William Fifefield - A Different Drummer, by Peter Livsey On Saturday 18th January 1834, the following notice appeared in the The Newcastle Chronicle, “On Wednesday morning last, in the Tuthill Stairs, in this town, aged 65, William Fifefield, a man of colour, and a native of the West Indies. He resided in this town nearly 40 years, and, during that time had fthe situation of long drummer in various local regiments. First in the Newcastle Volunteers, under the command of Col. Blakeney; next in tUsworth Legion, and again in the Newcastle Volunteers, after the peace of 1802; he subsequently joined the 2

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nd Durham Local Mand finished his military career in the South TyYeomanry Hussars. To fill up the vacuity of histime, he plied for manyyears between this townand Shields on the river with “a comfortable,” but the march of steam threw him into the shade. He was much respected in his differavocations.”

Oliver’s map of Newcastle, 1830

We will never know the full truth that lies behind this tribute to one of the few members of an ethnic minority recorded on Tyneside in the period, which appeared in a similar form in all the local papers. This account seeks to follow the clues given, expand what is known, and place the personal facts in the context of the times. (1)

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Island How William Fifefield came to Newcastle remains unclear. But we can be sure that he carried with him memories very different from those of the people whom he passed in its teeming streets. St. Kitts, which he gave as his birthplace - in 1768, given his age at death - was a small island with 26,000 enslaved black people, 4000 whites and “300 blacks and mulattoes of a free condition.” Although only half the mountainous island could be cultivated, the soil was very productive. This was, of course, dedicated to sugar plantations worked by slave labour. (2) William’s surname, spelled Fifield and Fifeald in Newcastle before it finally settled as Fifefield, is not a significant one in the history of St. Kitts. However, in 1817 Nicholas K. Fyfield owned two slaves on the neighbouring island of Nevis, now part of the same small nation. In 1822 a plantation on Trinidad was managed by John King Fyfield, and by 1825 he had inherited the two slaves on Nevis. In 1817 also, on George Webbe’s plantation on Nevis, one of the few slaves with a surname was a Jim Fyfield, indicating either parentage or a previous owner. Today, there are 14 Fyfields in the St. Kitts telephone directory. (3) In Newcastle William gave his trade as a millwright. The assembling and maintenance of wheeled machinery was an essential skill on the sugar plantations - at harvest time the mills crushing the cane worked round the clock. When the Northumberland landowner Sir John Hussey Delaval received advice from a Liverpool slave-trader on setting up a plantation in East Florida, a millwright was one of the skilled workers required. In a listing of the outgoings of a sugar plantation in 1793, the bills for a millwright, coppersmith, plumber and smith are totalled annually at £250, indicating that they were free workers, their total bills equalling the pay of five white servants, and exceeding that of the white manager. When the Arabella was about to sail from Newcastle for Jamaica in January 1794 the owner, the Newcastle West India merchant and plantation owner, John Graham Clarke, advertised for a millwright who “must be a compleat master of his business.” It is not possible to say what circumstances led William Fifefield to travel the other way. His skill was also a useful one in the agriculture and industry of the north-east, but he subsequently found other ways to make a living. The status of a free man of mixed race on a small island may have had more to do with his decision to get out. (4) Some idea of race relations on the island of St. Kitts can be gained from events about 13 or 14 years after William’s birth. Britain had reached the lowest point in the war with its former American colonies and their European allies. A French task force had taken Tobago and on January 11th 1782 landed 8000 soldiers from 28 ships on St. Kitts. The planters had previously refused the use of their slaves to move cannon and stores into defensive positions. Here as elsewhere, “Those who had most to lose were the least inclined to defend it. The poor whites and free negroes might wish to offer a more vigorous defence; but faint-heartedness was rooted in their natural leaders, the planters and overseers.” (5) In the event, the governor joined the small force of regulars in the Brimstone Hill fortress with 350 militiamen. This garrison of about 1000 held out under siege and bombardment until February 13th. By then only 500 were fit for service and,

