William ‘Billy’ Waters: busker, sailor, immigrant, father, lover, extraordinary talent, and a forgotten Black celebrity from Regency London. Like so many marginalised people from the past, however, he left no papers, writings, or diaries, and many basic facts about his life are missing. What remains are the 19th century images of him. This talk explores how visual images can be used to ‘fill in’ the gaps and silences in the archive. It asks how Billy Waters might have played, danced, and sang, as well as what his contribution was to folk music.
Dr Mary L. Shannon’s new book Billy Waters is Dancing: Or, How a Black Sailor Found Fame in Regency Britain (Yale 2024) tells the story of Regency London’s forgotten Black celebrity. Mary is a writer and Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts and Humanities at the University of Roehampton, London. She's the author of the award-winning Dickens, Reynolds, and Mayhew on Wellington Street and a self-confessed fan of jigs, reels, and ceilidhs. Find her at marylshannon.com.
Online event starts at 7.30pm
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