SPECIALFEATURE
Black History Month cont ...
WALTER TULL
movement , losing his job after taking up the fight against class oppression in 1834 and joining a tailors ’ strike to campaign for shorter working hours . His political involvement had serious consequences , eventually leading to his arrest and for conspiring to levy war on the queen . He and his wife were eventually transported to Tasmania after he was found guilty , where he stayed and continued to write and fight as a social activist until his death at age 82 .
RELIGION : Samuel Crowther
Born in Nigeria in 1807 , Samuel grew up to be Britain ’ s first Black bishop . As a young boy , Samuel was kidnapped and forced onto a Portuguese slave ship , which was fortunately intercepted by the Royal Navy , who , with the end of the British Slave Trade in 1807 , had taken to disrupting other European slave trade endeavours .
The Royal Navy did not take Samuel home , however . Instead , he was taken to Freetown , Sierra Leone , a haven for formerly enslaved Africans . Samuel studied at the Church Missionary Society ( CMS ) school , where he was a star pupil , and lived in England briefly to complete his education . Him and his best friend , Jacob Schön , were both excellent linguists , studying and recording 500 different languages and dialects that they came across in diverse Sierra Leone , before undertaking an expedition up the river Niger in 1841 , which was supported by the British Crown , and eventually moving to Palm Cottage in Gillingham .
On St Peter ’ s day 1864 , Samuel became an ordained bishop of West Africa , making him the first Black bishop of the Church of England , and his grandson , Herbert Macaulay , went on to play a major role in gaining Nigerian independence from British colonial rule in 1960 .
FOOTBALL : Walter Tull
A man of two worlds , Walter Tull was a war hero and the second Black professional football player in England . Born in 1888 in Folkestone , his father was a carpenter from Barbados whose own father had been enslaved , and his mother was a local Englishwoman . Having lost both parents at an early age , Walter and his brother Edward were placed in an orphanage in Bethnal Green , touring as part of the orphanage ’ s choir to St John ’ s Methodist Church in Glasgow where Edward was spotted by a couple who went on to adopt him . Edward then became the first Black dentist to hold the licentiate in dental surgery .
With the absence of his brother , Walter found solace in the orphanage ’ s football team and demonstrated real talent . He began playing for Tottenham Hotspur in 1909 at the age of 21 and found a star place in Northampton ’ s first team in 1911 .
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