Historian Dr Mary L Shannon

Is busking the same as begging? It’s an argument that goes on even today, but back in 19th century Bloomsbury a highly popular street entertainer lost his job and later his life because the authorities decided he was begging.

Now, a new book, Billy Waters Is Dancing, by historian Dr Mary L Shannon, examines the heartbreaking story. It tells how Billy, a young black seaman, was forced to take up street performing after being invalided out of the Royal Navy. He had been badly injured after falling 100 feet from his ship, docked in a New York harbour, in 1812. He managed to survive but was forced to use a wooden leg.

He later decided to emigrate to the UK, and ended up at Dyott Street , in St Giles, near to what’s now part of Camden and close Tottenham Court Road. It was here he began a new career as a street singer and dancer

Billy soon became famous with his extraordinary combination of energetic singing, dancing and playing a fiddle, often performing outside the Adelphi Theatre in The Strand. People came from all over just to watch him. With a wife and two young children and a paltry naval pension, he was able to earn just enough money to live.

Today a blue plaque, put up by Camden Council just last year outside Billy’s Dyott Street home, is one of the few reminders of his life.

He was an African American born in 1776 in New York, but his early years are shrouded in obscurity.

Shannon, from Roehampton University, told Review: “He deserves to be more well known. My book, hopefully, will help this happen.”

Billy was said to have combined heroic Jack Tar influences and the “jolly sailor”, as he danced the hornpipe on a wooden leg, creating an incredible performance. Shannon added: “He wore an extravagant costume and performed in the years during and after the Napoleonic war when people were struggling to survive and also needed cheering up.”

But the story has a sad ending. He was featured in a hugely popular 19th century book of illustrations, called Life In London, which contrasted the rich and the poor. “It sounded good at the time,” said Shannon. “Unfortunately not. What happened was that an enterprising dramatist called William Moncrieff decided to adapt the book for the stage. He created a play based on the text of the book, called Tom and Jerry, the names of two young men exploring the capital.”

The play has a scene with an actor playing Billy, and you would have thought that was good with all the publicity and exposure. “The problem was that Billy was played by a white actor, and he’s depicted as a sort of loveable rogue or a ‘king of the beggars,’” said Shannon.

Billy is seen bossing around other beggars – something he would never do in real life – and these people are described as “cadgers” (People who try and get something without paying for it.)
Rather than being a poor and sympathetic character, Billy was depicted as having a good life. He was even seen laughing at people who, as a gesture of kindness, gave him food. In other words the “cadgers” were fooling the people.

The new image of Billy would not have been lost on the people streaming out of the Adelphi. And as a result instead of donating money to the real Billy, performing outside the theatre, they mostly decided he didn’t need financial help.

To make things worse, an organisation at the time called The Mendicity Society was campaigning against beggars. Shannon writes: “The distinction between busking and begging was of little interest to them. Two weeks after the play Tom and Jerry opened, Billy was arrested twice on the same day, and made to swear never to busk again, with the threat of imprisonment and separation from his family. With little means left to support his wife and children, he was a broken man.

“It’s not long before his income drops, he has to pawn his fiddle, gets unwell and dies in a workhouse.”

Billy is buried in an unmarked grave in St Pancras Gardens.

Shannon praises Camden Local Studies Centre –attached to Camden Public Library – for help with history and details of the area.

She said: “There are more questions than answers about Billy’s life. However, a movement is now under way to address his historical neglect.”

Camden Council were partnered with the Nubian Jak Community Trust, an organisation dedicated to installing blue plaques commemorating significant individuals from under represented groups, to install the plaque to commemorate Billy.

• Billy Waters Is Dancing: Or, How a Black Sailor Found Fame in Regency Britain. By Mary L.Shannon, Yale University Press, £25