, London, April 2002
Visram, R., Asians in Britain: 400 Years of History, London,
2002
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