A new graphic novel (released Wednesday 9 October) tells the extraordinary tale of a little-known character called Billy Waters, aka ‘King of the Beggars’.
Waters was a Black man born in New York around the time of the American Revolution who, after what may have been periods of slavery and a naval career, ended up enlisting in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars in 1811 (although he may have been press-ganged). He then fell from the rigging and had a leg amputated, and after recovery and a small Navy pension became a very well-known London busker with his violin, his character featuring in many plays, books, and porcelain depictions from the era.
The 20-page graphic novel BILLY WATERS: Songs from the Shadows, which is part of the University of Kent-based Age of Revolution project, is free to all schools in the UK. An initial print run of 4000 copies is going out to classrooms during this Black History Month (October 2024), and can be ordered by teachers at the Age of Revolution website – alongside a digital version and additional learning materials to support its use.
Designed to support history teaching around marginalised peoples, migration, disability, and cultures of poverty and performance in the Age of Revolution (1775-1848), the story enables students to debate issues such as how historians rescue missing voices from the archives and what interpretive decisions change how we see people in the past.
A collaboration between historian Dr Ben Marsh, who not so long ago came to wider public attention with his family musical group The Marsh Family, and artist Selena Scott, who worked on a Cambridge exhibition about the Black Atlantic, it follows in the wake of successful earlier resources like Top Trumps and another graphic novel that received a positive response and strong uptake from schools. Other collaborators include the University of Roehampton’s Dr Mary L. Shannon, who has written the definitive academic biography of Billy Waters, Dr Megan King, a specialist in heritage education at the Benjamin Franklin House, and the team at Historic Dockyard Chatham who feature Waters as part of their new disability trail launched last month (Waters was briefly on HMS Namur, whose timbers are still there).
Dr Marsh, who is a Reader in History at Kent’s School of Classics, English and History, said: ‘This is one of the most exciting and original projects I’ve worked on – at its heart is an endlessly fascinating character, who was shamefully exploited, but whose story we’re trying to recover. We hope it helps young people see history as not about facts or morality, but about imagination and interpretation – as something in which everyone has a stake and a voice. That’s why we’ve created a “choose your own adventure” feel at points, so they can choose to see Waters as a victim or as resilient, and think about larger questions of migration, community, and race and empire.’
Music journalist Tony Montague, who wrote about Waters’s life in the Guardian, described the resource as ‘a very valuable teaching tool that will surely engage and inspire students, and provoke much reflection.’
The team has also commissioned a brand new song from folk singer Angeline Morrison called Jump Billy, released on 9 October, while in the coming weeks Dr Aki Pasoulas is creating heritage soundscape versions of it so that students can also choose what setting to imagine Billy’s story in (such as a busy London street in the 1810s, a ship, or a tavern).
Free copies of the book may be obtained via this form, with digital versions available on the website.