Reasonable Blackman was one of the first Black tradesman in England that we can find evidence of in the historical record. He lived in the borough of Southwark which is south of the River Thames in London, in the late sixteenth century when Elizabeth I sat on the throne. We don’t know from the records exactly when or where he was born but we know he was living in London from 1579 and by 1587 he was married which meant he would have earned enough money to have supported a family.

Reasonable Blackman was a silk weaver. Silk weaving had become incredibly fashionable during this part of history – trends were often set by the royal family and Queen Elizabeth was very fond of silk stockings. Those and other silk clothing became all the rage (if you could afford it!). Silk weaving was highly skilled work and it’s possible that Reasonable Blackman had originally been living in Holland (which had a good sized population of African descent) where he could have learned the profession.

The theatres were booming business in London town in this period including the Rose in Southwark where Shakespeare plays were originally performed, and there is some evidence to suggest that he made costumes for the theatre.

We know Reasonable Blackman was married but there isn’t any information on who his wife was or what her background would have been. We do know he had at least three children, and tragically two of them, Edmund and Jane, died of the plague in 1592 and were buried in St Olave’s churchyard. The plague was a terrible and often fatal disease that killed a huge proportion of people in London throughout the 1500s and 1600s.

However, there is a chance that at least one of his children survived and continued his trade. An Edward Blakemore, Silk Weaver was married in Stepney in 1614 when Reasonable Blackman’s son would have been 27 years old.