The Black Teacher in 19th Century Britain and its Empire

• In Event: New Directions in Black Educational History

Abstract

This paper explores the training and deployment of Black individuals from across the Atlantic as teachers in the 19th century. Trained at the teacher-training institute Borough Road College in London, England, these Black teachers taught across Britain, Africa, and the Caribbean. While Borough Road is widely remembered as one of Britain’s first training colleges, which qualified hundreds of British men (and later women) in the Lancasterian system, little has been researched about the considerable number of Black men trained as teachers at the institution in the 19th century - a period marked by abolition and emancipation. This paper addresses that gap by exploring the lives and pedagogies of Black teachers who trained at Borough Road and “unforgets” these actors. It asks: How did Black teachers trained at Borough Road College shape Black educational life and abolitionism in the British Empire in the19th century? It draws on archival materials, in particular, the “First Register of Student Teachers at BRC 1804 - 1821” held in the British and Foreign School Society Archives at Brunel University. This study employs historical reconstruction and analysis to map the intellectual and everyday labour of Black teachers. The paper argues that Black teachers were important figures in spreading Black consciousness and abolitionist activity in 19th-century Britain and its Empire. Their training at this British institution remains a crucial node in their intellectual and political journeys. By recovering this history, the paper contributes to scholarship on Black educational history and to Black British studies more broadly. It urges researchers to reinterpret 19th-century educators as abolitionist figures. Furthermore, the paper seeks to draw on underutilised archival materials for new insights and directions into Black educational history, specifically the teaching professionals trained in Britain and their wide-reaching impact on abolition and freedom across the Atlantic in the 19th century.

Author

• Esther Anfo-Whyte, Harvard University