In honour of Black History Month, the subject of my eleventh blog post is Betty Campbell, Wales' first black head teacher and an important black history campaigner. As a working-class black woman, Betty overcame barriers and prejudice throughout her life, proving her doubters wrong after being told as a child that her dream job as a head teacher was "insurmountable". In September 2021, a large bronze monument to Betty Campbell was unveiled in Cardiff. A UK-wide survey of statues, carried out three years earlier, found that just one in five statues in Britain were of women, with most of fictional characters or unnamed figures. The statue of Betty Campbell is believed to be the first statue of a named, non-fictional woman in an outdoor public space in Wales. It is also the first statue of any named individual of black heritage in an outdoor public space in Wales.
Betty Campbell was born Rachel Elizabeth Johnson in Butetown, Cardiff, in 1934.The area was known as Tiger Bay and its location in the Cardiff docklands meant it was one of the UK's first multi-cultural communities. Her mother, Honora, was Welsh Barbadian and her father, Simon Vickers Johnson, had come to the UK from Jamaica when he was 15. Her father was tragically killed during World War II when his ship the Ocean Vanguard was torpedoed in 1942. Her mother struggled financially after the death of Betty's father and occasionally worked as an illegal street bookmaker. At school, Betty was top of her class and won a scholarship to the Lady Margaret High School for Girls in Cardiff.
When asked to decide her O-Level subjects, Betty made her career ambitions to become a teacher known. “I went down to the headmistress and told her that I wanted to be a teacher. And she said: ‘Oh, get the idea out of your head right away. You’d have insurmountable problems.” This reduced Betty to tears, but it made her more determined to achieve her goals. These had to be put on hold, however, when Betty became pregnant at the age of 17, while she was doing her A-levels. She left school and married Rupert Campbell in 1953. Betty went on to have four children and in 1960, when she already had three children, she discovered that Cardiff Teacher Training College had started to enrol female students. Betty applied and was one of only six female students to be admitted.
Betty's first teaching post was in Llanrumney but she soon returned to Butetown, getting a job at Mount Stuart Primary School, where she taught for 28 years. As a black teacher she experienced hostility from some parents: "They hadn't seen a black teacher before. It was as if you could do a job, but if you’re black you weren’t quite as good." Betty was inspired by a trip to the US where she learned about anti-slavery activists like Harriet Tubman and the civil rights movement. When she became Wales' first black head teacher at Mount Stuart in 1973, she began teaching children about slavery, black history and the system of apartheid which operated at the time in South Africa. Later, Betty would go on to be among the founders of Black History Month in the UK. “The thing is that in schools, you never had anything about black people or black history, so that was what I tried to introduce with my children”, Betty said of her trailblazing approach.
Under Betty’s leadership, Mount Stuart School raised its profile across the United Kingdom and became a template for multicultural education. Betty became a member of the Home Office's race advisory committee and a member of the Commission for Racial Equality. She was invited to be part of the Paul Hamlyn Foundation Commission on Education, which published a number of research papers on education. In 1993, it published the book "Learning to Succeed" where practice examples from Mount Stuart Primary School were cited. Her pioneering work in education drew the attention of many, including Prince Charles, who visited Mount Stuart School in 1994 while she was headteacher. Nelson Mandela sought Betty Campbell out on his only visit to Wales in 1998, keen to thank her and her pupils for writing to him while in prison.
Betty was also a board member of BBC Wales in the 1980s and was made an honorary fellow of Cardiff Metropolitan University. She served as an independent councillor for Butetown on Cardiff Council from 1999 to 2004 and prior to that, she had been a Butetown councillor on Cardiff City Council, from 1991 to 1995. In 2003, Betty was awarded an MBE for services to education and community life. In 2015 she received a lifetime achievement award from Unison Cymru's Black Members' group, for her contribution to black history and Welsh education.
Betty lived in Butetown throughout her life until her death aged 82 in 2017. Hundreds of people lined the streets of Cardiff to pay their respects. On her death, First Minister of Wales Carwyn Jones described Campbell as "a true pioneer" and an "inspiration to other black and ethnic minority people." In 2019, the BBC ran the 'Hidden Heroines' campaign to decide who should be the subject of Cardiff's first statue of a named woman, decided by a public vote. Five women, including Betty Campbell, were shortlisted. On 18 January 2019, it was announced that Betty had won the vote, and that her statue would be erected outside the headquarters of BBC Wales in Central Square, close to Cardiff Central Station. The statue, by sculptor Eve Shepherd, was unveiled on 29 September 2021 in front of a crowd of family, friends, supporters and pupils from Mount Stuart Primary School.
Bibliography
“Betty Campbell: Statue honours Wales' first black head teacher.” BBC News Website. 2021. Betty Campbell: Statue honours Wales' first black head teacher - BBC News. [Accessed 25 October 2021].
“Betty Campbell - Wales’ First Black Headteacher and Champion Of Multiculturalism.” BBC Hidden Heroines. 2021. BBC Wales - Hidden Heroines - Betty Campbell. [Accessed 26 October 2021]
“The headteacher who helped create Black History Month.” BBC News Website. 2021. BBC Wales - BBC Wales - The headteacher who helped create Black History Month. [Accessed 25 October 2021]
“Wales honours Betty Campbell, country’s first black headteacher.” Guardian Website. 2021. Wales honours Betty Campbell, country’s first black headteacher | Wales | The Guardian. [Accessed 26 October 2021.
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