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with the French threatening to burn the plantations, they surrendered with the honours of war. As part of the terms of surrender “the militia and armed negroes shall return to their respective homes,” but also, “the inhabitants…are at liberty to retain their arms for the internal police and better subjection of their negroes.” (6) This pattern would be repeated and extended in the next war. St. Kitts had 600 whites in its militia and “likewise a company of free blacks.” (7) The small white minorities would, more or less reluctantly, use black soldiers against each other. Service in uniform would give freedom and some status to black men. But, armed force could also be, and in the next war frequently was, directed against the enslaved majority. Although a small island, St. Kitts provided some interesting black emigrants to Britain. In the 1770s Julius Soubise was a fencing and riding master, and a member of fashionable society as the protégé, and perhaps lover, of the Duchess of Queensberry. In 1788 the future Chartist leader William Cuffay was born to former slaves either on a British warship sailing from St. Kitts or shortly after it docked in Chatham. The wealthy Monmouthshire landowner Nathaniel Wells was the son and heir of a St. Kitts plantation owner and an African slave mother. He was described as “a West Indian of large fortune, a man of very gentlemanly manners, but so much a man of colour as to be little removed from a Negro.” He became a JP, sheriff, Deputy Lieutenant and aofficer in the volunteer Yeomanry. The subject of this account, William Fifefield, described as “a man of colour” in his obituary, and “a Negro” by the parish clerk of St. Nicholas, Newcastle, was of much humbler origin, but he too would become a Volunteer in his new home. (8)

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Volunteer The Newcastle-upon-Tyne Loyal Volunteer Infantry was formed i1795 to protect the locality against invasion by the forces of the French Revolution. Other units followed, to be disbanded during the brief peace of 1802-3 and then reformed during the Napoleonic War of 1803-15. Muster Roll of the Newcastle Volunteers, 1806

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William Fifefield may have volunteered as soon as he arrived in Newcastle. He is still listed as a drummer on the rolls of the regiment in 1810, when he was already 41. He also appears as a private on the rolls of the Tyne Yeomanry from 1819 to 1825, when he was 56. (9) The first commander of the Newcastle Volunteers was William Blakeney (1735-1804). He was from an Irish Protestant military family settled in County Galway since the 17th Century. He had served in the Seven Years War, being wounded twice. He had married the co-heiress of a Newcastle hostman with property in the area. In 1775, as a major in the 23rd Foot (Royal Welch Fusiliers), he was severely wounded at Bunker Hill, one of the opening battles of the American War of Independence. He settled in Newcastle, while still serving as MP for the family borough of Athenry (now Ath na Riogh) in the Irish parliament 1781-83 and 1790-1800. (10) Most of his children were born in the city and his son Samuel attended the school run by the Reverend William Turner, a Unitarian minister and active social reformer. (11) On December 17th, 1792, William Blakeney was named as a member of the committee of the Newcastle upon Tyne Association to support the Constitution, formed to resist the perceived threat of revolutionary France. He must have seemed the obvious choice to command the city’s regiment of volunteers, raised in response to the act of 1794. When the volunteers were reformed in 1803, after the brief peace, he was Inspecting Field Officer for the district, visiting a number of units along the Tyne and corresponding with their commanders. He died in 1804, at the age of 70 and was buried beside his wife at All Saints church, as he had laid down in his will, requesting “with no parade, but decently.” Of his seven sons five served in the army and one in the navy. Three died on service. His surviving children moved away from Newcastle. (12) The city had called for volunteers in January 1795. They were to be exempt from the ballot for the Northumberland militia, and, unlike the militia, were not to be marched out of the area without their consent. Time of exercising was to interfere as little as possible with hours of business. This last was important, because the officers were often merchants, or their sons, as well as local gentry. The men were shopkeepers and craftsmen. Later, payment was authorised for time on service. The enrolment committee met frequently at the Shakespeare, a hotel, tavern and coffee-house on Mosley Street. During April it advertised repeatedly for “four good drummers.” On May 9th enrolment was discontinued at the Shakespeare - additional volunteers could sign on with the officer in charge of training at the then open ground of the Forth, 7am to 9 am three days a week. In the first week of June, the Volunteers gave a dinner for the non-commissioned officers of the West York Militia, stationed in the town, “who have been employed in teaching them the military discipline.” (13) On August 25th, 1795 the Newcastle Volunteers paraded in the Forth, to receive their colours. “Mrs. Mayoress (Mrs. Johnson) made her appearance and presented them to Colonel Blakeney, the commanding officer, with an animated address, to which the colonel made a suitable reply. The corps then fired three vollies, and marched to the colonel’s house,” (one of the smart new houses on Savile Row off Northumberland

