On Wednesday, Year 5 had a visitor from the Windrush Society. Windrush is the name of the ship that brought lots of people from Jamaica and other countries in the Caribbean to the UK to help increase the number of workers available to re-build the country after the devastation of World War 2. Our visitor had traced his ancestors right back to the 1800s. He had found a receipt for the purchase of a 2 year-old boy called Thomas Webber as a slave in 1820. That boy was his great-great 5th time great grandfather. He then explained that after slavery was abolished his grandparents had worked hard to improve themselves and his father had even served as a soldier fighting for Britain in World War 2. So after the war his parents had come to the UK as part of the Windrush generation, always working hard to help others. But they found they were not always made very welcome and experienced a lot of racism.
It was a very fascinating talk and we learned a lot about the past and more importantly how to try to make things better for the future.
Jia stated, “It was quite shocking and we need to think about and understand the consequences.”
Eva added, “It is crazy to think that at one time a human being could be sold as property, like something in a shop.”
Categories: Educational Visit
