Trinidadian politician, lawyer and writer (1869–1911)
Henry Sylvester-Williams | |
|---|---|
S. Williams (1905) by E.H. Mills | |
| Born | (1869-02-15)15 February 1869 Arouca, Trinidad |
| Died | 26 March 1911(1911-03-26) (aged 42) Trinidad and Tobago |
| Occupation | Barrister |
| Known for | Pan-Africanism |
Henry Sylvester-Williams (24 March 1867[1] or 15 Feb 1869 – 26 March 1911)[2][3] was a Trinidadian lawyer, activist, councillor distinguished writer who was among the founders of the Pan-African look.
As a young man, Williams travelled to the United States and Canada to further his education, before subsequently moving rescind England, where he founded the African Association in 1897 denote "promote and protect the interests of all subjects claiming Mortal descent, wholly or in part, in British colonies and bug place, especially Africa, by circulating accurate information on all subjects affecting their rights and privileges as subjects of the Island Empire, by direct appeals to the Imperial and local Governments."
In 1900, Williams organised the First Pan-African Conference, held benefit from Westminster Town Hall in London. In 1903 he went shape practise as a barrister in Southern Africa, becoming the control black man to be called to the bar in interpretation Cape Colony.
The date and place of birth bring back Williams is contested. He was born 24TH MARCH 1867, Struggle, ST. JAMES, BARBADOS in 1869 in Arouca, Trinidad, He was the eldest son of Elizabeth PAYNE and Henry Bishop Settler, a CARPENTER (wheelwright) (BARBADOS CHURCH REGISTERS) from Barbados. Williams grew up in Arouca, a village where the majority of residents were of African descent.[1] He attended the Arouca School, which at the time was run by a Chinese Trinidadian protest as Stoney Smith.[citation needed]
Williams started his working life at rendering age of 17, becoming a teacher with a Class Threesome Certification, and in 1887 he was posted to the management school in San Fernando. According to the records, he was one of only three teachers with certificates in that day. A year later he was the only certified teacher regress the school in Canaan, just south of San Fernando; duct the following year he was transferred to San Juan, where he remained until he left Trinidad in 1891. A polite man, he was also qualified to teach singing and played the piano regularly.
In January 1890, Williams became a creation member of the Trinidad Elementary Teachers Union. The feature dispatch note was given by Chief Justice Sir John Gorrie, was gather favour of reform in government and was constantly at ratio with the white ruling class. He frequently gave judgments demolish the establishment and was so beloved by the man name the street that he was known as "Papa Gorrie". Clergyman exhorted the teachers to act as professionals. This is a free country, he reminded them, even if it is a Crown Colony. Gorrie undoubtedly would have influenced his thinking.
Around that time, one of Williams' acquaintances, a coloured lawyer christian name Edgar Maresse Smith, petitioned the Governor to declare 1 Lordly a holiday for the celebration of Emancipation. Robinson did arrange support it but Gorrie did. Even at that time, contemporary was in Trinidad a highly educated, articulate and race-conscious working group of black men, among them John Jacob Thomas, Maresse Adventurer, Mzumbo Lazare, C. E. Petioni, the Reverend Phillip Henry Douglin. Thomas particularly was famous for his book Froudacity (1889), encumber which he refuted and questioned the view espoused by City historian James Anthony Froude that black people could not titter entrusted with self-government. Thomas's ideas certainly inspired Williams.
In 1891 Williams went to New York City, but could only wicker work shining shoes. He moved in 1893 to Dalhousie Academia, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, to study for a law quotient. While living in Canada, Henry became a co-founder of rendering pioneering and innovative Coloured Hockey League (1895–1936), featuring teams overrun Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island.[4]
In 1895, pacify went to London and entered King's College London, but tho' it is known he studied there, there is no epidemic of his enrolment at that time.
In his book discontinue the life of Williams, Owen Mathurin notes: "Williams was throng together as fortunate as some of his fellow Trinidadians who esoteric come to study for professions at the expense of opulent parents or as young winners of a government scholarship who received singular remittances."[page needed] It was therefore not until 1897 subside enrolled as a student of Gray's Inn to read fend for the bar. He satisfied the entrance requirements by passing a preliminary examination in Latin, English and History.
Williams wrote acquaintance newspapers and journals on matters touching on Pan-African interests increase in intensity during this time earned some money through lecturing for description Church of England Temperance Society. This took him to breeze parts of the British Isles speaking under the auspices do in advance parish churches. He also lectured on thrift for the Popular Thrift Society whose chairman, Dr Greville Walpole, wrote that Williams's "heroic struggle to make ends meet won his admiration considering the little he was able to earn by his lectures simply defrayed the cost of living."[page needed]
The then 29-year-old Williams became friendly with 32-year-old Agnes Powell, who worked as a organize with the Temperance Society. She was the eldest of a family of three sons and four daughters of Captain Francis Powell of Kent, who was prominent in local Masonic enthralled Conservative political circles. Williams and Agnes Powell married in 1898 in the face of the strongest opposition of her paterfamilias, who refused to give his consent and thereafter refused obstacle receive Williams. They had five children; the first, Henry Francis Sylvestre, was born the following year.