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Street) where the colours were deposited. Their uniform was scarlet with dark green facings and white waistcoats, like regular or militia regiments, and presumably they wore the standard white breeches and black gaiters of the period. But, instead of the standard headgear, they wore round hats with a bearskin crest, gold loop, button and feather. Their colours were a union flag with a gold crown with GR at the centre and “Newcastle Volunteers” around it, and a green flag with the Newcastle coat of arms. It is not clear whether the drummers wore reversed colours – green with red facings - and additional lace, as in the regulars. (14) There is no precise indication of when William Fifefield donned the red and green uniform, but the obituary would suggest some service, at least, under Blakeney’s command before 1802. He may have been present on January 3rd,1799 when Newcastle’s second regiment, the Newcastle Armed Association, raised for service within the city and drawn from a somewhat higher social class, received its colours. This was in the Nuns’ Field, now covered by the streets of Graingertown, and they were presented by the wife of the colonel, Sir Matthew White Ridley. The Captain of the light horse troop linked to the regiment, Thomas Burdon, received their standard. The Newcastle Courant gushed “On this occasion the Newcastle Gentlemen Volunteers attended in uniform and kept the ground, which greatly contributed to the convenience and splendour of the day. The band of that corps, and also an excellent band from Wallsend, under the direction of Mr. Buddle, kindly lent their services, which highly exhilarated the scene.” William Fifefield was certainly already on the roll as a drummer on October 4th, 1803. Then, the Newcastle volunteers, now commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Clennell, who had been mayor the previous year and who had risen to second-in-command under Blakeney, assembled near the Forth to receive their colours, which had been deposited in the Mansion House at their previous disbandment on the proclamation of the short-lived peace. The crowd were particularly impressed with the new rifle company, an imitation of the regular rifle battalions, in their bottle green uniforms. A single bugler, presumably theirs, is on the roll along with William and the other drummers and fifers. (15) On Wednesday, February 1st, 1804, the long threatened invasion by France, now led by Europe’s most successful general, seemed about to burst on the north-east. The beacons to the north had burned through the wintry night. The regular cavalry of the 5th Dragoon Guards were called in from Gosforth and Woolsington. According to one newspaper account, “the military, both horse and foot, were all in motion, and the drums of the Staffordshire militia beat to arms. There were strong musters of the Newcastle loyal armed association and volunteers, of the Gateshead volunteers, Usworth legion, and Derwent rangers.” Another account suggests that the Newcastle regiments may have turned out spontaneously. The alarm was a false one, probably caused by gorse catching fire on the Lammermuir Hills. The same rush to arms had happened in the Lowlands, giving Sir Walter Scott a fine comic passage in his The Antiquary – “The beacon, the beacon! The French, the French! murder! murder! and waur than murder!” This eccentric gentleman had already been the mouthpiece for much fun at the expense of the eager and

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lavishly-uniformed Scottish volunteers. This did not stop the character in the novel, or Scott in real life, from becoming officers, the more willingly as Scotland had no militia to provide a local military identity. (16) The Volunteers’ role in civic ceremonial was perhaps best shown on Monday, July 23rd, 1810. The foundation stone of the new law courts (the Moot Hall) was to be laid by the Right Hon. the Earl Percy, as representative of the Duke of Northumberland, the Lord Lieutenant of the county (with a huge cheque from his father to produce at the right moment). A procession was marshaled at the Mansion House in the Close and walked up the Side to the site, with, in order: The Bailiffs of the County, three and three; Sheriff's Trumpeters; the Newcastle Volunteer Drums and Band.; the first sub-division of the Newcastle Rifle Company; Gentlemen, two and two; Clergy, two and two; Corporation of Newcastle, in their Robes, preceded by Sword and Mace; Treasurer of Northumberland, and Clerk of the Peace; Magistrates of the County, two and two, according to Seniority; The Under Sheriff; The High Sheriff, Lord Percy himself and the Chairman of the County, together; the architect; and the Newcastle Volunteer guard bringing up the rear. (17) If he were present, this was one of William Fifefield’s last parades with the Newcastle Volunteers as he ceased to appear on their rolls early in 1811. Drum But what exactly was William’s role with the Volunteers? The “long drum” was a relatively recent introduction into the army, along with other “Janissary” instruments, adopted in western Europe during the 18th Century in imitation of the band of the elite corps of the Ottoman army. It was the earliest type of bass drum, in which the length of the drum shell was greater than the diameter. It was carried horizontally across the chest supported with a neck strap, instead of being slung diagonally at the hip like the side drum, which had been used from at least the 17th Century for signalling instructions as well as accompanying the march. (18) An engraving from the early 1790s shows a regiment of Foot Guards, probably the Third, later Scots, parading outside St. James’ Palace, London. At the head marches the Drum Major, with a long staff. He is followed by men playing various wind instruments. Then follow two small boys in tall hats, one playing a kettledrum and one a triangle. Three men in turbans follow, one flourishing a tambourine and one a pair of cymbals. The man in the middle pounds a long drum. All three are black. Behind come the young side-drummers and fifers, two officers, one carrying a colour, and the front ranks of the grenadier company. (19) The regular army followed the fashion of the Guards, and the militia the fashion of the regulars. In July 1793 a Suffolk innkeeper noted in the band of the West Middlesex Militia, as well as wind instruments “one bass drum, two triangles (the latter played by boys about nine years old), two tambourines (the performers mulattos); and the clash-pans by a real blackamoor, a very active man.” (20)

