Perhaps the Crusades had given Negroes and other foreign percussionists a place in Western music. A 14th century British Museum manuscript shows a Negro as a cymbalist who, at the same time, carried a pair of kettledrums on his back for the drummer standing behind. At the College of Arms is the Westminster Tournament Roll (February 1509/10) which shows six mounted trumpeters, one of them wearing a green turban (the only one wearing headgear) being a colored man.

Two hundred years ago it was the fashion amongst many regiments to employ drummers from Africa and the West Indies. From reports of Generals visiting garrisons at various times, one learns that they were rattling good drummers too. The verdict of Major-General Sir William Howe when inspecting the old 29th Foot at Dover in 1774, reported the fact that the drummers and fifes "beat and play well.  "One may well believe that in the carrying out of their strenuous duties these drummers made their presence felt since there were no less than ten of them."  Seventeen years later, another General put the same regiment through its paces at Windsor, bluntly remarking in his report that "The drummers, black, beat and play well."

The 1st Bn The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters Regiment, to give the 29th its present day designation, had always made a specialty of its black drummers; an innovation which originated in rather curious circumstances.  Admiral Boscawen happened to be the brother of its Commanding Officer in 1759, and at the surrender of Guadeloupe, seized on the happy idea of securing ten boys, all of whom were eventually enrolled as drummers in his brother's regiment. Some sixteen years later, a few survivors of this original group still remained with the regiment and in the estimation of a certain Colonel, they were all remarkably good drummers, a fact which probably stood as much to the credit of the British Drum-Major as to his pupils. Neither patience nor wisdom need be brought to bear in the tuition of drum "banging", but in the "playing" of that primitive instrument a fair amount of both is necessary. When stationed at Trallee in 1824, the 29th had eleven boys specially brought over from Africa to fill the vacancies of its band. For over eighty years this regiment adhered to the custom of retaining black drummers, the last of whom passed away in the early 1840's.

Africa  was not the only land to which the military authorities looked for likely candidates for bands. The West Indies was also a good source of drummers as well.  It was from this archipelago that the old 38th, now the Staffordshire Regiment, obtained most of its drummers; not altogether a matter for surprise considering the regiment was quartered there for almost sixty years. When its turn for departure came in 1765, it retained a squad of three black boys but whether all the chosen ones relished the idea of leaving their native soil is not recorded. Since the archives of certain regiments reveal the fact that at various times a "slave' was posted to the drums, one may infer that the transfer in many cases was a blessing in disguise for the individual concerned. The Royal Fusiliers was another marching regiment in which the foreign element was rather prevalent, all its drummers being blacks during the last nine years of the last century.

The cymbals and triangles had their place with "the drums and fifes and these members of the percussion family of musical instruments were sometimes played by quite juvenile black musicians. The bass drummer was invariably a burly black gentleman of imposing physique. In E Hull's well known lithograph of the big drummer of the Grenadier Guards in 1829, one has a representation of a typical specimen of his type just in the act of producing his best from his instrument and attired in white trousers, scarlet tunic, and a tall, gaily bedecked turban, the head-dress worn by most of his profession. The retention of the tiger and leopard skin aprons of the big drummers is a survival of the era when some of the  drummers from Africa took the skins of wild beasts with them when they joined the British Army. Their fantastic uniforms brought into greater prominence their outlandish evolutions when marching at the head of their regiments.  Unfortunately, very little is known of any of the particular Black musicians of that era. However a man known as John Baptist is said to be the last of his fraternity in the Scots Guards. As a mark of distinction, a silver collar was worn by the last black drummer of the Grenadier Guards, Francis by name. This worthy drummer joined the great majority in 1838. The  following year the Coldstream Guards dispensed with black musicians. These black Guardsmen were familiar figures to the Londoners of those days since their presence was necessary in the Court of St James's at the daily ceremony of the Changing of the Guard.

Lest it might be supposed that the black musicians were all drummers and only to be found in infantry regiments, attention is called to the fact that the Royal Artillery at one time had black tambourine and cymbal players.  The Turkish "Jingling Johnie" being also left to the tender mercies of a dark-skinned minstrel, whilst among the last of their kind in the service of the Crown were three black trombone players of the 2nd Life Guards, a circumstance which shows that the brethren of the redoubtable Francis were not unrepresented in the saddle, since the Household Cavalry had their African trumpeters as early as 1742, and in some of the old London prints a black kettle-drummer is depicted at the head of the band. His uniform was not unlike that still worn on ceremonial occasions by the bandsmen and trumpeters of these regiments, a three-cornered hat taking the place of the blue velvet "jockey" cap now in vogue. Among the many fine military paintings hanging in Windsor Castle is an equestrian study of a black trumpeter in this very showy attire.

An Army Inspection Return of 1776, shows that a black kettle-drummer was employed by the 3rd Hussars at that period. "Bush" Johnstone of the 4th Hussars, was well respected and like the kettle-drummer and the trumpeters of the same regiment, he was an Indian and during the regiment's twenty-year stay in the "Shiny East", he held a proud position immortalized by Thomas Hardy, the Trumpet-Major. 'Bush' paraded for the last time with the old 4th Light Dragoons in 1842, when it is fairly safe to assume that the colored element in our cavalry had disappeared.

Rumor has it that a few Militia units could boast of one or two black mulatto musicians as late as the Crimean War, but in confining this survey of the innovation as practiced in the Regular Army, one is met with all manner of conflicting statements concerning the identity of the last black drummer, the manner of his exit, and the year in which he made his last bow to an admiring world. The early 1840's could only muster a handful of these gentlemen, and the death in India on 15 July 1843, of George Carvell, the last black drummer of the "Ever-sworded Twenty-ninth", removed one of the very last of this unique section of British Army musicians.

Sources: The Negro Drummers of the British Army (J Paine); Foreign Army Bandmasters, Their Rise and Fall (Henry George Farmer)

Post Script

By the end of the 19th century, African bands were attempting to copy those of the British.

Writing of his experiences in 'Twenty Five Years Soldiering in South Africa', H V Woon describes how in 1881 a friendly Fingo chief by the name of Veldtman paid a formal visit to Ibeka, near Butterworth. He was resplendent in the full-dress uniform of a naval officer. Preceding him was a drum and fife band consisting of "about thirty boys and young men dressed in a uniform of white with red braid, and forage caps on the side of their heads. The big drummer flourished his drumstick in the orthodox manner, evidently acquired after long study of the drummer of an infantry regiment."

Historical Contents.