Facing the Past: Black Lancastrians Exhibition

Discover the lives of Black Lancastrians in the 1700s through a series of portraits by Lela Harris.

The portraits depict historic individuals who once lived in the Lancaster area, Thomas Anson, Frances Elizabeth Johnson, John Chance, Isaac Rawlinson, 'Ebo Boy' and Molly.  They are displayed in different rooms in Judges' Lodgings alongside historic portraits of those who benefitted from slavery including Abraham Rawlinson, Mary Hutton Rawlinson, Benjamin Satterthwaite and Jane Hardman.  These include portraits by George Romney and Joseph Wright of Derby.

Lancaster was once the fourth largest slave trading port in the country, and slave ships made 125 slaving voyages from the port to West Africa.  Some of the furniture and portraits on display in Judges' Lodgings were bought by Lancaster families involved in the slave trade and the West Indies trade in goods produced by enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, such as sugar and rum.  ​​​The information on those featured in the new portraits comes from church records, runaway slave adverts and family stories.  They lived at a time when Lancaster merchants invested in selling an estimated 30,000 enslaved Africans through the Atlantic Slave Trade.

Young People's exhibition.  The portraits are accompanied by a young people's exhibition in the ground floor education room.  The commission involved Lela working with children from Lancaster schools.  They created their own portraits of 'Ebo Boy' a young African man who escaped from slavery in Heysham, Lancashire.  Enslaved Africans were often given new names to strip them of their identity.  The children helped give 'Ebo Boy' a new name to reflect his African heritage and life story, Afamefuna.  This means 'my name will not be lost' in the Igbo language. 

About the artist and collaboration:
Lela Harris was commissioned by Judges' Lodgings, part of Lancashire County Council (LCC), in 2022 to produce the portraits which have now been acquired by LCC for their permanent museum collection.  Lela is based in Kendal and illustrated the Folio Society edition of The Colour Purple by Alice Walker in 2021 and was V&A Illustration Award runner up in 2022.  ​​​​​​The commission is part of Facing The Past, a partnership project between Judges' Lodgings, Lancaster Black History Group, Sociology at Lancaster University, The Institute For Black Atlantic Research at the University of Central Lancashire, which aims to explore the legacy of Lancaster's involvement in the Slave Trade and West Indies trades.  It was funded by the Art Fund, and the Association of Independent Museums and National Lottery Heritage Fund.  Thanks to National Lottery Players.  The exhibition was formally opened by Turner Prize winning artist Lubaina Himid in 2023.