It’s really amazing what we uncovered. Who would have thought that Exeter has such a long history of multiculturalism? Ghee Bowman, Project Coordinator
Telling Our Stories – Finding Our Roots, and the resources it produced, can be found on the website: www.tellingourstoriesdevon.org.uk/locations/exeter
This exciting project based at Exeter’s Global Centre sought to find out more about people, famous or not, in Exeter’s multi-coloured history. Pocahontas, Ignatius Sancho, Rabbi Lionel Blue and the Emperor Vespasian all passed through Exeter, and they all came here from a long way away. Likewise, many ordinary people from far and wide have lived here over the centuries, up to the present day.
“Telling our Stories, Finding our Roots: Exeter’s Multi-Coloured History” was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and brought together local people of all backgrounds, ages, ethnic groups and nationalities, to find out about the rich and varied past of Exeter. The project ran from 2013 to 2014.
Exeter’s Multi-Coloured history
Who came here? Who lived here? Where in the world did they come from?
Exeter, in south west England, is a city that people often assume has always been White Anglo-Saxon. Our team of community researchers have discovered that’s only partly true.
Since its beginning in Roman times, through Saxon and Viking invaders, Medieval Jews and ‘Aliens’, enslaved Africans and the twentieth century Windrush Generation, Exeter has been, and continues to be multi-cultural.