The Story of George Africanus : The Slave Who Became A Successful Entrepreneur

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    The Story of George Africanus : The Slave Who Became A Successful Entrepreneur





    The George Africanus correct birth date is unknown but it is known he died in his 70's in Nottingham, on May 30, 1834 . According to his burial certificate he was probably born in 1763 in a village in Sierra Leone which became a British colony in 1787.
    It is believed that George arrived in England in early 1766. On March 31, 1766, he was baptised George John Scipio Africanus, and described as a negro boy belonging to Benjamin Molineux of Molineux House, in the Collegiate church of St Peter in Wolverhampton.
    When George was three years old Molineux began educating him. After Benjamin Molineux's death in 1772, his eldest son, George Molineux, inherited the estate and took responsibility for raising and educating the child. Growing up, Africanus probably worked as a servant in the Molineux family household, before becoming apprenticed to be a brass founder.

    As an adult, Africanus moved to Nottingham, a place familiar to his adopted family. Benjamin Molineux's grandfather, Darcy Molineux (1652–1716), served as High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire in 1687, and Deputy Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire between 1698–1702. He raised George Molineux's father John (1685–1754) in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, before settling in Wolverhampton around 1700. The family Molineux came from Teversal near Mansfield in the county of Nottinghamshire.
    Africanus may have become interested in Nottingham after visiting it on the way home from the funeral of a relative of his adopted family, Sir William Molineux, 6th Baronet of Teversal, who died near Mansfield in 1781. Members of the Wolverhampton Molineux family, including Africanus, may have passed through Nottingham town center, a city of 18,000 people at that time, full of beautiful open-air gardens and pleasing surroundings.



    At the age of 21, around 1784, Africanus moved to St Peter's Parish, Nottingham, . Where he met a local girl, Esther Shaw, and on 3 August 1788 they got married at St. Peter's Church. They had seven children, but only one, Hannah, lived to adulthood. Around 1793, they started up an employment agency, Africanus' Register of Servants, operating from their home at 28 Chandlers Lane. As the business was not bringing in sufficient income, Africanus may have performed other jobs for support; while their 1788 marriage bond document states that he was a Brass Founder by trade, trade directories of the time list him as a waiter and labourer as well.



    In 1825 his Daughter Hannah married Samuel Cropper (1802-1886/7), a watch and clock maker, at St. Mary's Church, Nottingham.
    According to the Last Will and Testament of George Africanus, he was unhappy about Hannah's marriage to Samuel Cropper and Hannah and Samuel Cropper lived apart for years until after the death of George Africanus, in 1834.
    The 1841 census shows Hannah and Samuel Cropper living on Chandlers Lane with her 70-year-old mother, Esther, who was still working as proprietress of the register of servants office at the time.

    After she died on 12 May 1853, a notice appeared in the Nottingham Review, stating: "Yesterday (Thursday), aged 85 years, Mrs. Africanus, for upwards of sixty years proprietor of the Servants' Register Office in Chandlers Lane." If this account is correct, then Ester ran the Servants' Register Office on Chandler’s lane from at least 1793. Africanus bought 28 Chandlers Lane and adjoining properties in Bluchers Yard for £380 on October 24, 1829.
    Len Garrison (an educationalist and historian whose life's work was to catalogue the development of the black British identity and its history and promote the works of young black writers), director of Afro-Caribbean Family and Friends , ensured that Africanus was included in Nottingham Castle's 1993 Black Presence exhibition. It was only in 2003 that, after painstaking research, Africanus's grave was uncovered, despite its worn inscription, in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. His wife was buried alongside him. Their children are buried in a separate grave nearby.




    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Africanus
     
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0 replies since 1/12/2015, 15:02   114 views
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