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Black drummers of both kinds of drum remained fashionable in some regiments well into the 19th Century. The percussionists of the band were not paid for by the War Department, but by the colonel and officers, and, like the wind section, would be civilians. But, on service, distinctions would be blurred, and it is not clear how strictly the rules were followed in Volunteer regiments. William was on the roll as a drummer from 1803 onwards, entitled to at least the same pay as a private and a higher clothing allowance, and so he may have played both kinds of drum, depending on the circumstances. The Newcastle Volunteers had the most active band in the north-east, described by the press as “excellent” at that first field day. But, the performances they gave in theatres, and the pieces scored for them, indicate that the local professionals and gentlemen amateurs who took part played only wind instruments. However, in 1793 a benefit had included a battle piece requiring drums, bugle-horns and trumpets. In 1794 the West York Militia band had pieces requiring two kettle-drums composed for them in Newcastle. A concert for the benefit of the Newcastle Volunteers’ band-leader in September 1795 combined the West York and Newcastle bands, offering two new military pieces and “A Martial Song and Chorus, accompanied by kettle-drums and trumpets.” The ladies in the audience wore the regiment’s colours. (21) A “schedule of the musical instruments and books belonging to the late Volunteer Band” after the disbandment of the Stockton Volunteers in 1813, lists French horns, bassoons, clarinets, flutes and a trumpet, but also a “tamboureen”, triangles, a pair of cymbals, and finally a bass drum “sold to Hartlepool.” (22) It is hard to believe that the Newcastle Volunteers did not have the same range of instruments, for marching to, if not performing concerts. No specific reference to them or to their distinctive long drummer appears in contemporary accounts, yet the notice of his death chose to highlight his role. Certainly, we can be sure that the long drum would have required a strong man to carry it and at this time might be played with a stick in one hand and a switch in the other. As a band instrument, it should not have been painted in the green regimental colour like the side drums, but it probably bore the GR cipher and the name of the regiment. (23) Yeomanry The other regiments with which William Fifefield was associated were in fact different forms of the same unit. The Usworth Gentlemen and Yeomanry Cavalry were one of the earliest volunteer units, so called because of the leadership of William Peareth of Usworth House, a member of the same Newcastle committee as Colonel Blakeney. Thomas Wade of Usworth Place, in the same village, commanded from 1798 until the peace, and again from 1803, when it was reformed as the Loyal Usworth Legion, adopting a fashionable formation linking the cavalry with a regiment of newly-raised infantry under the same colonel. He was succeeded by the ambitious Thomas Burdon of West Jesmond House, a wealthy businessman and landowner who was to be twice mayor of Newcastle. Under him the titles of the regiments were changed to “South Tyne”. In 1812 the infantry became the 2nd Durham Local Militia as a result of government

