Britain's 1st Black Officer MC?

[Chris Boonzaier]

So... is this the real deal ? No reason it should not be....

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280053/Walter-Tull-New-play-hopes-strengthen-campaign-award-Britains-black-army-officer-posthumous-Military-Cross.html

Or is it rewriting history?

[Nick]

Interesting article. But quite frankly there are many examples in both world wars where men should have received some recognition for their acts of bravery and never did for various reasons.

Of course it easy to look at things from a different perspective in modern times and I have no doubt the fact he was black would have made some difference, as would have been the case if he didn't come from the right school or right background. But we should not assume that the colour of his skin was the only reason. I have read of acts which were beyond the pale in terms of courage which never were considered for the highest awards because of criteria not being met.

What it does show is that in even in another age, steeped in Colonialism and prejudice, where a black officer would have been an unheard of thing. When men are thrown together in the most difficult of circumstances, colour of skin and background, goes bye the bye, especially when they are a good soldier and respected by their men.

[peter monahan]

A young Indian, studying at Oxford, enlisted and was commissioned in 1914, presumably because he was officer material and the skin tone either didn't register or was deemed irrelevant. He said, in remarks I read years ago, that aside from being nicknamed 'Blackie' by his men, his experience was that on any junior subaltern in that war. At the same time, no Indian could possibly have been commissioned in the Indian Army - that didn't happen until the '30s and there was great debate about whether Indian ORs and VCOs should be eligible for the VC. They were so deemed, but at least in part because the West India Regiment was eligible already.

In a related note, there were at least two Parsi [indian] councillors elected in London in the 19th century and black doctors, trained in the UK, served with the colonial medical service in West Africa, until British women arrived on the scene, when they were retroactively deemed inappropriate!

As the author quoted in the article says, the rules were broken "when it was expedient", but the underlying prejudices and attitudes were still alive and well! As Nick points out, skin prejudice is a luxury in the trenches and fox holes, but back at Base, sadly, it remains strong. many sad stories out of Vietnam of black and white grunts serving with and dying for each other, but spending all their base time in separate, racially homogenous groups.

I hope this guy gets his MC even if it is a little bit PC. Symbols are important and this one would, I believe, have some real resonance among black and white Britons alike.

[James Hoard]

A young Indian, studying at Oxford, enlisted and was commissioned in 1914, presumably because he was officer material and the skin tone either didn't register or was deemed irrelevant. He said, in remarks I read years ago, that aside from being nicknamed 'Blackie' by his men, his experience was that on any junior subaltern in that war. At the same time, no Indian could possibly have been commissioned in the Indian Army - that didn't happen until the '30s and there was great debate about whether Indian ORs and VCOs should be eligible for the VC. They were so deemed, but at least in part because the West India Regiment was eligible already.

In a related note, there were at least two Parsi [indian] councillors elected in London in the 19th century and black doctors, trained in the UK, served with the colonial medical service in West Africa, until British women arrived on the scene, when they were retroactively deemed inappropriate!

As the author quoted in the article says, the rules were broken "when it was expedient", but the underlying prejudices and attitudes were still alive and well! As Nick points out, skin prejudice is a luxury in the trenches and fox holes, but back at Base, sadly, it remains strong. many sad stories out of Vietnam of black and white grunts serving with and dying for each other, but spending all their base time in separate, racially homogenous groups.

I hope this guy gets his MC even if it is a little bit PC. Symbols are important and this one would, I believe, have some real resonance among black and white Britons alike.

Sorry to disagree with you Peter, but much of what you have said conforms to the general thrust of anti-colonial literature but simply is not true. There were Malay Officers in the HEIC forces as early as the seventeenth century, and Malays served as such until the regular Ceylon and Malay Regiments were dissolved in I think the late 1850s or 1870s. The first Indians to be appointed to the rank of full General were in 1877. The heads of the British (Indian) diplomatic missions after the second Afghan War were Indian Muslims of the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The officer corps of Indian Medical Service of the Indian Army was long open to Indians. All senior Viceroy's Commissioned Officers held Honorary rank below that of field officers.

It one looks further afield, Black West Indians served as officers in the British forces during the American Revolution. Stephen Blucke, from Barbados who served as a Captain, later led those ex-soldiers who settled in Canada. He was promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel in the local militia in 1784. Alas, he went out into the wilderness one day and was eaten by a bear. There were several others under him, but their names escape me for the time being. I know of at least two full Colonels, originally from the BWI, but who served in the medical service in West Africa in the 1850s - one of whom was appointed a Companion of the Order of the Bath - but again, their names escape me.

