KS3 Britain’s Black History – Black Britons

Black History for Schools

Teachers looking for black history for schools? There has been a Black Presence in the British Isles since Roman times. In more recent Centuries, the black presence is well documented, should you care to look for it.
Teachers TV offers this Introductory video, which you can download from their site to get you started in your investigations.

Historian Tony Warner explains how the first black people to arrive in Britain were not slaves or servants, in this easy-to-understand classroom resource for Years 7 to 9. Looking back through the centuries, there is evidence of influential Caribbean and African descent.

One of the earliest records of black people living in Britain is from 1511, when a North African trumpeter was depicted on the Westminster Tournament Roll. He was probably employed by both Henry VII and Henry VIII. Black men and women made appearances in the diaries of Samuel Pepys and in 18th-century portraits

Tony explains how by the late 16th century, trade had opened up between West Africa and Britain, and Africans began to settle here, especially in seafaring places like Bristol, London, Liverpool and Glasgow.