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pressure to standardise and control local forces. The cavalry continued to be a Durham unit, with its base in Gateshead, but with its colonel and many of its soldiers from the other side of the river, and later became simply the Tyne Yeomanry. (24) William Fifefield does not appear on the roll of the Usworth or South Tyne Yeomanry and so his association may have been simply as a long drummer in the band, paid for by the officers of the regiments. Most volunteer units were disbanded after the final defeat of Napoleon. But Thomas Burdon kept his yeomanry regiment in being. In December 1815 they were on service, but not in action, during a seamen’s blockade of the Tyne in protest at lay-offs at the end of the long war. Their colonel was knighted by the Prince Regent at Carlton House the following year. (25) He was the subject of the satirical ballad Burdon’s Address to his Cavalry, “But they had no call to fight, The marines had be’t them quite, Yet the Cornel’s made a knight For the victory!” (26) The use of yeomanry in time of peace became a subject of much criticism and ridicule. Burdon himself was an easy target. He was pretentious – he renamed his regiment “Tyne Hussars” in 1820, and resigned from the Council because he was not given the precedence he thought his due; he was an assiduous joiner of organisations – Freemasons, Oddfellows, Orangemen, Pitt Club; and by now he was a figure of considerable corpulence. (27) We cannot be sure how William was associated with the regiment during these years. He first appears on the muster rolls as a private in April 1819. In October of that year the Earl of Darlington, somewhat reluctantly, placed the Tyne Yeomanry at the disposal of the magistrates at a time of mass demonstrations for Parliamentary reform. This took place in the fraught situation following the Peterloo Massacre in Manchester, carried out by both yeomanry and regulars, and coincided with a keelmen’s strike on the Tyne. The Tyne Yeomanry were on patrol again later in the year with other yeomanry units, but violence was avoided. (28) The anger and contempt of the radicals was increased by the formation of new units by the end of 1819. The Northumberland and Newcastle Yeomanry was officered by the Northumberland Tory gentry, with a foot company intended for operations on the river and in the colliery areas, and the Ravensworth Yeomanry were identified with one of the biggest Durham coal-owners. (29) The ballads The Newcastle Noodles and Coaly Tyne reflect this, “When peace, who would be Volunteers, Or Hero Dandies fine? Or sham Hussars, or Tirailleurs? – Disgrace to Coaly Tyne.” (30) On July 19th 1821 the Tyne Hussars assembled on the Town Moor with these other yeomanry units, and the regulars then in garrison, to celebrate the coronation of George

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IV. Their bands played “God Save the King.” Yet, the former Prince Regent was unpopular with many Tynesiders, who had rallied to the cause of his estranged wife, Caroline. The yeomanry did not parade in town, to avoid provocation, and most of them changed out of uniform to join the celebrations. Later in the day, at the bottom end of the old Flesh Market (now Cloth Market) a riot was provoked by the lavish provision of drink and a perceived contempt in the distribution of a roast ox. A member of the Tyne Hussars who had stayed in uniform was attacked, but saved by other members of the crowd. He lost his cap, whose feathers the rioters plucked and wore themselves. They also stoned the mail coaches, injuring a guard, before being distracted by other entertainments and eventually being dispersed by the constables. (31) Yet, the ceremonial role of the volunteer force continued and on 12th September 1823 the band of the Tyne Hussars led a parade of the workers from several glassworks, carrying objects they had made, from Skinner Burn along the Close and through the streets of Gateshead and Newcastle. (32) Sir Thomas Burdon died in 1826 and two years later, as the government cut back on funding, the Tyne Yeomanry Hussars were disbanded and returned their arms and accoutrements to the stores in Gateshead. A local historian noted that they had been called out often on both sides of the Tyne and had operated “with mildness, yet efficiently.” (33) The question must remain open as to whether William Fifefield’s continuing in the yeomanry in peacetime was from political motives, from a sense of solidarity with old comrades, or simply as a way of supplementing the income from his work on the river. Boat In 1807, the first guide book to Newcastle informed its readers that, “There are several covered passage boats, called comfortables, which go every tide to and from South and North Shields. They have good accommodations, and are fine sailing boats.” (34) In the trade directory of 1811 a section oComfortables and Wherries listed 4 of the latter, large open boats carrying goods as well as passengers, and 6 of the former, which had a glazed wooden cover. One was operated by William Fifefield. All were based at public houses along the Quayside. Five of the comfortables, including William’s, operated

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Newcastle Trade Directory, 1811

