SPECIALFEATURE
SAMUEL CROWTHER AND MISSIONARIES
When war broke out in 1914 , Walter was the first of his team to enlist and joined the Football Battalion . Soon promoted to Lance Sergeant , in 1915 he was deployed to France , fighting in key battles such as the Battle of the Somme . In 1917 , despite restrictions against Black people in the British army , Walter became the first Black commissioned officer and was nominated for a Military Cross . Sadly , he never received it as on 8 March 1918 , he was killed in action leading a counterattack in northern France . Folkestone ’ s Peace Pitch is named so in Walter ’ s honour and a campaign to posthumously award him the military cross is ongoing .
ROYALTY : Sarah Forbes Bonetta
Today , Meghan Markle is widely credited as the first Black person to join the royal family , but delve deeper into history and you ’ ll discover the story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta , the godchild of Queen Victoria , whom the monarch later went on to unofficially adopt .
SARAH FORBES BONETTA
Originally called Aina , Sarah was born a Yoruba princess in Nigeria in 1843 . At just five years old , her parents were killed during a raid on her village , where she was captured and given to King Ghezo of Dahomey . Two years later , Commander Frederick Forbes of the Royal Navy saw Sarah while visiting King Ghezo during an anti-slavery mission across West Africa . Concerned that she was intended to be used as a human sacrifice , he persuaded the king to instead allow him to present Aina as a gift from the ‘ King of the Blacks to the Queen of the Whites ’.
Renamed Sarah Forbes Bonetta , she was transported to England and presented to Queen Victoria , who was immediately struck by her charm , vitality and intellect . Suffering from a chronic cough due to the shock of England ’ s climate , Sarah was taken to Freetown , Sierra Leone , in 1851 , but when fully recovered , Queen Victoria commanded that Sarah be transported back to England to live under the care of Jacob Schön ’ s family in Palm Cottage , Gillingham , where she was given an allowance from the queen and regularly visited her .
When she was 18 years old , Sarah caught the eye of an extremely wealthy Nigerian businessman , James Pinson Labulo Davies , who was living in the UK at the time . In August 1862 , Sarah and James were granted permission to marry by Queen Victoria , holding their ceremony in Brighton before moving to Lagos where Sarah later gave birth to a daughter . With permission from the queen , Sarah named her daughter Victoria .
www . blackhistorymonth . org . uk bhm _ uk www . insidekent . co . uk • 79