Another skirmish in the culture war

The recent Virtue Signal “A Line in the Sand” really struck a chord with me. I know that I spend far too much time fretting and fuming about events I cannot control and can influence about as much as a flea on an elephant’s back can influence the elephant. Bill and Zo are quite right of course, we all need to take time off from “the fight”. Nevertheless, I do fret, and tie myself in knots over the incessant barrage of news stories. In an attempt to exorcise a particularly depressing, upsetting, and infuriating example I am writing this piece for you, then I will hopefully be able to turn my mind off, and you will be aware of another little skirmish in the culture wars over here in England.

Black Boy Cancelled 

The BLM inspired campaign to “decolonise” and ideologically purify everything from statues to syrup and rice packaging has hit English pubs. The Black Boy pub in Shinfield, Berkshire, just south of the large town of Reading, has changed its name this week to the banal Shinfield Arms. In this case, I can see why people unfamiliar with English pubs, and their often slightly outré names, might be confused and upset at the name. However, what upsets and angers me is the fact that “campaigners” have wilfully ignored the historical facts and how those who are responsible for the pub (and are custodians of the culture and history it contains) have asked “how high?” when told to jump by the BLM mob.

There are currently some thirtysomething (not seventy as most news reports) pubs in England called the Black Boy or Black Boys. In most cases the pub name is from one of two origins, neither of which involves actual black people.

The first is simple, the name refers to a local trade that left its practitioners with blackened faces. Chimney sweeping is one, mining is another and another is charcoal burning. In East Sussex there is a whole village called Blackboys, complete with a Blackboys Inn, in an area where a lot of charcoal burning went on.

The second (and by far the most usual) origin story takes us back to the second half of the 17^th century. When Charles II was invited back from exile and the monarchy was restored in 1660 there was genuine widespread celebration after eleven years of distinctly dour Commonwealth rule. Charles really was a party animal and truly deserves his reputation as such. He was personally popular and was known by various nicknames, one was “The Black Boy”, as he had dark eyes and long curly black hair. Expressing support for the new king by calling your inn the Black Boy was much more personal and specific than calling it the King’s Head or King’s Arms.

Here it’s worth pointing out that revisionists often try to use any reference to historical figures from the medieval and early modern period as black or dark as evidence of them actually being ethnically black. They forget that in a society where everyone is white the various differences of colouration, usually hair, get used to differentiate people. In such a society there simply weren’t enough actual black people around for it to be confusing if you referred to a black-haired person as “black”. At the same time as Charles II one of the Parliamentarian leaders was General “Black” Tom Fairfax, another black-haired guy. As always, context is king.

In a handful of cases the pub name does derive from an actual Afro-Caribbean person. An example of this is the Black Boy in Avery Hill, SE London/Kent. In this case the name recalls the black lads from the Caribbean who served as musicians in the band of the 29^th Rgt of Foot (Worcestershire Rgt) in the late 18^th/early 19^th centuries. Black musicians were quite common in the armies of the various German states at that time, but less common in Britain. When the 29^th took part in the capture of Guadeloupe from the French in 1759, ten local black youngsters were taken on as musicians. The regiment kept the tradition of black musicians until 1843. No doubt the regiment was barracked in the area when the pub was named. The pub sign accurately reflects the origin of the name. (Well, nearly accurately, British Army musicians were dressed in “reversed colours”, so it he should have a yellow coat with red facings.)

It’s worth noting the fact that when a black person is the reason for the name of a pub it tells us two  significant things. One, that in the period we’re talking about, usually from the late 1500s to the mid 1800s, the presence of a black person in most parts of England was highly unusual and remarkable. Remarkable enough to name a pub after them. Two, it tells us that the black person’s presence was not seen as a bad thing. Pubs simply are just not named after things folk hate. So, although it may have been expressed in ways we would find awkward and even offensive today, naming a pub after a black person is the very opposite of racist. 

In the case of the pub in Shinfield, a cock and bull story about two guys in Coley Park owning slaves in the 18^th century is offered up as “evidence” of racist connections, but no connection between the men and the pub itself is produced, unsurprising as Coley Park is well over three miles from Shinfield, with the river Kennet in between. The name seems most likely to be a Charles II reference. The building is around five centuries old, so was certainly around at the time of the Restoration. There is a local tradition of Charles being in the area during his escape after the battle of Worcester, and the fact that another pub close by is the Royal Oak, referring to him hiding in an oak tree during that escape, rather backs this up. Lastly the fact that for some while the pub sign was a black horse is suggestive. Another of Charles II’s nicknames was Old Rowley, after a black stallion famous for fathering many foals.

Back in 2017 there was an attempt to change the name which was dropped after fierce local opposition. This time around, in a post George Floyd world, it was a no contest. The local population were consulted about what the name should be changed to, but not whether it should be changed.

The pub’s owners, Greene King, have already had to don the hair shirt due to their founder’s connections with slavery in 1799 and up to abolition in the 1830s. They are also looking to change the names of two other Black Boy pubs that they own and are keen to be seen not just as not racist but as “anti-racist”. The other pubs are both most likely Charles II references also, being in the company’s home county of Suffolk, not far from Newmarket racecourse. Charles II was intimately involved with the development of Newmarket (and horse racing in general) and rode the winner in a race at Newmarket in 1671, being the only reigning monarch to do so. So, rather than the real stories being taught to those people who might quite understandably have the wrong idea about a pub called the Black Boy, two more living connections to our history will be eradicated due to ignorance and prejudice.

It’s hard to convey just how upsetting this cultural vandalism is. Pubs are more than just bars. They are much more than just places to drink, they are the focus of the community, the oldest go back to before the Reformation, and most are at least a century old. They are part of our continuity as a nation. Their names are part and parcel of the history of an area and record local trades, connections, incidents and affiliations. I have no objection to pub signs that are rather old and insensitive being replaced. I have seen embarrassing examples where the origin of the pub’s name has been forgotten in the mists of time and a literal interpretation adopted, often painted in the early 20^th century by local artists unfamiliar with real black people and taking inspiration from cartoonish images in advertising of the time. Changing a sign is one thing, changing a pub name is quite another. 

In the 20^th century there was a rough proportion of around one pub per thousand people. Thousands upon thousands have closed in the last decades, at least two and half thousand since the CCP virus alone. From over sixty thousand we are down to less than forty-five thousand. I understand that they are businesses when all is said and done, and businesses come and go, but to see those pubs that do survive being re-branded, the history they preserve erased because of ill-informed ultra-sensitivity and Neo Marxist activism is too much.

I understand what people think they’re doing when they give in to the demands of the likes of the Reading Alliance for Cohesion and Racial Equality, but they are wrong. If they think erasing elements of our past and culture to please folk who know little and care less about English pubs will improve relations between races in this country, then they are deluding themselves. The handful of genuine racists out there are able to take stories like this and blame black folk and other ethnic minorities for them, rather than the Marxists, Useful Idiots and soppy, well, meaning guilt junkies who kneel when told to. Companies like Green King are also mistaken if they think that by collaborating and throwing the history and identity of some of their pubs on the bonfires of the Savonarolas of the Race baiting industry will save them from further scrutiny, scorn and shrill demands. I sincerely hope the directors of Green King shuddered when they read the comments of Dr Halima Begum when she welcomed the name change.

“The company has made several symbolic efforts to address its founder’s legacy of oppression…is the renaming of a few pubs enough to make amends? No. Not in the slightest.”