Frank Nelson, 23508, wearing the uniform of the King’s Liverpool Regiment, was insulted in the street in Liverpool in June 1915. A thirty-year-old resident of the city, he had enlisted in May 1915. The drunken Robert Starkey was accused of being drunk and disorderly and also assaulting Nelson ‘a black soldier’. Starkey was sentenced to two weeks imprisonment on the first charge, and four weeks for the latter. The magistrate remarked ‘that black men in Liverpool must not be insulted whilst they are wearing the King’s uniform’ which was ‘a practice which of late has become far too common in this city’ (Liverpool Daily Post, 30 June 1915, page 5). The report appeared in the Daily Gazette for Middlesbrough (page 4) of that date, headed ‘An Intolerable Thing’; and in the Liverpool Echo of 29 June 1915, page 7.

Starkey asked if the prison sentence could be replaced by a fine, and this was refused. He appealed against the sentence (Liverpool Echo 30 June page 7 and Liverpool Daily Post 1 July page 3), which was considered by a more senior official at the next sessions. That lawyer noted that there had been no serious assault on Nelson, and dismissed the sentences (John Bull 21 August 1915, page 16).

Frank Nelson was discharged from the army in July 1915 as he was ‘not likely to become an efficient soldier’. Although Starkey ‘a well-dressed man’ was noted by the first magistrate as being of military age, unlike Nelson he had not volunteered for army service. His drunkenness finally led to a small fine.

One suspects that the first magistrate had seen, over the months, cases involving black men being insulted, hence his somewhat severe decision. Perhaps Starkey was a relative of Beatle Ringo Starr (Sir Richard Starkey). More important is the need to document other anti-black incidents.

See Ray Costello, Black Tommies. British Soldiers of African Descent in the First World War (Liverpool University Press, 2015) which mentioned Nelson and Starkey on pages 61-62.