John Satia and the 1731 Ban on Black Apprenticeship - Jamie Gemmell - 18th May

On 18th May at 17:00(GMT)/12:00(EST), we will discuss a pre-circulated paper titled ‘John Satia and the 1731 Ban on Black Apprenticeship’ by Jamie Gemmell (King’s College London). During the seminar, Jamie will introduce the paper before a discussion and Q&A. To attend, please register here:

https://www.tickettailor.com/events/centreforearlymodernstudies/2022021

To receive the pre-circulated materials, please ensure you register a week in advance of the seminar.

Abstract

In September 1731, London’s Court of Aldermen issued a ban on black apprenticeship. This prevented people racialised as black from learning a trade within the City boundaries and closed one of the routes to attaining the Freedom of the City. The ban was a reactive ordinance, implemented following the ascension of John Satia - a formerly enslaved man sometimes described as black - to the Freedom of the City. This paper examines the life of John Satia and the events that led up to the ban on black apprenticeship. It situates the ban in local, national, and Atlantic contexts, showing how wider debates about the boundaries of British subjecthood were refracted through local networks and institutions. In doing so, it demonstrates the importance of race to metropolitan social relations and weaves together the politics of colony and metropole.

Bio

Jamie Gemmell is a historian of early modern England and the Atlantic World. Currently, he is an AHRC-funded doctoral researcher in History at King’s College London. His project is a history of London that examines how race was practiced and navigated between 1655 and 1730. It centres Black Londoners and identifies some of the ways in which ideas and practices of race and racemaking shaped metropolitan social relations. He was a 2024-25 Fellow at the Folger Shakespeare Library and is the Assistant Director of King’s Centre for Early Modern Studies.

Image Citation: TLA, COL/CHD/FR/02/0520. ancestry.com.