The below is the original, unedited article I wrote for publication in the Dictionary of Welsh Biography, or in short the Bywgraffiadur, as part of my work as the Community Outreach Officer of the Diversity Project. The aim of this project is to collect names and produce articles about people who have a strong association with Wales, but who in previous decades have been overlooked. In due course I will provide links to the published English and Welsh versions.
If you would like to find out more about the Diversity Project of the Bywgraffiadur, please follow this link: https://biography.wales/amrywedd.
The man known as Thomas Rigby or ‘Reggbey’ was born c. 1783 and abducted by slave-hunters to an unknown destination in the West Indies when he was about eight years old. Thomas’s parentage, name at birth and birthplace are unknown. It is possible that the Rigby surname is linked to Richard Rigby, MP (1722-1788) of Mistley Hall, Essex, who owned several sugar, cocoa and coffee plantations in Antigua, Grenada and Jamaica. In 1817, he arrived in Kidwelly in the company of the Rev John Norcross.
On 19 January 1819, Thomas Rigby married Mary Richards (1801-1854), a local young woman who had grown up on a farm near Llanelli. Presumably neither one of them could write, leaving their mark instead of a signature on their marriage certificate. Mary’s younger sister, Elizabeth Richards (1806-1886), would much later become the mother of the musician Joseph Parry (1841-1903). In the following years, Thomas and Mary ran several public houses in Kidwelly and Llanelli. Occasionally, Thomas also held other occupations, such as ‘Gentleman’s servant’ or hairdresser.
Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Thomas and Mary had nine children, but not all of them survived into adulthood: George (1819-1822), Mary Ann (1821-1878), another boy named George (1824-1844), Alexander (1826-1833), Thomas junior (1829-1844), Elizabeth (1834-1834), William (1838-1892), Jane (1839-1840) and Caroline (1840-1876). Mary Ann became a cook, working in service in a Swansea doctor’s family. William became a cabinet maker and moved to Merthyr Tydfil.
On 8 March 1841, Thomas Rigby died in Llanelli, where he ran the Union Tavern, and was buried two days later in the Parish of Saint Mary, Kidwelly. Announcing his passing, The Cambrian included the briefest of life sketches and stating that Thomas ‘was an industrious and harmless man’. Mary continued working as a publican and remarried three years later.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
While Thomas Rigby was one of only very few Black people in the district in the first half of the nineteenth century, he was by no means the first who can be traced through historical records. A young Black man called Jack of St Christopher (d. 1738) was baptised at Pembrey in 1723. In 1738, Sabacon Gambia (d. 1784) was baptised at St Peter’s, Carmarthen, and in 1742 was granted a license to marry Candace de Gambia (d.1760) in Kidwelly. Their surname ‘Gambia’, in addition to notes in the baptismal, marriage and death registers, identified them as Black people.
Sources
Archives Wales; Wales; Carmarthenshire Baptisms, Marriages and Burials; Reference: CPR/70/13
David Cooke, ‘Evidence for Africans in Carmarthenshire during the eighteenth century’, The Carmarthenshire Antiquary, vol. 43 (2007), pp. 65-9
‘Died’, The Cambrian, 20 March 1841, p. 3
England & Wales, National Probate Calendar (Index of Wills and Administrations), 1858-1966
Maggie Jarman, ‘What Happened to Thomas Rigby “The Black Barber” of Lanelly?’ Llanelli Community Heritage, 1 November 2020 https://web.archive.org/web/20210117164901/https://www.llanellich.org.uk/files/442-what-happened-to-thomas-rigby-the-black-barber-of-llanelly
Lyn John, ‘Thomas the Black Barber’, Llanelli Community Heritage, 13 July 2014
‘Richard Rigby MP of Mistley Hall‘, Legacies of British Slavery database, UCL
