Glog text
The Story of Juba Royton
Baptism
Marriage
Death
This information is taken from parish registers. The registers include information on baptisms, marriages and burials. Some parish collections stretch back to the 1500s.
The first reference to Juba Thomas Royton in the registers of St Paul's church in Royton, Oldham, is his baptism in 1760.
He is described as a Negro 'belonging to' Thomas Percival.
Juba next appears in banns of marriage at St Mary, Oldham, in 1765.
The banns give Juba's occupation as a 'waiting man', in other words a domestic servant.
It is not known how Percival came to employ Juba, but as a linen manufacturer in the late 1700s, it was common to employ black servants. Some were former slaves who were paid for their work as domestic servants and some were not. We do not know anything about Juba's life before this baptism. His baptism is unusual in that he is not given an English Christian forename - instead he retains his African forename. In addition he is given (or takes) the name of his town of residence as a surname, rather than the surname of the family he worked for.
Juba dies in September 1771. At that time burial registers usually only contained the name and date.
We will never know for sure when - or where - he was born.
While Juba signs in his own handwriting, his new wife Betty marks her signature with a crude cross. Signing with a simple mark like this was very common at this time as there were no schools for the poor. His signature tells us that he could write, while she was illiterate.
The parish registers give us snapshots of Juba's life, showing us that black people have been an active part of life in Greater Manchester for at least two hundred years before the 'Windrush generation' began to arrive in the 1950s.
Click HERE For more information on Juba & to view this online exhibition in full.
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