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from the Dun Cow, which was at the foot of Grindon Chare, at the upstream end, near Sandhill and the Fish Market. (35) This service to the public would make William well known as a person to his passengers on the sometimes prolonged voyages. A compilation of local events published in 1873 refers to him familiarly as “Billy the Black” when quoting the1834 notice of his death. (36) The Newcastle Journal version of the notice refers to “Poor Billy.” Tantalisingly, a ballad published in 1829, Euphy’s Coronation, one of a popular type about the antics of stock “characters” (drunks and the afflicted), and set on the Fish Quay, includes the same name, mercifully as a spectator, “The sport was weel relish’d by Billy the Black.” (37) Another, Tyne Fair, describes the scenes when the surface of the Tyne froze solid in January and February of 1814. Stalls, barbers, a tavern, red-coat recruiting parties and races all featured on the ice, “Hats, stockings, and handkerchiefs, still hung as prizes, Was run for by skaiters and lads of all sizes; Razor grinders quite tipsy, with Balmbro’ Jack, And God Save the King, sung by Willy the Black.” (38) Whether this referred to William Fifefield, and whether he shared the enjoyment of the ice fair or simply felt the interruption of work, an omen of worse to come appeared on May 19th of the same year. The traditional Ascension Day procession of boats and barges, led by the Mayor’s, was joined by the Tyne Steam Packet -“a great novelty” - newly built during the winter on the south shore for passenger transport to the Shields. (39) Later renamed Perseverance, she was the first of many. Yet the transition from oar and sail to steam was not immediate. The painting The Port and Town of Newcastle upon Tyne by Thomas Miles Richardson, about 1820, shows a comfortable being sailed and rowed upstream, while in the foreground coal and grindstones are loaded on the south shore to go downstream. In the painting of The Mayor’s Barge on the Tyne by John Wilson Carmichael, of 1825, the local historian Richard Welford noted two othree comfortables in front of the GuiIronically they are moored just upstream from a steam packet. (40) In 1827 Eneas Mackenzie in his description of Newcastated that some comfortables still remain(41) But by the 1830s, with 30 steam

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A Comfortable on the Tyne c1820

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packets in operation, the comfortables had passed into legend, and part of William Fifefield’s livelihood had gone with them. Family William made his family by the Tyne. On 8th August 1803 the marriage took place at St. Mary’s, Gateshead, high above the river, of William Fifield and Margaret Wintrip, a farmer’s daughter ten years younger than he. She made her mark and the clerk wrote her name, but William’s large, sweeping signature dominates the page. (42)

Marriage Register of St Mary’s Gateshead, 1803

On 23rd December 1804 a christening took place at St. Nicholas in Newcastle which caused the parish clerk to make an unusually detailed entry in the register. William Thomas Fifeald (born 30th November) was the “first son of William Fifeald, millwright, a Negro from St. Kitt’s, West Indies and his wife Margaret Wintrup, a native of Longframlington, daughter of Walter Wintrup.”

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By this time he had been on the rolls of the Volunteers for over a year as William Fifefield and this spelling was used when on 12th August 1808 the christening took place, also at St. Nicholas, of Margaret Grace (born 4th June), “first daughter of William Fifefield, millwright, native of St. Kitt’s, by his wife Margaret, daughter of William Wintrup, farmer, Northumberland.” (43) The family’s address was given as Bailey Gate. This old street, also called Bailiffgate and now under the East Coast Mainline, led west from the entrance to the castle to link up with Westgate. It was a short street, at different times the address of the small businesses of a grocer, a tailor, a bricklayer and a slater. (44) It was the boundary between two parishes and when William’s wife, Margaret, died, aged 44, she was buried on 3rd August 1824 at St. John’s, on Westgate. It was there also that William remarried on 15th November 1828, to Elizabeth Goody, 20 years younger and of the same parish. At some point they moved to Tuthill Stairs, one of the steep access routes to the Close, emerging opposite the Mansion House. This was less crowded than the Long or Castle Stairs, with their clothes sellers and shoemakers. It was dominated by the flourishing Baptist Chapel, and home to David Mackie’s school and to the pawnshop of Christiana Armour. When William died, in January 1834, he was buried at St. John’s. (45) On 11th October 1826, Margaret Grace Fifefield, spinster of Bailey Gate, took her son William Richard Fifefield to St. Nicholas to be christened in the same church as she had been 18 years before. No father was named. On October 19th, 1833 she married George Nicholson in St. John’s, Newcastle. Her brother, William Thomas, was there as a witness, both he and his sister signing their own names. (46) By 1827 William Fifefield’s son listed himself as William T. Fifefield, hairdresser, of Westgate, in the trade directory. In 1828 he moved shop to 36 Old Butcher Market (now Cloth Market).(47) On 22nd June 1829 he was married in the ancient church of St. Peter’s at Monkwearmouth to Mary Ann Sessford. Her father, originally from Cumberland, was a watchmaker in Newcastle and her brother followed the same trade. (48) By December 1832 William Thomas and Mary Ann Fifefield were living on Side and their daughter was christened Mary Ann Sessford Fifefield at All Saints, Newcastle’s newest church. (49) By the time his father died, in 1834, William Thomas Fifefield had again moved his hairdressing business a short distance to 3 Groat Market. His wife’s family had their watchmaker’s shop a little farther up the street. The two were among many small shops in the old, half-timbered houses on the east side of the Groat Market, most owners living elsewhere while other families shared the upper floors. They were soon to be demolished to make way for the new Corn Exchange. The buildings opposite were in newer red brick, some of which survive under layers of paint. They were occupied by larger businesses and four taverns, of which only the Black Boy remains. William Thomas Fifefield had moved one door up, to number 4, by 1837. (50) But, then, the next year, he died, aged only 33. By 1841 his widow, Mary Ann Fifefield, was a bonnet maker, living with other tradespeople in Prudhoe Street, between Percy Street and Northumberland Street (where the Eldon Square Centre now stands) with her daughter aged 8. Two years later, she too died, aged 43. (51)