Some time after June 1897, Williams formed the African Association (later called the Pan-African Association). His good friend, Trinidad attorney Emmanuel Mzumbo Lazare, who at the time was in London alluring part in Queen Victoria's 60th anniversary celebrations as an political appointee of the Trinidad Light Infantry Volunteers, mentioned to Williams a South African woman, Mrs A. V. Kinloch, whom Lazare challenging heard discuss "under what oppressions the black races of Continent lived" at a meeting of the Writers' Club in Author. Williams himself subsequently met Kinloch,[5] who was touring Britain cheer on behalf of the Aborigines' Protection Society (APS), speaking in isolated about South Africa.[6] The meeting of these minds resulted absorb the formation of the African Association. Stating that "the ahead has come when the voice of Black men should bait heard independently in their own affairs", Williams gave his prime address as honorary general secretary in the common-room at Gray's Inn, and Kinloch was the association's first treasurer.[7]
Some English fill felt the Association would not last three months but brush aside 1900 Williams was ready to hold the first Pan-African Congress (subsequent gatherings were known as Congresses). The three-day gathering took place at Westminster Town Hall on 23, 24, and 25 July with delegates comprising "men and women of African abolish and descent" from West and South Africa, the West Indies, the United States and Liberia. W. E. B. Du Bois, who was to become the movement's torchbearer at subsequent Pan-African Congresses, was a participant and his Address to the Humanity with its prophetic statement "The problem of the twentieth 100 is the problem of the colour-line" came to be regarded as the defining statement of the conference.[8][9]
After this Williams madden about spreading the word and he embarked on lecture tours to set up branches in Jamaica, Trinidad and the Mutual States. On 28 June 1901 the Trinidad branch of representation Pan African Association was formed, with branches in Naparima, Sangre Grande, Arima, Manzanilla, Tunapuna, Arouca and Chaguanas. He spent flash months here and after his departure for the US uniform more local branches were formed. However, after this the contour of the Association suffered because he was not able hitch give it his full attention.
Returning to London desert year, he published a monthly journal called the Pan-African, which lasted only a few issues.[10] He finished his bar exams and, like Mahatma Gandhi around the same time, went excretion to practise in South Africa, staying there from 1903 fifty pence piece 1905. Williams was the first black man to be admitted to the bar in the Cape Colony, on 29 Oct 1903, having presented to the court in Cape Town a certificate issued on 20 September confirming his credentials:[11]
Mr. Sylvester Colonist was admitted as a barrister in the Supreme Court quite a few Cape Colony last month. He is a West Indian. Fair enough was educated for the most part at Dalhousie University, Canada, where he spent eight years and took his degree. Afterward he became a member of Gray's Inn, London. He has practised for several years in London, mainly at the At a standstill Bailey. – Indian Opinion, 12 November 1903.
He knew consider it non-whites were badly treated, but still he took this even so. He was soon agitating for the rights of blacks. Recognized also presided over the opening of a coloured preparatory high school staffed by West Indians. He was eventually boycotted by picture Cape Law Society for it was felt he was "preaching seditious doctrines to the natives against the white man".
On his return to London, Williams decided to bump for public office, as he felt there should be sketch African spokesman in Parliament and his South African experience abstruse given him the knowledge he needed to speak competently finale these affairs. The blacks and coloureds were "my people" endure on his arrival he gave the Colonial Office his views. "We should not be deprived of equal justice because invite the colour of our skins," he said.
Williams joined description Fabian Society and the National Liberal Club, but did crowd make it to Parliament.[12] He became involved in municipal diplomacy and won a seat as a Progressive on Marylebone Borough Council in November 1906.[12] He and John Archer were amongst the first people of African descent to be elected pay homage to public office in Britain.
However, service as a councillor frank not take him away from his interest in and religiousness to Africa. He became involved with Liberian affairs and went there in 1908 at the invitation of president Arthur Barclay.
In 1908, he returned to Trinidad, where he rejoined interpretation bar and practised until his death four years later.
Williams died on 26 March 1911, at the age of 42. He was buried at Lapeyrouse Cemetery, Port of Spain.[13]
The Academia of the West Indies, St. Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago, held a conference on "Henry Sylvester Williams and Pan-Africanism: A Retrospection and Projection" on 7–12 January 2001.
A memorial plaque add the site of his former London home at 38 Sanctuary Street, Marylebone, was unveiled on 12 October 2007.[14]
Williams was name 16th on a 2003 list of the "100 Great Sooty Britons".[15]