Black Magistrate

From the collection of

MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

Black Magistrate

Media Archive for Central England
Nottingham
1962-05-10
Sound
4m

Nottingham welcomes Britain's first black magistrate.

Eric Irons came to Britain from Jamaica to serve with the RAF. He settled in Nottingham and rose to local prominence as a liaison officer for the Nottingham Education Department, speaking out after so called race riots in the city in August 1958. In this film, shot for ATV's Midland Montage, he talks to Reg Harcourt about his appointment as the first black magistrate in the UK. Cornelius Cameron provides the views of Nottingham City Council.

Eric Irons served on the bench in the city of Nottingham until 1991. He was awarded an OBE in 1977 and died in August 2007. The black bus worker seen towards the end of this item owes his job to Mr Irons who had broken down the 'whites only' rule of Nottingham City Transport in the 1950s.

Black Lives

Portraits of public and private lives against the shifting social climate of 20th century Britain.

Black communities, like many Global majority groups, have long been ill-served by a mainstream British media accustomed to reflecting predominantly white, middle-class lives - a problem entrenched in the second half of the 20th century with the rise of television. Yet a rich tapestry of work from across the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction, film and TV, made for (though not always by) black people, does exist. This selection contains many surprises – some joyous, some sobering, some heartbreaking – and highlights the often painfully slow progress in addressing negative representations and stereotypes on screen. Impassioned and sometimes violent dispatches from the front line in the fight for racial equality can be found here, but so too can records of progress: in the pioneers breaking new ground in culture, politics and sport, and in the more mundane glimpses of everyday life. And this story is not just London’s story: the selection takes a journey around Britain, to a Nigerian wedding in 1960s Cornwall, an ‘African village’ in Essex and a Caribbean restaurant opening in West Bromwich; Newcastle