Tribute to Samuel King MBE (1926-2016) Founder of Windrush Day
Windrush Foundation was the first organisation in 1998 to have commemorated and kept the 22 June as Windrush Day. But it was Samuel Beaver King (better known as Sam King) who first came up with the idea in 1948. He was its founder.
War, Windrush, and The Beatles, the event on Saturday 14 January 2023 at Black Cultural Archives, 1 Windrush Square, Brixton, SW2 1EF from 5pm to 7pm will also tell stories of his WWII RAF service and those of other West Indians in WWII.
Empire Windrush was not the first ship to have brought West Indians settlers to Britain after WWII.
Hundreds of thousands made journeys on other vessels. But it is Empire Windrush that is remembered most and whose name has come to symbolise both a generation and a turning point for Britain.
WWII ex-RAF serviceman Sam King was among more than 1,027 passengers on board the liner that steamed up the Thames to Tilbury Docks, Essex, in June 22, 1948.
He was the only one of them to have kept the contact details of his friends, with a view to staying in touch with as many as possible.
The ship made just one round-trip to the West Indies in May/June 1948.
In March 1954, after a fire on board, she sank in the Mediterranean Sea with the loss of 4 men while bringing home more than 1,500 passengers including servicemen from the Far East.
Empire Windrush was almost forgotten by 1966 until she was mentioned briefly by author Donald Hinds in Journey to an Illusion, published by Heinemann, London.
It was among the first books written by a West Indian that recorded interviews about the lives of West Indians in Britain after June 1948.
The book made only one mention of Empire Windrush.
Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners, written in 1956, does not refer to the ship, neither does any of V.S. Naipaul’s (a Nobel and Booker Prize Winner).
King had volunteered to serve in the Royal Air Force during WWII and was demobbed in November 1947.
He returned to Britain on Empire Windrush on 22 June 1948 and was determined to work for an iconic status of the ship and bring his ‘Alumni’ friends together when occasions arise.
On 24 December 1967 he placed an advertisement in the Weekly Gleaner which read:
‘REWARD.
Will anyone who arrived at Tilbury aboard the s s “Empire Windrush” on 22nd June 1948 from Jamaica please write to Sam King, 8, Secretan Road, Camberwell, London, SE5, England.’
It is not known whether King awarded those who answered the advertisement, but in June 1968 several Windrush passengers also gave their stories in The Sunday Times magazine in a piece marking Windrush Day, the 20th anniversary of the ship’s Arrival at Tilbury Docks.
On 8 August 1974, King along with fellow Windrush passengers Vidal Dezonie and Euton Christian appeared on a BBC Two programme called Yesterday’s Witness, The Ship of Good Hope.
His service to the community went further as he became the first Black Mayor of the London Borough of Southwark in 1983.
In 1988, he organised the 40th anniversary of Windrush Day, a memorable occasion hosted by the Mayor of Lambeth, London, on 22 June 1988.
Also, he organised the installation in the Town Hall of a ‘memorial’ titled: In Commemoration of the Empire Windrush Voyage in 1948.
Brixton, from June 1948, had become the first home of the ‘Windrush Generation’.
King and three other Windrush passengers in June 1988 were brought together on Independent Television News (ITN) in commemoration of Windrush40.
King and Vincent Reid appeared on BBC TV’s Terry Wogan Show on 15 June 1988 and discussed the anniversary.
King doubled down on his efforts and the idea developed wings.
In July 1995, he and a colleague Arthur Torrington formed an organisation they called Windrush Foundation, and in 1996 it became a registered charity.
The purpose was to keep alive memories of the 1948 Arrival and the outstanding contributions made by West Indians to the rebuilding of Britain after the devastations of WWII.
The organisation also highlighted their service to the UK during WWII.
Windrush Foundation organised commemorative events in 1998 marking Windrush50. In May of that year, King was awarded an MBE by HRM Queen Elizabeth II.
One of the highlights of 50th anniversary was a Reception hosted by Prince Charles (now King Charles III) at St James’s Palace on 25 June 1998.
Sam King published his memoirs titled ‘Climbing up the Rough Side of the Mountain’ in 1998.
The organisation held the 60th and 65th Windrush commemorative events in 2008 and 2013 respectively.
The 60th anniversary included the first oral history project on Windrush pioneers, and a DVD was published by Windrush Foundation.
They included West Indians settlers who arrived on or before 22 June 1948.
Several months before the Foundation marked 70 years of the Arrival, the British news media uncovered what they called a ‘Windrush Scandal’.
They highlighted injustices done to thousands of Black Britons whom the Home Office wrongly adjudged to have been illegal immigrants.
They were victims of the ‘hostile environment’ legislated by the British Government.
The news media called them the Windrush Generation which was a term first coined by Sam King MBE decades ago, as he referred to members of his generation.
The Home Office apologised in April 2018 and offered compensation to each victim.
To ameliorate the situation and to appease its guilt, the Government included Windrush Foundation’s 22 June among the national annual days.
Sam King MBE would have been overjoyed had he lived to see this. He passed away aged 90 on 17 June 2016.
Without him there would have been no Windrush Day and the Empire Windrush might have disappeared into the mists of time.
He was the founder of Windrush Day and is regarded, so to speak, as father of the Windrush Generation. Windrush is his legacy.
How is Windrush Day and the 75th anniversary of the Arrival to be commemorated?
To answer this question it is important to look at what the commemorative events included before 2018, two years of Sam King passing.
The records show that heritage education and anti-racism projects were prominent.
They were not about having fun and frolic but about sober reflections on the West Indian settlement in Britain.
It was not about the date 22 June 1948, because that became iconic owing mainly to the work of Sam King and Windrush Foundation.
It was also about the men and women who served Britain during WWII and the thousands who remained in the UK after May 1945.
They were the ones who helped Windrush passengers in 1948, and those on the SS Ormonde and HMS Almanzora.
The records highlight their contributions to the rebuilding of Britain and their anti-racism activities.
Because the ship is symbolic, those pioneers also exuded the spirit of Windrush.
Sam King would have recommended the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation’s approach as we look forward to Windrush75.
With the support of National Lottery Heritage Fund, Windrush Foundation will share in 2023 Windrush resources prepared for the commemoration.
email: info@windrushfoundation.com
Website: www.windrushfoundation.com
© Arthur Torrington CBE, Director, Windrush Foundation
Pictures : Windrush Foundation