{"id":17482,"date":"2025-06-24T08:39:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T07:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/?p=17482"},"modified":"2025-06-23T08:35:48","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T07:35:48","slug":"john-lewis-a-black-sailor-at-the-1828-weymouth-by-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/historyofparliament.com\/2025\/06\/24\/john-lewis-a-black-sailor-at-the-1828-weymouth-by-election\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lewis: A Black Sailor at the 1828 Weymouth By-Election"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

In this guest article Dr Joe Cozens<\/a> discusses his research into John Lewis, a Black sailor<\/em> who<\/em> was arrested during the 1828 Weymouth by-election<\/em>. Dr Cozens i<\/em>s a Nineteenth Century Social and Political Records Researcher at The National Archives, Kew<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the eve of the February 1828 Weymouth and Melcombe Regis by-election<\/a>, a Black seaman named John Lewis was arrested for being \u2018at the head of a mob chiefly composed of boys\u2019. Anxious to preserve the \u2018peace of the town\u2019, the mayor and magistrates of Weymouth decided to commit him to the county gaol for a month of hard labour.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"A<\/a>
Figure 1 – John Lewis’s custody record #284, dated 8 Feb. 1828. For a full resolution version of the record click on the image. Image courtesy of Dorset History Centre<\/a>, NG-PR\/1\/D\/2\/2, ff. 86-7, Dorset Prison Admission and Discharge Registers (1828).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Lewis\u2019s entry in the register of Dorchester Prison [Figure 1] identifies him as a native of \u2018Congo\u2019 and describes him as \u2018a black man with a large cut over his left eye\u2019. Little is known of Lewis\u2019s early years. However, Admiralty records held at The National Archives<\/a> reveal that in 1811, as a young man no older than 18, he joined the crew of HMS Mutine<\/em> when she briefly docked in the Azores on her return journey from Rio de Janeiro to Portsmouth. On his arrival in Britain Lewis immediately deserted (along with several other crewmen) and disappeared from the historical record. Seventeen years later and now in his thirties we find him at Weymouth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lewis\u2019s fleeting appearance at the by-election of 1828 adds to a growing body of work<\/a> that continues to dispel what some historians have termed the \u2018Windrush myth’<\/a>, namely the misconception that people of African and Caribbean heritage did not migrate to Britain before the arrival of Empire Windrush <\/em>in 1948. Lewis\u2019s apparently leading role in the election \u2018riots\u2019 also serves as an example of Black political participation<\/a> in early nineteenth-century England, which in recent years has begun to gain greater historical attention.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Figure 2 – Newspaper report of John Lewis being committed to Dorchester Jail, Dorset County Chronicle, <\/em>14 Feb. 1828 <\/em>via British Newspaper Archive<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Given his maritime connections, it appears that Lewis was part of a motley group of sailors hired to support the campaign of Major Richard Wey<\/a>l<\/a>and<\/a>, the \u2018Blue\u2019 candidate at the 1828 Weymouth by-election. Weyland was standing thanks to the support of his wife, the dowager Lady Charlotte Johnstone, who possessed considerable property and influence in the constituency. Weyland\u2019s opponent for the \u2018Purples\u2019 was Edward Sugden<\/a>, a chancery lawyer and future Conservative lord chancellor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the previous general election in 1826, Lady Johnstone (as she was commonly known) helped ensure the return of her brother, John Gordon<\/a>, for the four-member constituency. According to the historian and antiquarian, George Alfred Ellis, a notable feature of that election was its lawlessness due to the candidates\u2019 use of hired \u2018gangs of desperate individuals<\/a>\u2019. Reports in The Times<\/em> suggest that Gordon\u2019s extremely costly campaign (\u00a340,000) relied heavily on the \u2018powerful services\u2019 of the sailors of Portland, who lived and worked on the rocky peninsula lying to the south of Weymouth.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Figure 3 – A fictional depiction of six sailors from 1822, one of whom is Black, drinking and talking aboard a ship in Portland (‘lopping it in forecastle in Portland roads’). G. Cruikshank ‘The sailor’s description of a chase & capture’<\/a> (1822) \u00a9 The Trustees of the British Museum<\/strong>. CC BY-NC-SA 4.0<\/a>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The same tactic was employed in 1828, with the Dorset County Chronicle<\/em> noting that Weyland\u2019s Blues had again \u2018called to their assistance a number of the hardy race of Portlanders\u2019, describing them as men who \u2018care little for the means by which they obtain their object\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weyland began canvassing vigorously from the start of February and shortly thereafter local newspapers reported election disturbances in the streets of Weymouth. Lewis appears to have been arrested on the evening of 8 February, before the official nomination of candidates which took place the following day<\/a>. He was therefore in jail for the entirety of the polling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a visiting magistrate, John Morton Colson, Lewis\u2019s behaviour in prison was exemplary. Colson contrasted this with his riotous conduct ahead of his arrest, which the magistrate believed had been orchestrated by the Blues. In Colson\u2019s view, the migrant sailor\u2019s \u2018ignorance and simplicity\u2019 had been \u2018taken advantage of by a cowardly and disigned [sic] party [i.e. Weyland\u2019s election committee]\u2019 who had plied him with drink. Writing two years after the fact, Colson blamed Weyland for corrupting Lewis and for plunging Weymouth into chaos and disorder during the subsequent poll.<\/p>\n\n\n\n