Women's History Month: Dido Elizabeth Belle

Meet an ordinary woman who lived in 18th century England

Every day in March, to commemorate #WomensHistoryMonth this page will be honoring multiple women whose achievements you may, or may not, have known about. We will be featuring all kinds of history-makers, trend-setters, heroes, warriors, poets, actors, filmmakers, and other Firsts. We’ll be including figures that are infamous as well as famous. Please know that we may feature people that have been featured in other months, but we will try not to.

Admin V wants to talk about Dido Elizabeth Belle, a black British woman who appears in a portrait with her cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray in 1778. She looks so mischievous and full of personality that when I saw the painting that I needed to know about her. There is nothing incredibly special about Dido Belle’s life. She lived with her uncle and cousin. She got married and had children, but she did so as the biracial niece of an English Lord in the 18th century and she was included in a portrait showing English life.

Dido Elizabeth Belle was born in the British West Indies to an enslaved woman named Maria Belle and an English aristocrat Captain John Lindsay. It is unlikely that this was a consensual relationship but when he returned to England, he brought Maria and Dido with him. He never publicly acknowledged Dido but she was placed in his uncle’s household. His uncle was the 1st Earl of Mansfield and Dido would be raised in his home. Dido’s mother remained in England until 1774 when she was freed and given property in Pensacola Florida. Her father would eventually pass leaving behind five illegitimate children including Dido.

It is believed that Dido was taken into the earl’s household to be a companion for her legitimate cousin Lady Elizabeth Murray. She was brought up to be well educated and would serve as Lord Mansfield secretary, taking dictation of his letters. She helped to run parts of the estate including the poultry and dairy farms. According to contemporary sources, she socialized as part of the family though apparently not all the time. Her uncle, Lord Mansfield, made a ruling that slavery was not a part of common law in England. This ruling would be used to abolish slavery in England, but not its colonies.

On the death of her uncle, Dido would receive a lump sum with an annuity. The amount was more than enough to buy a home on the outskirts of London and the annuity was more than the salary of a lieutenant in the army. Essentially, Dido was made independent by her inheritance. She would get married to a Frenchman and they would have three sons. She would die incredibly young at the age of 43 of unknown causes.

So gang, why is she important? One of the things that bothers me when we talk about British history is how whitewashed it is. A lot of people like to assume that the UK has always been super white, but it hasn’t. Archaeology has proven that dating back even to the Roman period, there were black people in the UK. Rome spanned across the middle east and parts of Africa so, there were black soldiers in the UK. There is a ton of evidence that shows in the post Roman era, England continued to trade with Africans even in the middle ages. When people say things like “William Shakespeare never saw a black man so he couldn’t write Othello.” That is a lie. William Shakespeare lived in London and London was an international city. Then you have the advent of slavery and the British folks had colonies in the Americas and the Caribbean where they would sometimes bring enslaved folks back to England so if you’re picturing 19th century London as a super homogenous city, it just wasn’t completely like that. Dido Belle’s life is documented proof of that.

Thank you for coming to Admin V’s historical Ted Talk about one of her special interests. The 1775 painting has served as my inspiration for my historical fantasy romance set in 1809 London. I’ve made some slight changes. My character’s conception was consensual and her father and mother were married and everyone in the book who is a character has superpowers.