Jacob Wainwright was an African educated at a Christian mission school in India. He escorted the body of David Livingstone from central Africa to England in 1873-1874, arriving in Southampton in March 1874. That act of loyalty impressed countless Britons. He was photographed, and well-treated by philanthropists who accommodated him in their homes. He was a pall bearer at the explorer’s funeral in Westminster Abbey on 18 April 1874. At the end of that month he went to Windsor Castle and met Queen Victoria.

The Penny Illustrated Paper of 25 April 1874 (page 6) reported from the abbey: “But among the pall-bearers the figure which appeared to excite most curiosity was Jacob Wainwright, the manumitted and Christianised young African, whose presence symbolised the beneficent work of the master whom he tended so faithfully to the last”.

The summer went past and Wainwright prepared to return to Africa in October 1874. This was widely reported, with the South Wales Daily News (15 September 1874, page 4) noting he had been “a frequent guest at garden parties”, and was currently living with the Revd Matchett the rector of Trimingham near Cromer on the coast of Norfolk. Earlier, with Wikipedia as our guide, he was in the village of Kessingland, Suffolk (also on the coast).

Reports of his presence at Livingstone’s funeral (a grand affair, paid for by the state) refer to Wainwright at the “famous black boy” (Grantham Journal, 2 May 1874, page 8; North British Daily Mail, 30 April 1874, page 5).

Wainwright had kept a diary – in English – of the lengthy journey across Africa (it is in Glasgow; and available on line), a rare Africa-sourced document. He died in an accidental fire in 1892, probably aged 33.

The international and religious associations of Wainwright leave one area apparently unexamined – the people he met during those “garden parties” – the house servants, local residents, guests at the same house, members of the congregation in the village churches, the somewhat normal day-to-day Britons: not the veteran explorers, administrators, politicians and royalty. Are there diaries or letters authored by Britons of a similar rank to this African, back in 1874?