Kerry Apps – History

In the spring of 1999, my primary school class stood huddled in a closet-like space in the Museum of London. Before us, Stuart London spread out in miniature from the wharves of the river to old St. Paul’s, protected by plexiglass. Hopped up on Panda Pops and the thrill of being outside our classroom for the day, as the lights dimmed in the room and an ominous bell chimed, our teacher gently shushed us, as a male voice began a tale of baker’s ovens and Pudding Lane. Granted a bird’s-eye view by the diorama, we watched as greyed cotton wool was underlit in red and orange, representing the spread of the fire, as flames crackled over the speakers. This was the Restoration London taught to twenty-five South London eight-year-olds in the 1990s; it was a place of plague, fire, a jolly fire-fighting king, and a curly-haired diarist scurrying to bury his Parmesan cheeses.

Yet another London existed in the wharves, alleys, lanes, and well-to-do properties of Restoration London. This other space is represented in Newman’s book by a young man whose name, Ben, had been thrust upon him. Just over three centuries before we stood before the diorama, Ben left the household of Theodore Johnson on Pancras Lane. A stone’s throw away from the Museum, Ben hurried through the streets of Cheapside, glimpsing London Bridge to his right, before moving on east beyond the Tower of London, where, clutching a packet of Johnson’s letters as his cover, he hoped to achieve his freedom. Ben was one of the ‘freedom seekers’ from enslavement in Restoration London whose lives are the subject of this sensitive and timely project. Newman’s work contributes to a rich and expanding historiographical corpus, spanning decades, that has sought to highlight the presence of Black, Asian, and Indigenous Americans in early modern London and to extend the contact zones of colonialism and enslavement back to the metropole.

Beginning with advertisements placed in London newspapers, Newman seeks to recapture enslaved people like Ben, offering glimpses of difficult lives and resistance to recapture, posted alongside calls for the return of lost bags and spaniels, leaving both the author and the reader wanting to know more. Yet, as Newman asks, can we ever truly get to the feelings, traumas, and homesickness of these freedom seekers? Can we ever, faced with such fragmentary evidence, build an accurate picture of the community and experiences of the enslaved, bound, and free men and women of Asian and African descent who inhabited Restoration London? This study, which has already inspired creative community responses, calls on us to keep digging, sorting, and writing, for there are more Bens, Sarahs, and Besses waiting to enter our understanding of early modern London and grant them the dignity they deserved in life.