Saved from being ritually sacrificed in Africa as a child, Sarah Forbes Bonetta was rescued and presented to Queen Victoria who made the girl her ward and goddaughter. Here, as we celebrate Black History Month, we here how she married and lived in Brighton
A remarkable wedding took place at Brighton, in 1862, probably the first ever in the town to involve a black couple. They were Sarah Forbes Bonetta and Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies. The early years of Sarah’s life are extraordinary to say the least.
Omoba Aina, Sarah’s real name, was born in 1843 in the Yoruba states (now Nigeria) of western Africa. She was made at an orphan at five years old, when her homeland was seized during a war led by King Ghezo, ruler of Dahomey (Benin today). She was taken to become one of the king’s child slaves. In a bizarre turn of events, at the age of seven, she was given to a British naval captain, Frederick Forbes, an abolitionist, during a visit to the king, attempting to persuade him to abandon the slave trade.
He first noticed the girl while witnessing an appalling sacrificial ritual, where she was clearly an intended victim. He intervened and asked that the child be part of the usual diplomatic exchange of gifts that would take place on his leaving. Ghezo agreed and expressed his wish that she would become the property of Queen Victoria. Accordingly, Omoba journeyed to England on Forbes’ ship, the Bonetta, the captain renaming her after himself and his vessel, and giving her the Christian name Sarah, from the Hebrew, ‘princess.’
She was duly presented to Queen Victoria, at Windsor Castle, who was so struck by her intelligence, poise and command of English, she decided to take responsibility for Sarah’s education and general welfare.
In 1851 she was sent to train as a missionary at a school in Freetown, Sierra Leone, but she became unwell - ‘a lasting cough’ - and had to return home. While training, she’d briefly met the man who would become her husband, Captain James Pinson Labulo Davies, a successful Nigerian merchant. When he visited Britain, they met up again and asked to marry her. She refused at first, but a stay at a ‘pig sty of a house’ (her words) at Brighton, where she’d been sent to learn about the ways of British society, from a Miss Welch, somehow brought a change of mind.
The marriage was St Nicholas Church, on 14th August 1862, when Sarah was eighteen. The Bishop of Sierra Leone came to officiate at the ceremony, which was a lavish affair. The local press reported that ten horse-drawn carriages brought to guests from West Hill Lodge to the church, there were sixteen bridesmaids and the wedding party was made up of ‘white ladies with African gentlemen and African ladies with white gentlemen.’
Following the ceremony, she soon became pregnant and when a daughter was born, she was naturally named Victoria, the queen herself becoming the child’s godmother.
Davies trading activity was based in Sierra Leone, where the couple then went to live. Three other children were born, Alice, Arthur and Stella. Unfortunately, Sarah’s health then began to rapidly deteriorate, exacerbated by some failings in her husband’s business affairs, and her doctor recommended a move to Madeira where the climate might help her recuperate. Sadly, in August 1880, Sarah died at the age of thirty-seven, from tuberculosis, for which, then, there was no cure. A short, but truly remarkable life. Her grave is on the island of Madeira, in the city's Funchal cemetery.
