Pearl Priscilla Prescod (28 May 1920 – 25 June 1966) was a Tobagonian actress and singer. She was one of the earliest Caribbean entertainers to appear on British television and was the first Black woman to appear with London's

National Theatre Company The Royal National Theatre in London, commonly known as the National Theatre (NT), is one of the United Kingdom's three most prominent publicly funded performing arts venues, alongside the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House. In ...

. Prescod arrived in Britain in the early 1950s and resided in

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a cosmopolitan and multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting Hill Carnival and Portobello Road M ...

, London. During her time in Britain, she was cast in numerous television roles and theatre productions, and was active in the anti-racism struggle in London in the late 1950s and early '60s. With her close friend, journalist and activist

Claudia Jones Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the US, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and black national ...

, Prescod helped co-ordinate London's first "Caribbean Carnival" event, which took place in

St Pancras Town Hall Camden Town Hall, known as St Pancras Town Hall until 1965, is the headquarters of Camden London Borough Council. The main entrance is in Judd street with its northern elevation extending along Euston Road, opposite the main front of St Pancr ...

in January 1959, and is considered a precursor of the

Notting Hill Carnival The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean festival event that has taken place in London since 1966

Career

Pearl Prescod was a trained classical singer and had aspirations to pursue a classical music education in England. She arrived in Britain in the early 1950s after winning a musical scholarship to

Guildhall School of Music The Guildhall School of Music and Drama is a conservatoire and drama school located in the City of London, United Kingdom. Established in 1880, the school offers undergraduate and postgraduate training in all aspects of classical music and jazz ...

. In 1954, Prescod was cast in

Barry Reckord Barrington John Reckord (19 November 1926 – 20 December 2011), known as Barry Reckord, was a Jamaican playwright, one of the earliest Caribbean writers to make a contribution to theatre in Britain. His brother was the actor and director Lloyd ...

's first play ''Flesh to a Tiger'' (previously called ''Della)''. The play also starred

Cleo Laine Dame Cleo Laine, Lady Dankworth (born Clementine Dinah Bullock; 28 October 1927)Nadia Cattouse Nadia Evadne Cattouse (born 2 November 1924) is a Belizean-born British actress, singer and songwriter. She is best known for her acting roles in many British television programmes including ''Play for Today, Crown Court, Dixon of Dock Green'' a ...

and

Lloyd Reckord Lloyd Reckord (26 May 1929 – 8 July 2015) was a Jamaican actor, film maker, and stage director who lived in England for some years. Reckord appeared in 1958 in a West End production of '' Hot Summer Night'', which as an ITV adaptation broadc ...

. In 1955, the secretary of the

West India Committee The West India Committee is a British-based organisation promoting ties and trade with the British Caribbean. It operates as a charity and NGO (non-governmental organisation). It evolved out of a lobbying group formed in 1780 to represent the inter ...

in London helped Prescod secure a job as a switchboard operator in his office and an audition at the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...

. She successfully procured a number of BBC contracts and landed many television roles and plays over the years. Prescod was part of a West Indian singing group called The New World Singers and was the leader of the sopranos in the choir. The others were Patricia Williams (St Vincent), Bonica Fletcher (Jamaica) and Joyce Jacobs (British Guiana). Impressed with hearing a group of West Indian singers, conductor and composer Avril Coleridge-Taylor formed the choir. In 1959,

Sylvia Wynter ''The Honourable'' Sylvia Wynter, O.J. (Holguín, Cuba, 11 May 1928) is a Jamaican novelist, /sup> dramatist, /sup> critic, philosopher, and essayist. /sup> Her work combines insights from the natural sciences, the humanities, art, and anti-co ...

's play ''Under The Sun'' was re-broadcast by the BBC. Prescod had a part in the play, along with Nadia Cattouse,

Andrew Salkey Andrew Salkey (30 January 1928 – 28 April 1995) was a Jamaican novelist, poet, children's books writer and journalist of Jamaicans, Jamaican and Panamanian origin. He was born in Panama but raised in Jamaica, moving to Britain in the 1952 to pu ...

, Sheila Clarke, Gordon Woolford and Sylvia Wynter. During her stage career, Prescod was a member of London's

, then based at the

Old Vic Old or OLD may refer to: Places *Old, Baranya, Hungary * Old, Northamptonshire, England *Old Street station, a railway and tube station in London (station code OLD) *OLD, IATA code for Old Town Municipal Airport and Seaplane Base, Old Town, Ma ...

