International Women’s Day

Baroness Osamor Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Osamor (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a great honour and privilege to participate in this very important debate secured by the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ranger, on his moving maiden speech.

In Tottenham, in the London Borough of Haringey, where I come from, March 2020 is Women’s History Month—it is not just International Women’s Day but a whole month. I have the brochure for this month. It was launched on Sunday 1 March and events will go on until 31 March. There are two main topics for today, 10 March. One celebrates the life of Sophie Blanchard, the French aeronaut, from 1778 to 1819 and the second looks at women in Egypt, focusing on Cleopatra. Young people will be encouraged to follow history and look deep down to see what is missing—where women’s achievements have been hidden.

I want today to represent black women who lived in Haringey in the past or walked along Tottenham High Road, either travelling northward or southward into London in the 1700s, the 1800s and 1900s. There are a few local black women in the historical record. Most would have been enslaved or servants, but certainly working-class women, whose existence left barely a scratch behind them. Only their names are in the parish register, but those registers are important. There are two records for black women in Tottenham. The register tells us, for example, that on 6 April 1790:

“Sarah Claret, wife of Robert, a negro”,


was buried in the graveyard of All Hallows’ Church, Tottenham, the parish church. Like all poor people, she has no gravestone to her memory. Just out of interest, two years later, on 27 March 1762, there is an entry in the burial register for:

“Robert Claret, a negro aged 65.”


So here we have a family. We know that when Sarah Claret died, her husband would have walked behind her coffin into the parish church, which we can visit today, nearly opposite Bruce Castle Museum. He would have stood and watched her burial in the graveyard, then he would have walked home, either to the north or the south, along Tottenham High Road.

Similarly, there are records of another family. On 21 August 1762, there was a burial in All Hallows’ Church of:

“John Hill, son of John and Mary, a negro, aged 14.”


On 4 July 1771, there is a further entry in the burial register:

“John Hill, a black aged about 78.”


Here is evidence of another family.

We have no idea what Sarah Claret and Mary Hill achieved in their lives, but that does not mean they are not worthy of remembrance. It calls for some imagination to conjure up the nature of their lives. A vast number of black women in Britain would have lived lives of great poverty. It was a struggle for bare survival for working-class people. There were no government benefits. That families survived took tremendous efforts by mothers and fathers. It is not known where these people lived, but we know that both women would have walked along Tottenham High Road. They would have possibly used the village pump on Tottenham Green to get water. The people of Tottenham would have known these families. Tottenham in the 18^th century was just a ribbon development. There were houses, taverns, shops and almshouses on either side of the high road. Behind the houses to the east and the west were fields and farms. There was a small population.

Sarah Claret and Mary Hill could have been born in this country. We do not know their origins. They could have been brought directly to England from Africa by a sea captain. For example, in the All Hallows’ baptism register of March 1718, it is written “John Cyras, Captain Madden’s black”. These two women could have been brought from the plantations of the Caribbean islands under British control. Again, we shall never know more.

Tottenham High Road was a very busy road. Horses, coaches and pedestrians travelled the road. The people involved in those journeys were part of Haringey history—our history.

I end by telling noble Lords about a black woman who was a housekeeper in Edmonton, a free woman, originally from Barbados, who frequently travelled into London, where she rented a room full of amazing possessions. It is possible that she might have been a second-hand dealer. Ruth Thomas was her name. She died in 1745. I have to cut my speech short, so I conclude by saying that Ruth, Mary and Sarah are my ancestors. We have to consider that history must not exclude them from being part of our celebration of International Women’s Day or the history of women in this country.