Aina (Sarah Forbes Bonetta (later Davies)), 1843-1880, photographed by Camille Silvy (1834-1910). 15 September 1862. Albumen print. Source: Courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London NPG Ax61384, purchased, 1904. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]
Photograph mounted on a card with identifying name.
Nowhere is the saying "Every picture tells a story" better illustrated. Sarah Forbes Bonetta was a Yoruba princess, who was goddaughter of Queen Victoria. Rachel Teukolsky explains:
The Silvy portraits were made to commemorate Bonetta’s marriage to James Davies, a wealthy African merchant. Press coverage of the wedding, which took place in Brighton, noted the impressive number of carriages and the rich, fashionable costumes of those in attendance. Perhaps most sensationally, the wedding guests entered in mixed-race pairs, African gentlemen escorting English ladies and vice versa. Yet generally speaking, press coverage downplayed the unusual nature of the spectacle in order to derive an optimistic political message. [268]
Teukolsky implies an element of calculation in arranging for these photographs to be taken by Silvy, the photographer of royalty, as indeed in adopting the the girl as goddaughter in the first place. These gestures certainly helped to declare vividly the benign nature of Victoria's role as Empress. It could also be said that they served to stress the difference between the races, the one needing to help the other. Such paternalism is viewed very negatively now.
However, the commitment was lasting. Sarah and her husband went to live in Sierra Leone, then Lagos, where her husband carried on his business. But Sarah and her godmother kept in touch. The couple named their first child Victoria, and the Queen duly became the little girl's godmother too.
Sarah's grave in Funchal Cemetery, Madeira (photograph by Tim Willasey-Wilsey).
Sadly, after having had two more children, Sarah died of tuberculosis in Madeira, where she had gone for her health. She was only 37. Her husband's business had not done well. The Queen duly gave her namesake an annuity, and funded her education at Cheltenham Lady's College. It seems uncharitable to imply, as Teukolsky does, that the monarch's interest in and support of both Sarah and Victoria was a calculated effort to enhance her own image as "a maternal governor of empire, who rescues exceptional African children..." (269). — Jacqueline Banerjee
Bibliography
"Sarah Forbes Bonetta, Queen Victoria's African Protégée." English Heritage. Web. 27 August 2024.
Teukolsky, Rachel. Picture World: Image, Aesthetics, and Victorian New Media . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. [Review by Jo Devereux]
Created 27 August 2024
Last modified 4 September 2024