As for the Victoria Cross, that was opened to Indian Army officers, Viceroy's Commissioned Officers and other ranks by King George V and announced by him in person at the Imperial Durbar in 1911. Until then, they were eligible for the Indian Order of Merit, established in 1837 - 20 years before any such gallantry decoration was instituted for the British Army. The Indian Order of Merit was highly prized. One rose up the ranks from third to the covetted first class by performing further acts of gallantry, unless the act was exceptional. If of the standard of the VC, they would receive the first class - made of pure gold and beautifully enamelled - not the remnants of an old iron cannon presented in a carboard box! [in addition to the IOM, Viceroy's Commissioned Officers were eligible for the Order of British India in two classes. Several also received the Order of the Indian Empire after 1877]. I doubt if any other ranks in the British Army were eligible for any class of any order until the Royal Victorian Order was instituted in 1896 and the Order of the British Empire in 1917.

Being black does not come into it. William Hall, born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, of freed slaves who escaped the USA, joined the Royal Navy and won his VC for action in the Siege of Lucknow in 1857. It is easy to miss Black people when they have English or European names, as many do, but they have been awarded the VC since its very inception.

One of the problems with commissions was one of perception. The forms required one to state if one's parents were British Subjects. Too many fools took that to be a racial question, when it was actually a legal one, answered in the negative and that was that. Few, except those who may have studied law, had the wherewithal to answer yes, as one West Indian who went on to reach the rank of Group Captain in the RAF, DSO, DFC and bar. No doubt to the great chagrin of the prejudiced recruiting staff.

[peter monahan]

James

As a proud Canadian and one with a strong interest in the British Indian Army, I was fascinated by some of your references.

One of my proudest 'military' possessions is a photograph of William Hall, framed with a set of minature medals. It was put together for the Military Institute in Toronto, Canada and became surplus because it was one of two and the MI opted for the one with the maroon ribbon, not the naval blue version which Hall seems to have worn. You may know Hall's story but not this tidbit: when he was eventually listed in a Canadian 'Who's Who', after his retirement to rural Nova Scotia, he listed his occupation as 'gentelman farmer' and his hobbies as 'shooting crows'! Clearly a man of parts. OTOH, he recieved his VC in Simonstown, SA and I strongly suspect that, while his mates and superiors didn't care about his colour, the info. didn't come to 'official attention' until well after the deed.

I did know that the WesT India Reg't was eligible before the IA but not aboput the 1911 Durbar. Thanks for that. I would be very interested in the source for your info. on the Indian general officers. I do believe you but would love to look at the details and circumstances. Blacks in the British Army were certainly not unknown - there was, apparently, a black sergeant in the 42nd Highlanders at Waterloo, of all odd units to have joined. I agree with you that more were probably serving than have been documented but at this distance in time are lost behind English names.

My feeling - impossible to substantiate - was that recruiting sergeants and officers were often colour blind, mosrt especially when warm bodies were in high demand. A number of Sikhs and many many blacks served in the Canadian Army oin WWI. In most places where blacks were a small minority they were integrated into the regular units but in the Martimes, where blacks had arrived as Loyalists after the American Revolution, they were put into their own units, mostly as Forestry Corps. My rough rule of thumb, as applied to 'visible minorities' is that 1 or 2 are a curiosity but X% they become, at least potentially a 'racial issue/problem'.

I won't argue about the reletive merits of the IOM and VC,and in fact quite like your relative valuation of the two but I'm not sure Britons at home would have agreed that the IOm was 'better', for want of a kmore precise term. And, to be a bit niggly, isn't the VC made of bronze?

I'll give you Indians in the Medical Department, but suggest that that service was not held in nearly the esteem accorded 'fighting units' by either the authorities or in general perception. A point which I did not make in my first post was that the Colonial Office's use of British trained Black West Afrtican doctors but apparently ended when the fiurst mem-sahibs arrived on the scene in the Bight of Benin. I do know that when the Indian Army began to 'Indianize' its oofice corps, with Indian KING's Commissioned Officers, great pains were taken to ensure that no white officer in a regiment found himself juior to or under the command of an Indian. Again, while the Viceroy's Commissioned Officers were given senior rank, often upon retirement, it was HONORARY and again the mechanisms were always in place so that no Indian officer was placed in the chain of command above a Brit. The greenest 2nd Lt. could and sometimes did issue oredrs to VCOs with multiple decorations and decades of service.

My central thesis was, and is, that while the fighting soldiers oftenput bravery and competence far above class or race, the base wallahs - what our American brethern so charmingly call 'REMFs' - often did notshare those enlightened views. I'm currently working on a museum exhibit for 2014 on the Indian Army divisions who went to France in 1914. One of my sources, located but not yet fully digested, deals with the popular canard of the time that Indioan Troops in particular and the Indian formation in general - which often had British elements - suffered a higher percentage of self-inflicted wounds than equivalent British formations, a clear sign of 'low moral fibre'! I hope that study of that situation will take me out of the general run of 'anti-colonialist' historians!

Respectfully,

Peter