To mark Black History Month, we're telling the amazing life stories of 15 pioneering North East people. In the third part of our series, we tell of the first known Darlingtonian, the first MP and a woman who stowed away for four months to escape slavery

No 7: Tommy Crawford
died 1830, soldier

MANY black people who escaped slavery joined the British Army, and Tommy was a trumpeter in the 2nd Queen’s Dragoon Guards until he was pensioned off when they were stationed in Darlington.

He remained in the town, known universally as “Black Tommy”, living in Bradley’s Yard, which was between Church Row and Church Lane. It was believed that his surname had been given to him by the army officer who had brought him into the country.

Author Henry Spenser, in his 1862 book about Darlington, says: “Tommy was an inoffensive, industrious man, and increased his means of maintenance by hard work as a bricklayer’s labourer. The death of his son, a fine tawny boy, at the age of 13 years, in 1830, sadly distressed the old soldier, and he did not long survive his loss.”

No 8: Henry Galgacus Redhead Yorke
1802-1848, MP

HIS grandfather was a plantation owner in Antigua in the West Indies and his grandmother was a freed slave. His father, also Henry, was raised by the plantation owner’s family in Derbyshire and he became a radical campaigner against slavery in the north of England.

Henry himself was educated at Charterhouse, Eton and Cambridge University, and he married the daughter of an Irish earl. For seven years from 1841, he was the Whig MP for the City of York, perhaps just the fifth MP of mixed ethnicity to sit in the Commons, until he drank cyanide in Regent’s Park.

Other trailblazing MPs include Ashok Kumar, the MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, who was only the fifth coloured MP when he was first elected in 1991. He held the seat until he died in 2010. Plus Chi Onwurah, Newcastle’s first black MP. First elected in 2010, her father was a Nigerian dentist studying at Newcastle university.

The Northern Echo: Mary Ann Macham, an escaped slave from Virginia who settled in North Shields

No 9: Mary Ann Matcham (above)
1802-1893, servant

SHE was born into slavery in Virginia – her father was the slaveowner and her mother a slave – and when she was 12, she was sold on for $450.

By the time of her late 20s, she hatched an elaborate escape plan which involved stowing away for four months on a ship to Holland. From there, she sailed to North Shields, arriving on Christmas Day 1831, where she was befriended by the Spence family of Quakers, who were opposed to slavery.

They took her in as a servant.

In 1841, she married James Blyth, a ropemaker. They didn’t have any children but they are buried together in the town cemetery. However, as James died 16 years before her, her name did not feature on the headstone until it was added in 2020.

READ MORE:

PART 1: THE FIRST BLACK NORTH EASTERNERS BACK IN ROMAN TIMES

PART 2: THE BARTON SCHOOLBOY AND A FAMOUS BOXER

  • Three more stories tomorrow