ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: Sam King: Windrush Generation Pioneer

Windrush, until the 1940s, was a word associated with the 35-mile-long river that rises in the Cotswolds, and joins the Thames near Oxford.

Windrush village is in the civil parish of Gloucestershire and derives its name from the River Windrush.

The village name is said to have been first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086. But Windrush would become associated with a ship and a generation of people who arrived from the Caribbean at Tilbury Docks on June 22, 1948, with a new social genre.

The notion of a Windrush Generation was first expressed in May 1948 by Samuel Beaver King (better known as Sam King), aged 22, before he and several RAF Second World War ex-servicemen boarded the Empire Windrush in the following words: “We dubbed ourselves the pioneers on the second Mayflower…” He considered that ‘Windrush pioneers’ and ‘Windrush Generation’ were the same people.

They were frontiersmen and women who contributed significantly to laying foundations for Caribbean people and others who would later settle in Britain.
Mr King was the first to have expressed to others the journey’s significance, and that the iconic arrival at Tilbury Docks should be commemorated.

He was the first person to organise what became known as Windrush Day. During the journey to England, he collated and kept contact details of dozens of passengers.

After settling in London, Sam King struggled to find work commensurate with his skills and experience.
He had hoped to join the Metropolitan Police believing that his military background would stand him in good stead when he applied.

The six-man selection panel thought otherwise and rejected him outright. He found a job with the Post Office instead, working in Waterloo before becoming a sorter based in Victoria, and then in Whitechapel. It was the start of a successful 34-year career that would see him rise to the rank of senior Post Office manager.

In December 1967, Mr King placed an advert in the Weekly Gleaner offering an award to those who were on the Empire Windrush and who should contact him at his Camberwell address.
It was meant to bring together passengers to commemorate the ship’s arrival in 1948, Windrush Day.

It should be noted that there were replies from several passengers who by then had left Britain to settle in the Americas.

They were of the Windrush Generation whom he intended to bring together.
June, 22, 1968 was the 20th anniversary of their arrival at Tilbury Docks and Mr King wanted to commemorate the occasion with them.

He did so in collaboration with The Sunday Times reporter, Dick Adler. The Sunday Times Magazine Supplement of June 30, 1968 included a four-page special feature that included the stories of Windrush passengers.

Their remarks showed life in Britain was not as comfortable as they had expected. Racism was the main issue and the Windrush commemoration a sober event.

Mr King went on to organise many other Windrush commemorations until he co-founded with Arthur Torrington, Windrush Foundation in 1995. They worked together before Mr King’s passing in June 2016.

In November 2024, Sam King was featured at Dalston Junction railway station, Hackney, as Transport for London’s ‘face of the Windrush line’.

There were 10 other posters at the station that summarised Sam King’s Windrush journey.

They feature information on his decades of service for the betterment of local communities and of British society.
He was the person whose seminal work gained the accolade and haloes for members of the Windrush Generation from 1988.

It is hoped that he would be seen as a role model and one of Britain’s post-Second World War heritage pioneers.
Windrush Foundation celebrates 30 years in 2025 and will feature the life and times of Sam King MBE.

By Arthur Torrington CBE,
co-founder, director of Windrush Foundation

Pictured top: Sam King Picture: Windrush Foundation