Salons in the Queen's House: From Turner’s tars to Chinese nannies

Black seafarers famously feature in J.M.W. Turner’s painting The Battle of Trafalgar, struggling to survive along with other sailors caught up in this ferocious battle. Such men were already a familiar part of the British maritime world long before the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815). They are just one example of the many different Black and Asian people who worked on board British ships during the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Dr Aaron Jaffer, Curator of World History & Cultures at Royal Museums Greenwich, will explore the long history of these important workers and how their stories can be told through Royal Museums Greenwich’s unrivalled collections. 

His ambitious ‘Unlocking Collections’ project has been combing our archives since 2017, with the help of a specially recruited team of volunteers. This has involved, for example, looking at every image on every page of well over 2,000 historic photograph albums. They have unearthed hundreds of images showing Black and Asian seafarers and other difficult-to-find groups. Meet Goan cooks, Chinese stewards, Ghanian officers and many more fascinating people, such as South Asian and East Asian nannies (ayahs and amahs).

Dr Jaffer will discuss the challenges of undertaking this type of work with a large and complex collection, drawing on similar projects currently taking place at other institutions, as well as the many opportunities these resultant images present for museums and their visitors.

This talk will take place in the Headmaster's Drawing Room and Dining Room, located on the ground floor of the Queen's House. It is part of a series of talks responding to the themes of J.M.W. Turner's The Battle of Trafalgar, which has recently been installed in the room.

Dr Aaron Jaffer is Curator of World History & Cultures at Royal Museums Greenwich. He has worked at Royal Museums Greenwich for over ten years. 

He manages the Unlocking Collections project and recently wrote the South Asian History Research Guide. Before joining the Museum, he worked on exhibitions at Chatsworth House, The Fitzwilliam Museum and the River & Rowing Museum.