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Posted on October 10th 2023
Year 10 Delve into Black Tudor History for Black History Month
We have been very excited in the History department this year as we start our journey to teaching and studying Edexcel’s new GCSE thematic unit on Migration to Britain from c800 – present day.
Our Year 10 students are currently engaging with study of early modern migration (1500 – 1750) and have recently explored the lives of African and Indian migrants who lived in England during the time of the Tudors.
The students engaged with academic research by two eminent historians, Miranda Kauffman and David Olusoga, who have studied the lives of Black British people, including those who lived in England during the Tudor period.
Through their engagement with academic history, our students learned about the life of John Blanke, a trumpeter in the court of Henry VIII. We have written records of the trumpeter asking Henry VIII personally for a wage increase.
Students also looked at the life of Mary Fillis, a woman born in Morocco in 1577 who migrated to Britain at the age of seven and worked as a maid, cook and seamstress.
They even got to learn about Diego, an often-forgotten African man from Senegal or the Gambia, who circumnavigated the globe with Sir Francis Drake in 1579. However, they also learned about the negative side of life as an African in Britain in the early modern period and looked at the life of servants who lived in Britain at the time, too.
Examples of students' work
Below you can see some examples of students' work from the lesson, where they focused on similarities and differences of African migrants to Britain compared to those of European migrants from previous lessons.
