Male and female entertainers, and male sailors, of African birth or descent, were far from rare in Britain. Occupations which gave employment to blacks included lion tamers. A brief study of 1920s newspapers uncovered a number of other jobs, claimed in court cases around Britain. Here are some:

Motor driver. Thomas Ellis, an ex-soldier accused of stealing a bicycle, reported in the Leicester Chronicle (2 July 1921, p 2) which also gave a birth place – Jamaica.

Soho restaurant proprietor. Edgar Manning (see page 043 of this website) reported in the Halifax Evening Courier (24 April 1922, p 6).

Stoker. Jubilee Thomas Arthur Joseph. Staffordshire Advertiser. 1 July 1922, p 3.

Taxi driver. Russell Pymm. Nottingham Journal, 22 August 1922, p 7.

Motor dealer [car salesman]. Charles Lee Ward. Streatham News, 27 October 1922, p 11.

Portrait painter. Eldridge Patterson. Daily Herald, 6 February 1925, p 8.

Tailor’s presser. John Wilson. Dundee Evening Telegraph, 24 November 1926, p 3.

Street trader [selling tooth powder]. James MacDonald Robertson. Croydon Times, 11 June 1927, p 7.

and perhaps a prize winner

Sailor, miner, teacher, porter, soldier, attempts to pose as a doctor and failed applications to be a Scotland Yard detective. George Samuel Bailey. Dundee Evening Telegraph, 22 November 1920, p 5.

We need to reconsider the conventional view that Britain’s pre-1945 black population was made up of students, sailors, entertainers, and some lawyers or doctors.