Cesar Picton

He was subsequently brought to England by a British Army officer in 1761 and given as a servant to the Anglo-Welsh politician and lawyer Sir John Philipps, 6th Baronet, mostly living in Norbiton near Kingston upon Thames in Surrey.

In 1758, the British capture of Senegal during the Seven Years' War led to Senegambia, which was a major region of the Atlantic slave trade, to be occupied by the Kingdom of Great Britain.

A British Army officer, serving as part of the occupational force, purchased a young boy who had been sold into slavery by the age of six and brought him back to England.

[2] After his baptism, the Philipps family arranged for Picton to enter their household as a page boy, clad in a velvet turban (which cost ten shillings and a sixpence) in a rococo style.

[5] Following the deaths of Sir John in 1764, and his wife in 1788, and the sale of Norbiton Place by their son,[6] Picton used a legacy of £100 from Lady Phillipps to set up in business as a coal merchant in nearby Kingston.

The three unmarried Phillipps daughters had moved to nearby Hampton Court on the sale of the house, and since they all later left him legacies (in total by 1820, £250 and £30 a year), they may well have encouraged their friends to buy coal from him.

In addition, it is probably no coincidence that the Phillipps' estate at Picton was a centre of coal mining; he may well have sourced his supplies from them, to mutual advantage, and perhaps had already been involved in managing their affairs.

Picton lived here for the first years of his business, initially renting, but in 1795 buying it and other property including a wharf onto the Thames for unloading the coal, and a malthouse.

While this was in contrast to the majority of black people in Britain at the time, some did achieve status and prosperity, for example the writer and abolitionist Olaudah Equiano and the Mayfair shopkeeper Ignatius Sancho.