at the Unveiling of the Portrait of John Richard Archer
At the Town Hall, Monday February l5th 1999.
I'm honoured
that I've been asked to speak at this ceremony for the unveiling of the
portrait of John Richard Archer. In doing this I am reminded that in May
this year, it will be 80 years since the 1919 race riots in Liverpool,
and of the death of Charles Wootten - a 24 year old Caribbean Seaman who
died after being thrown into Queens Dock by a marauding mob. I am also
aware that in the year 2000, it will be 300 years since the first legal
slave ship left this city for the Guinea Coast, and went from there to
Barbados with 220 kidnapped Africans. You may well wonder what this has
to do with John Archer, who was born in Liverpool, in 1863 - 126 years
ago. The connection will become clear.
John's father - Richard, was from Barbados, an island to which Liverpool
deported many of its own people found guilty in its courts in the early
17th century.
It is apposite to think that the ship which carried his forebears from Africa to Barbados, came from Britain - most probably Liverpool.
John's father found his way to this city as a seaman. His mother, Mary Teresa Burns, came from Ireland as a child. John, on one occasion described the Irish, as 'one of the grandest races on the face of the earth.'
John Archer died in 1932, at the age of 67 years. He was at that time Deputy Leader of the Battersea Council. He had an extraordinary record of service to the local and national politics and to the Black Community.
John left Liverpool in his early 20's, travelling around the world as a seaman, and later settling in Battersea, in South London with his Black Canadian wife, Bertha.
He was a photographer, with his own studio, at a time when photography was a pioneering profession.
He became a Councillor for the then Labour Party in 1906, and Mayor of Battersea (now part of Wandsworth Borough), in Nov 1913. His election caused quite a stir because of his colour, a large crowd waited outside the Town Hall to hear the results.
His achievement was featured by W.E.B. Dubois in 'The Crisis' a radical Black American Paper. He reported that 'He fears no man, and brooks no insult because of the race to which he is proud to belong'
Throughout his local government career, he served on many committees, among them Health, Public Works, Finance and Valuation. As well as being a governor of Battersea Polytechnic, President of the Nine Elms Swimming Club, Chair of the Whitley Council Staff Committee and a member of the Wandsworth Board of Guardians. He secured a minimum wage of 32 shillings a week for council workers. He eventually gave up his business to become Secretary of the Battersea Labour Party and an election agent for Shapurji Saklatvala - a Parsee and a candidate for North Battersea Labour party. Shapurji became the first Black Member of Parliament in 1922. In addition to all this work, he was heavily involved in the African Progress Union, and became President in 1918, working with many leading Black people of his time. e.g. Samuel Coleridge Taylor, a committed Pan Africanist and the British born Black classical composer of many pieces including The African Suite and the Hiawatha Suite. As well as many others who played key roles in the independence movements of Africa, India and the Caribbean.
He attended the first Pan African Congress in Paris, in 1919, and in June that year John led a deputation to Liverpool to meet the then Deputy Mayor, to protest about the treatment of Black people in Liverpool during the May riots. The African Progress Union also wrote to the Colonial Secretary, calling for a public inquiry into the death of Charles Wootten, who like Stephen Lawrence, was murdered on the streets because he was Black. No inquiry took place,
John was a consummate politician. It was his skilful negotiation, which persuaded the Labour Party to adopt Saklatvala as a parliamentary candidate, and enabled him in his day-to-day work to obtain generous treatment for those who sought his help. A local paper remarked of him that "The poor had no better friend".
His concern was always for the most dispossessed people. The poor, the oppressed, the disadvantaged, those in poverty. He spoke out on the major social issues of the time including racism, national independence and reparations. In one of his speeches he said, "If we are good enough to fight the wars of the country, we are good enough to receive the benefits"... he went on to say "Our object is to demand, not ask, but demand our rights".
This Ceremony serves to remind us that John Archer is not just part of Black peoples history but of White peoples history as well.
History is a source of self-understanding and mutual understanding. It is a measure of our humanity. We must use it to correct the racist myths which imply/suggest that people of African descent have contributed nothing to the development of this country and this city. History also enables us to understand that whether we like it or not, Black and White people are inextricably bound to each other, they are interdependent. So we need to find a way of ensuring racial equality and justice in order that we can move towards living in peace and harmony.
That would be the best tribute we can pay to John Richard Archer - an ancestor of us all.
Dorothy Kuya
