The ethnic origin of a Black woman who worked as a dressmaker in Bristol during the 19th century is only known as a result of her being violently attacked. Henrietta, who carried the surname of her second husband, Esdale, at the time was brutally attacked in 1843 and is reported to have suffered ‘congestion of the brain’.
Researchers in Bristol Museums gathered evidence from the city’s archives during the pandemic of Bristol’s historic black population. So far, there are over 500 entries, dating from 1575 to 1867 and the story of Henrietta Coppin just one of those fascinating stories.
None of her records refer to her as a Black woman or person of African origin. But due to a brutal attack, believed to be carried out by her lodger, she was reported as such in a newspaper article at the time.
Henrietta, who was baptised in Coventry in 1810, moved with her family to Bristol before she was two years old. Her mother, Hannah Hooper, died in Bristol when Henrietta was just two years old. Her father who worked as a mariner on Bristol ships, soon remarried and had another child who they named John.
Like other Afro-Caribbean mariners living in Bristol in the 19th century, Henrietta lived in the parish of St Michael’s. Her first husband, like her father, was a mariner, and was called Richard Bowen. It is clear from their marriage certificate that she had at least a basic level of education due to her ability to sign her own name.
Three years after their marriage, in 1833, they celebrated the birth of their first son who they named Alfred Hooper Bowen. It appears that Henrietta soon faced a double tragedy, losing her husband and her son soon after.
By 1841, the widow and dressmaker remarried Richard Esdale and was earning an extra income by taking in lodgers, many of them sailors. It is believed that one of those lodgers attacked her leaving her with a head injury that made it impossible for her to testify in court.
The newspaper report in July 1843 of the assault describes Henrietta as Black. According to the report her attacker “acknowledged that he did assault her when she came to demand some rent, not being able to command his temper because she spoke in an improper manner.”
The Bristol Times and Mirror reported: “Thos. Thomas, who had been remanded for violently assaulting a black woman, named Henrietta Esdale, was again brought up – as she was said to be in a most dangerous state from congestion of the brain, bail was refused.”
Henrietta, who was 33 years old at the time, survived the attack but her second husband, Richard Esdale, who was a sailor died ten years later under suspicious circumstances. Esdale became the subject of an inquest when he died days after returning home to Bristol following a voyage in 1852 from Bristol to Nevis.
The inquest found that he died from a brain injury and the jury condemned the ship’s captain for not providing proper care during his illness. Newspaper reports from the time suggest that Henrietta’s husband had fallen ill on the ship and consequently suffered a bang on the head while being carried.
In Henrietta’s testimony she recalls that her husband came home from sea injured and described the ship captain as “cruel.” Having survived the death of two husbands, Henrietta married again in 1856 to a man named William Francis Coppin, who was also a sailor from the Caribbean.
Her brother John was a witness at their wedding and subsequently moved with the couple to Redcliffe in 1861 where Henrietta continued to work as a dressmaker. By 1871 there is no record of Henrietta in the Bristol census but it is believed that she died in Wales in 1870.
Information about the life of Henrietta Coppin is available on the Bristol museums collections website, where you can also find links to the archives,