Whenever I pass a war memorial or even a single gravestone I cannot help but wonder what stories lie beneath each name. Where were they born, what sort of family did they come from, where did they work, did they marry, have children, what did their children go on to achieve, where and how did they die?
Nowhere is this feeling stronger than when I view the passenger list of the Empire Windrush. A series of names – 1,027 of them – but what was their story? Three years ago, I began to research and document the lives of these people before they are for ever lost to history.
All that is generally known about those onboard is what is shown on the passenger list: their name, age, occupation, and intended address. We need to know more about these individuals who had such an impact on British as well as Caribbean history.
Starting with only a name and what little detail the passenger list offers, it is incredible what can be learned from the comfort of a laptop and the various genealogical websites and online archives. Within a few hours I can turn a name into a living story. The icing on the cake comes when this initial research results in contact with family members who supplement the hard facts with anecdotes about their pioneering ancestors.
I have been asked why this research had not been carried out previously and can only conclude there was no perceived need. After all, everyone knew that the Windrush carried 492 black Jamaicans whom the government had invited to Britain to help rebuild the nation after the second world war, didn’t they?
Most of the 1,027 recorded passengers were white, and the remaining passengers came from many parts of the Caribbean, not just Jamaica. The British government very reluctantly allowed the Windrush to complete its journey to Tilbury, consoling itself with the belief that the new arrivals would leave once they had experienced their first British winter.
Research can also explode myths of course. The traditional vision of the Windrush is that it carried job-seeking West Indians to England, yet the passengers included notable people such as Nancy Cunard, Dame Freya Stark and Ellis Clarke, who went on to be the first president of Trinidad and Tobago. Clarke would later receive a knighthood, as did at least two other passengers – Peter Stanford and Peter Jonas.
The Windrush story ends in the eyes of many when the passengers disembarked at Tilbury on 22 June 1948, but if we ask “what happened next?” we will find that contrary to Lord Kitchener’s calypso, London was not always “the place for me”. Lorraine Rochester, for example, was a Jamaican who arrived in Tilbury full of hope, yet by March 1949 – homeless, impoverished and desperate – he returned home as a stowaway on the MV Jamaica Producer.
Others returned to the Caribbean or tried the US or Canada, but most remained in Britain helping rebuild the country after the ravages of war, while encouraging their children and grandchildren to exploit the opportunities the Mother Country offered. Direct descendants of Windrush passengers have become musicians, nurses, doctors, barristers, Olympic athletes, and even a king’s counsel. I have another 300 or so passengers still to research, and can guarantee there are many more stories waiting to be told.
This article was amended on 23 June 2023 to add details to the main image caption of the art installation featured in the background.
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Bill Hern is a retired civil servant turned historian, who is a fellow of the Royal Historical Society
