Tweak pub name to reflect history
AS your readers may know, I favour the return of what is (in my view improperly) known as the “black’s head” to its rightful place on The Green Man sign across St John Street if for no other reason than it probably owes its existence in Ashbourne to a former slave.
A bold claim indeed, but let me explain.
It is said by some that Dr Samuel Johnson of Lichfield was a frequent visitor to Ashbourne. I don’t doubt it, but my research shows that following the death of his wife in 1752 Dr Johnson fell into a deep depression.
Such was his condition that a friend lent him a Jamaican slave called Quashey, a boy of some 15 years of age. If Johnson was indeed a frequent visitor to Ashbourne, so too would Quashey have visited.
Quashey looked after Johnson (who was vehemently opposed to slavery) for two years, and during that time the slave owner released him from his obligations, almost certainly at the insistence of Dr Johnson.
With a small allowance from Dr Johnson Quashey adopted a new name – Francis Barber – and to celebrate his freedom travelled to London to find work as an apothecary’s assistant. But he soon gave that up and joined the Navy, serving in home waters protecting the British fishing fleet.
Whilst he was at sea, Dr Johnson moved to London where he slowly developed a circle of influential literary and theatrical friends, and in 1760 he was joined by Francis Barber, this time more of a companion than as his valet.
Fast forward a little and in 1764, together with the famous painter Joshua Reynolds, Johnson started a literary club that met once a fortnight in a pub in Gerrard Street deep in the heart of London’s theatreland, just off Shaftesbury Avenue.
With alumni like David Garrick, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Lord Wilberforce the club was highly successful. But in 1783 the pub was sold and redeveloped to become the Westminster
General Dispensary. The pub’s name was – the Turk’s Head.
On Dr Johnson’s death in 1784, Francis Barber returned to Lichfield and I speculate that he carried with him the sign of the Turk’s Head as a lasting memento of that famous literary club and the man who had secured his freedom.
What we know of him since then as a beneficiary of Dr Johnson’s will of £70 a year (equivalent to £9,000 a year in today’s money) is that he married, started one unsuccessful business before becoming headmaster of a small school at Burntwood in Staffordshire.
His descendants farm to this day near Lichfield.
With yet more speculation we might reasonably conclude that when Dr Johnson visited his friend in Ashbourne that Francis Barber might well have had a drink or two at the Blackamoor pub.
And years later he may have given the pub the handsome sign of the Turk’s Head as heartfelt thanks for the hospitality extended to him in the early years of his life in a foreign country.
But be of no doubt – the sign does not depict his face.
For that we have to thank none less than Joshua Reynolds, whose painting of Francis Barber I attach hereto.
But I urge that the sign’s wording be changed to “The Green Man and The Turk’s Head...”, and the reverse side of that head be painted white, the more to accentuate the theatrical opposites of tragedy and comedy.
Charles Swabey Osmaston