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The orphaned Mary Ann was only 11, but her mother’s family were there to help. By March 1851, aged 19, she was a housemaid at the inn in Aberdeen, Scotland owned by William Bisset, married to Eleanor Sessford, her mother’s sister. By November 1854 Mary Ann Sessford Fifefield was back on Tyneside to marry a mariner, John Sangster, son of a coachman, at the United Secession (Presbyterian) Chapel in North Shields. So a family name acquired in the Caribbean and given its final form in Newcastle vanishes from the record. (52) We do not know who put the notice of William Fifefield’s death in all the Newcastle papers, but it may have been his son or, more likely, an old military comrade. He was different from the people of Newcastle, whose life he shared, because of his colour – only one other “man of colour” is noted at this period by the assiduous Tyneside chronicler John Sykes – and his origin on an island dominated by slavery. Yet, if William Fifefield was an incomer to the town, so was the colonel of his first regiment and so were his wife and his daughter-in-law’s family. He walked the familiar streets of Newcastle with eyes that had seen a different sun an ocean away. But he was the same, in his experience of joy and sorrow in his family, in his need to make his way, in his relation to the river, and perhaps in his love of performance, as other Geordies of his own or later times.

(1) Sheree Mack, Black Voices and absences in the North-East Commemorations of Abolition, a talk at Newcastle University, 24th November, 2007; Sean Creighton, ‘Black People and the North East,’ North East History, Volume 39, 2008.

(2) Bryan Edwards, The history, civil and commercial, of the British colonies in the West Indies (London, 1793), Volume I pp 422-433.

(3) Slave Registers of former British Colonial Dependencies, 1812 – 1834, National Archives of the UK (on-line); additional information from Hazel Brookes, an independent researcher on St. Kitts.

(4) John Charlton, Hidden Chains (Tyne Bridge Publishing, Newcastle, 2008) pp 103, 122 and 128; Edwards, Volume II, p 259.

(5) Piers Mackesy, The War for America (Longman, Green and Co., London, 1964) p 227.

(6) Thomas Southey, Chronological History of the West Indies (London, 1827), Volume II.

(7) Edwards, Volume I, p 432. (8) Graham Gendall Norton, review of ‘The Oxford Companion to Black

British History,’ History Today, September 2007, p 65; Malcolm Chase, ‘Chartism’s Black Activist,’ History Today, October 2007, pp 20-22.

(9) Northumberland Collections Service, Woodhorn. NRO 1812/18 and 19, Northumberland Lieutenancy.

(10) Burke’s Irish Family Records, ed. Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd (London, Burke’s Peerage Ltd., 1976) p127; A Genealogical and Heraldic Dictionary of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain and Ireland, John and John Edward Burke (London, 1847).

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(11) Tyne and Wear Archives TWA MF 1216 - researched by Patricia Hix for the North East Slavery and Abolition Group.

(12) Newcastle Courant, 5th January 1793, 18th February, 1804 ; North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers, NRO 3410/Bud/15/69-71 (John Buddle commanded the Wallsend Volunteers); Durham County Record Office D/Br/D 3313-3327 includes a copy of Blakeney’s will; Burke’s Irish Family Records.

(13) Newcastle Courant, January – June, 1795. (14) Newcastle Courant, 29th August, 1795. (15) Newcastle Chronicle, 8th October, 1803. (16) Newcastle Chronicle and Newcastle Courant, 4th February, 1804; Sir

Walter Scott, The Antiquary (A&C Black, London and Edinburgh, 1893) pp 404 –5.

(17) Eneas Mackenzie, A descriptive and historical account of the town and county of Newcastle–upon-Tyne: including the Borough of Gateshead (Newcastle, 1827) pp. 224 – 229.

(18) The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, ed. Stanley Sadie (Macmillan, London, 1984), Vol. 1, pp 123 – 125.

