Historical research

You may be surprised to learn that rural Northamptonshire has a long and fascinating history of Black people visiting, working and living in the county. We normally associate the history of Black people in Britain with large cities and ports such as London, Bristol and Liverpool.

However, Northamptonshire has its own hidden histories and like elsewhere in Britain, the contributions of people of African, Asian and Caribbean origins are invisible to the majority of people living in the county today. That is until now!

Project researchers have been able to establish dates, names and sometimes family stories by delving in a variety of archives. These include parish registers, personal and family documents, newspapers, paintings, photographs, gravestones and other media. These records will only be partial and some people will not have left any trace in the records. However, it is exciting to realise that there is a wealth of material relating to the past that has yet to be unearthed.

Here you can now find out about people such as Peter the Saracen who lived in Northampton in 1205, the 18th century slave Caesar Shaw, the Dare family of Gretton, Catherine Prentice or the suffragette, Sophia Duleep Singh. Click here to discover who else has links to Northamptonshire's past.