There was a black musical presence in Britain many centuries before the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush at London’s Tilbury dock.
In the Tudor period, it was fashionable for wealthy households to employ and enjoy black musicians, particularly within the royal courts. The most well known were royal trumpeter John Blanke and violinist Joseph Emidy.
During subsequent centuries spanning the Tudor, Stuart, Georgian and Victorian periods, there were many prolific black musicians in Britain. Composers George Bridgetower, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor and Ignatius Sancho were well known. But there were also many street musicians, known in the 1800s as “negro melodists” and touring vaudeville performers, who were described by social historian Henry Mayhew in his writings on the London working class.