(19) The Household Brigade (Pitkin, London, 1966). (20) Notes and Queries (George Bell, London, 1855), Volume Twelve July-

December 1855, p 121. (21) Roz Southey, Music Making in North-east England during the Eighteenth

Century (Aldershot:Ashgate, 2006), Chapter 8. (22) Durham Record Office, D/DLI3/4/492. (23) Historic Musical Instruments in the Edinburgh University Collection, ed.

Arnold Myers (1998), Volume 2 Part J Fascicle ii: Drums, pp 19-21. (24) S.G.P. Ward, Faithful: The Story of the Durham Light Infantry (for the

DLI by Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1962) pp 16-22. (25) Richard Welford, Men of Mark ‘twixt Tyne and Tweed (London and

Newcastle, 1885) Volume I. (26) Allan’s Illustrated Edition of Tyneside Songs (Thomas and George Allan,

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1891) p 199. (27) Literary and Philosophical Society of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, painting On

‘Change, by Joseph Crawhall, c1826. (28) John Charlton, ‘1819: Waterloo, Peterloo and Newcastle Town Moor,’

North East History, Volume 39, 2008. (29) The History of the Northumberland Hussars Yeomanry, ed. Howard Pease

(Constable, London, 1924) pp 3-8. (30) Allan’s pp 200 and 158. (31) Newcastle Chronicle, Newcastle Courant, Durham Advertiser, 21st July,

1821; Robert Colls, The Collier’s Rant (Croom Helm, London, 1977) has an analysis of the newspaper coverage on pp 67-72.

(32) John Sykes, Local Records; or, Historical Register of remarkable events (John Sykes, Newcastle, 1833) Volume 2.

(33) M.A. Richardson, The Local Historian’s Table Book of Remarkable Occurrences (London, 1843) Vol.III, p 370.

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(34) The Picture of Newcastle upon Tyne, facsimile reprint of 1807 edition (E and W Books, London, 1970).

(35) Mackenzie and Dent’s Triennial Directory for Newcastle upon Tyne, (Newcastle, 1811).

(36) Chater’s “Canny Newcassel” Diary and Local Remembrancer for 1873; information from Ian Whitehead, Discovery Museum.

(37) Edward Corvan etc. A choice Collection of Tyneside Songs (Newcastle, 1863). This and the other songs quoted are also in Conrad Bladey’s on-line collection.

(38) Allan’s p 136. (39) John Sykes, Volume 2; J.C. Bruce, Lectures on Old Newcastle (Newcastle

upon Tyne. 1891); Frank Manders and Richard Potts: Crossing the Tyne (Tyne Bridge Publishing, Newcastle, 2001) p 115.

(40) The Laing Art Gallery, Tyne and Wear Museums; Pictures of Tyneside – 33 Engravings from drawings by J.W. Carmichael with descriptive Letter-press by Richard Welford (Mawson, Swan & Morgan, Newcastle, 1881); Pictures of Tyneside, ed. S.Middlebrook (Oriel Press, Newcastle upon Tyne,1969).

(41) Mackenzie, p. 722. (42) Durham Record Office, Marriage Register of St. Mary’s, Gateshead. (43) Tyne and Wear Archives, Baptism Register of St. Nicholas’, Newcastle. (44) Thomas Oliver, Plan of the Town and County of Newcastle-upon-Tyne

and the Borough of Gateshead (Newcastle, 1831); The Directory for the Year 1801, of the town and County of Newcastle upon Tyne (Newcastle, 1801); A General Directory for Newcastle upon Tyne (Newcastle, 1824).

(45) J. Pigot, Northumberland Directory (1834); Tyne and Wear Archives, Burial and Marriage Registers of St. John’s, Newcastle.

(46) Tyne and Wear Archives, Baptism register of St. Nicholas’; Marriage Register of St. John’s, Newcastle.

(47) Parson and White, History, Directory and Gazetteer of Durham and Northumberland (Leeds, 1828), pp 31 and clxiii.

(48) Durham Record Office, Marriage Register of St. Peter’s, Monkwearmouth; 1851 England Census.

(49) Tyne and Wear Archives, Baptism Register of All Saints’, Newcastle. (50) J. Pigot, Northumberland Directory (1834); M.A. Richardson, Directory

of the Towns of Newcastle and Gateshead (1838). (51) 1841 England Census; England and Wales Birth, Marriage and Death

Index. (52) 1851 Scotland Census; Certified Copy of Entry of Marriage, 21st

November, 1854.

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