, and was cast as

Tituba Tituba Indian was an enslaved woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692-1693. She was brought to colonial Massachusetts from Barbados by Samuel Parris, the minister of Salem Village. She was ...

in the 1965 production of ''

The Crucible ''The Crucible'' is a 1953 play by American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93. Miller wrote the play as a ...

''. She received wide praise for her performance.

Activism

Prescod's contributions to the struggle for racial equality in Britain was recognised. She played an active role alongside

, and was involved in organising the

March on Washington The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, also known as simply the March on Washington or The Great March on Washington, was held in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. The purpose of the march was to advocate for the civil and economic righ ...

solidarity demonstration in London on 31 August 1963. Prescod was among the Black artistes in England who supported Claudia Jones's appeals for funds for the ''

West Indian Gazette ''West Indian Gazette'' (''WIG'') was a newspaper founded in Brixton, London, England, by Trinidadian communist & black nationalist activist Claudia Jones (1915–1964) in March 1958. The title as displayed on its masthead was subsequently expande ...

'' by organising and performing at fundraising concerts. When Jones died in 1964, Prescod sung "Lift Up Your Voice and Sing" at the funeral.

Death

Prescod died on 25 June 1966 from a brain hemorrhage in

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West End of London, West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up b ...

, London, and was survived by her son

Colin Prescod Colin Prescod (born 1944) is a British sociologist and cultural activist, originally from Trinidad, who in a career spanning five decades has worked as an academic, documentary filmmaker, theatre maker, and BBC Television commissioning editor, as ...

, a sociologist and trustee of the Friends of the Huntley Archives at LMA.

Legacy

Prescod is the subject of a chapter written by Obi B. Egbuna, the Nigerian-born novelist, playwright and political activist, in his non-fiction work titled ''Black Candle at Christmas''. In 2022, the

Institute of Race Relations The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) is a think tank based in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 1958 in order to publish research on race relations worldwide, and in 1972 was transformed into an "anti-racist think tank". Proposed by ''Sund ...

' Black History Collection produced a biographical text dedicated to charting Prescod's life. A review of ''Pearl Prescod: A Black Life Lived Large'' in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' described the educational pamphlet as "part of an endeavour to shine a light on the overlooked stories of this generation of Caribbean artists and intellectuals", adding: "There is so much to unearth in the case of Prescod's short but glittering life and work." The IRR project co-ordinator Anya Edmond-Pettitt notes that Prescod's story may have been hitherto forgotten because it differs from the prevailing narrative about the so-called "

Windrush generation British African-Caribbean people are an ethnic group in the United Kingdom. They are British citizens whose ancestry originates from the Caribbean or they are nationals of the Caribbean who reside in the UK. There are some self-identified Afro-C ...

": "It's not to say that he Windrushnarrative isn't true or important but it's not the only story. There were people who came from the Caribbean who did not become bus drivers, hospital porters and nurses. There's a strange blindspot in that this is the only story we have of colonial migration to this country from the Caribbean." Colin Prescod situates his mother's legacy within that of the wider community of performing artists and intellectuals who came from the West Indies/Caribbean to Britain, describing the biographical pamphlet as an "archival teaser" since there are many such life stories yet to be formally archived (including, as he observes, those of

Nadia Cattouse Nadia Evadne Cattouse (born 2 November 1924) is a Belizean-born British actress, singer and songwriter. She is best known for her acting roles in many British television programmes including ''Play for Today, Crown Court, Dixon of Dock Green'' a ...

Earl Cameron Earlston Jewitt Cameron, CBE (8 August 19173 July 2020), known as Earl Cameron, was a Bermudian actor who lived and worked in the United Kingdom. After appearing on London's West End stage, he became one of the first black stars in the Britis ...

and

Errol John Errol John (20 December 1924 – 10 July 1988) was a Trinidad and Tobago actor and playwright who emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1951. Biography Early years in Trinidad John was born in Port of Spain, Trinidad, on 20 December 1924, the ...

): "This little piece of history ... is part and parcel of the stir caused by 'the West Indian generation' as the late

George Lamming George William Lamming OCC (8 June 19274 June 2022) was a Barbadian novelist, essayist, and poet. He first won critical acclaim for '' In the Castle of My Skin'', his 1953 debut novel. He also held academic posts, including as a distinguished ...

called them – the generation who came out of militant anti-colonial political cultures to see off Empire and questioned the racist-Imperialism at the core of Great Britain’s colonial success story."

Filmography

References

External links