{"id":35338,"date":"2014-01-09T21:02:46","date_gmt":"2014-01-09T21:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=35338"},"modified":"2014-01-09T21:25:57","modified_gmt":"2014-01-09T21:25:57","slug":"the-story-behind-dido-belle-the-bi-racial-londoner-who-helped-end-slavery-in-britain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=35338","title":{"rendered":"The story behind Dido Belle – the bi-racial Londoner who helped end slavery in Britain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The story behind Dido Belle – the bi-racial Londoner who helped end slavery in Britain<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

London Evening Standard<\/a>
\n2014-01-08<\/p>\n

Susannah Butter<\/strong><\/p>\n

Susannah Butter tells the tale of Dido Belle, ahead of the release of a film about her extraordinary life starring Tom Felton and Miranda Richardson.<\/em><\/p>\n

Among the many aristocratic faces gazing out of frames in Hampstead\u2019s newly refurbished Kenwood House<\/a>, there\u2019s one that sticks out. Standing next to Elizabeth Murray<\/a> in a print of Johann Zoffany\u2019s<\/a> portrait from c.1799<\/a>, there is a smiling girl wearing pearls. But although she looks equal to her playmate, she is black. This girl is Dido Belle<\/a>, the daughter of an enslaved woman. Belle was brought up at Kenwood, a house partially built with \u201cblood money\u201d from the Triangular Trade<\/a>, and she made her own contribution to the abolition of slavery. A film of her extraordinary life, Belle<\/a><\/em>, is out this spring with a cast including Tom Felton<\/a> and Miranda Richardson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It comes after two films examining the black historical experience: British director Steve McQueen\u2019s<\/a> 12 Years a Slave<\/a><\/em> and Lee Daniels\u2019s<\/a> <\/em>The Butler<\/em><\/a>, both set in the United States. But there is another story of slavery that needs telling and it\u2019s set in London…<\/p>\n

…Belle was born the illegitimate daughter of Admiral Sir John Lindsay<\/a> of the Royal Navy and Maria Belle, a slave who he met en route from England to Jamaica around 1761. When Lindsay went back to the navy, he entrusted five-year-old Belle to his uncle, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, who lived at Kenwood. Lord and Lady Mansfield had no children of their own but raised Belle with Lady Elizabeth Murray, the daughter of Mansfield\u2019s other nephew, David Murray.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that there was this girl who was part of our cultural legacy in England \u2014 a mixed race woman in the 1780s \u2014 hooked me,\u201d says Gugu Mbatha-Raw<\/a>, the London actress who plays Belle. \u201cSpeaking as a mixed-race woman in 2013, there aren\u2019t many historical stories about people like me. When people think of \u2018dual heritage,\u2019 they think it\u2019s a modern concept but it\u2019s not. I wanted to do justice to Dido.\u201d…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The story behind Dido Belle – the bi-racial Londoner who helped end slavery in Britain London Evening Standard 2014-01-08 Susannah Butter Susannah Butter tells the tale of Dido Belle, ahead of the release of a film about her extraordinary life starring Tom Felton and Miranda Richardson. Among the many aristocratic faces gazing out of frames […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,5,459,8,6940,10],"tags":[16717,16715,15271,15676,7248,16716],"class_list":["post-35338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-book-reviews","category-history","category-media-archive","category-slavery","category-uk","tag-belle","tag-dido-belle","tag-dido-elizabeth-belle","tag-gugu-mbatha-raw","tag-london-evening-standard","tag-susannah-butter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=35338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35338\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=35338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=35338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=35338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}