Perhaps one of the most enigmatic paintings in the Manchester Art Gallery is that of Ira Aldridge, a black American actor and the first black actor to play Othello. It was the first piece purchased by what was then the Royal Manchester Institution at its inception in 1827. This was more than making a statement, this was to demonstrate that Manchester was even then a centre for the anti-slavery movement, Aldridge having been born in New York in 1807 and attended the African Free School ‘for the children of free black people and slaves.’ Aldridge always insisted that he was from Africa and not America. 

 

Making his living as a classical and often Shakespearean actor, Aldridge emigrated to Liverpool because of persistent discrimination in the States and acted at Manchester’s Theatre Royal, which was then in Fountain Street. 

 

Painted by James Northcote in 1826, the work shows Aldridge in the role of Othello, a character subjected to racism, jealousy and betrayal. But is the nervously portrayed glance to the right of the subject reflecting the Shakespearean character, or the prejudices that the actor suffered directly? 

 

By the time of Aldridge’s appearances in Manchester the British Parliament had already outlawed the slave trade, although still hadn’t abolished slavery in the British Colonies. Manchester continued to be at the forefront of the abolition of slavery and so this first purchase by The Royal Manchester Institution was making a bold move.

 

Around forty years later Abraham Lincoln’s fight for the abolition of slavery was supported by Manchester, as his Union Army blockaded the southern ports, stopping Confederate supporters from exporting slave picked cotton to England. This led to what was called the Cotton Famine, with widespread unemployment in the cotton factories. Lincoln wrote to the City of Manchester in 1863, praising the workers for their ‘selfless act of sublime Christian heroism, which has not been surpassed in any age or any country.’ Although it is said that some Lancashire mills flew the Confederate flag in protest. Only two years later – and months before Lincoln was assassinated – the American Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery throughout the United States. 

 

And so this is a story of how 19th Century America came to Manchester and how the City helped to lead the way in the abolition of racism and slavery, commemorated by two public works of art. One of a black African American actor who broke every boundary of prejudice and one of Abraham Lincoln, whose statue stands, of course, in Lincoln Square, Manchester.