Rhaune Laslett (15 November 1919 – 28 April 2002) was an English community activist and the principal organiser of the

Notting Hill Notting Hill is a district of West London, England, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. Notting Hill is known for being a wikt:cosmopolitan, cosmopolitan and multiculturalism, multicultural neighbourhood, hosting the annual Notting ...

Fayre or

Festival A festival is an event celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holidays, eid. A ...

, that evolved into the

Notting Hill Carnival The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean Carnival event that has taken place in London since 1966

Biography

Rhaune Laslett was born Freda Pulverness in

Stepney Stepney is an area in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets in the East End of London. Stepney is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name was applied to ...

in the East End of London. Her mother Jennie was the daughter of Harris and Betsy Noskovitch. Her father was Abraham Pulverness. Laslett often claimed that she was of Native American heritage. With the name Frederica R.A.J. Pulvernes or Gibbons, she married Terence A. Laslett in 1947 and was later divorced. In 1960, she was a matron of the Pixie Hollow home in Grove Road, Ramsgate, Kent. At the trial, she was acquitted of the main charges but, because of her record, she was sentenced to nine months in prison. Laslett became president of the

London Free School The London Free School (LFS) was founded on 8 March 1966, principally by John Hopkins (political activist), John "Hoppy" Hopkins and Rhaune Laslett. Description The London Free School was a community action adult education project inspired b ...

, organised by a coalition of local activists, including some emerging underground artists of the area, particularly John "Hoppy" Hopkins. The aims of the school were "to promote cooperation and understanding between people of various races and creeds through education and through working together".

John Michell John Michell (; 25 December 1724 – 21 April 1793) was an English natural philosopher and clergyman who provided pioneering insights into a wide range of scientific fields including astronomy, geology, optics, and gravitation. Considered "on ...

and

Michael X Michael X (17 August 1933 – 16 May 1975), born Michael de Freitas, was a Trinidad and Tobago-born self-styled black revolutionary, convicted murderer, and civil rights activist in 1960s London. He was also known as Michael Abdul Malik and A ...

provided 26 Powis Terrace as a base and the idea was born of a free festival, which became the

Notting Hill Carnival The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean Carnival event that has taken place in London since 1966

. She set up the Children's Play Group at 34 Tavistock Crescent that was visited on 15 May 1966 by

Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali (; born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr.; January 17, 1942 – June 3, 2016) was an American professional boxer and social activist. A global cultural icon, widely known by the nickname "The Greatest", he is often regarded as the gr ...

prior to his fight against

Henry Cooper Sir Henry Cooper (3 May 19341 May 2011) was a British heavyweight boxer. He was undefeated in British and Commonwealth heavyweight championship contests for twelve years and held the European heavyweight title for three years. In a 1963 fi ...

. She became president of the

,Abner Cohen
'' Masquerade Politics: Explorations in the Structure of Urban Cultural Movements''
University of California Press, 1993, p. 10. organised by a coalition of local activists, including some emerging underground artists of the area, particularly John "Hoppy" Hopkins. The aims of the school were "to promote cooperation and understanding between people of various races and creeds through education and through working together".

and

provided 26 Powis Terrace as a base and the idea was born of a free fayre or festival, which became the

Notting Hill Carnival The Notting Hill Carnival is an annual Caribbean Carnival event that has taken place in London since 1966

. In 1968, she married James O'Brien in London.

Notting Hill Carnival

In a series of articles to newspaper correspondents and in ''The Grove'' (newsletter of the London Free School), Laslett outlined the aims of the festival – that the various culture groups of Notting Hill become more familiar with each other's customs, to bring more colour and life to the streets and to counter the perception of the area being a run-down slum. As she stated to ''The Grove'', "We felt that although West Indians, Africans, Irish and many other nationalities all live in a very congested area, there is very little communication between us. If we can infect them with a desire to participate then this can only have good results." The "Notting Hill Fayre and Pageant", or the London Free School Fair, was held over a week starting on 18 September 1966, and, as well as featuring a pageant that included "a man dressed as Elizabeth I and children as Charles Dickens characters", there was "a Portobello parade consisting of the London Irish girl pipers, a West Indian

New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...

-style marching band,

Ginger Johnson Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

's African-Cuban band, and Russell Henderson's Trinidadian

steelband The steelpan (also known as a pan or steel drum) is a musical instrument originating in Trinidad and Tobago from Afro-Trinidadians. Steelpan musicians are called pannists. In 1992, the steelpan was declared Trinidad and Tobago’s national in ...

from the

Coleherne pub The Coleherne Arms 1866 public house was a gay pub in west London. Located at 261 Old Brompton Road, Earl's Court, it was a well-known music venue from the 1950s, and a popular landmark leather bar during the 1970s and 1980s. In 2008, it was rebr ...

Earl's Court Earl's Court is a district of Kensington in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London, bordering the rail tracks of the West London line and District line that separate it from the ancient borough of Fulham to the west, the ...

, followed by 2 fire engines". As

Gary Younge Gary Andrew Younge , (born January 1969) is a British journalist, author, broadcaster and academic. He was editor-at-large for ''The Guardian'' newspaper, which he joined in 1993. In November 2019, it was announced that Younge had been appointe ...

has written, Laslett "spoke to the local police about organising a carnival". With more of an English fete in mind, she invited the various ethnic groups of what was then the poor area of Notting Hill - Ukrainians, Spanish, Portuguese, Irish, Caribbeans and Africans - to contribute to a week-long event that would culminate with an August bank holiday parade....She borrowed costumes from

Madame Tussaud's Madame Tussauds (, ) is a wax museum founded in London in 1835 by the French wax sculptor Marie Tussaud. One of the early main attractions was the Chamber of Horrors, which appeared in advertising in 1843. In 1883, the restricted space of ...

; a local hairdresser did the hair and make-up for nothing; the gas board and fire brigade had floats; and stallholders in Portobello market donated horses and carts. Around 1,500 people turned up, according to police figures."Gary Younge
"The politics of partying"
''The Guardian'', 17 August 2001.

Neighbourhood Service

Out of the new-found energy in and around the Free School, and George Clark's work to establish the Community Workshop, Laslett established the Notting Hill Neighbourhood Service, one of the first voluntary services to offer free legal and drugs advice as well as an all-round welfare service. The work of the service is featured in a chapter of the 1968 book ''Drop Out'' by

Robin Farquharson Reginald Robin Farquharson (3 October 1930 – 1 April 1973) was an academic whose interest in mathematics and politics led him to work on game theory and social choice theory. He wrote an influential analysis of voting systems in his doctoral ...

Legacy

''Laslett's Carnival: A Photography Exhibition'', a photographic journey into the history of Notting Hill Carnival and its early pioneers, was held at

The Tabernacle, Notting Hill The Tabernacle is a Grade II-listed building in Powis Square, Notting Hill, west London, England, built in 1887 as a church. The building boasts a curved Romanesque façade of red brick and terracotta, and two towers with broach spires on eit ...

, in August 2011. On 26 August 2011, a blue plaque commemorating Laslett's conception of the Notting Hill street festival that "later evolved into Notting Hill Carnival" was unveiled on the corner of

Tavistock Square Tavistock Square is a public square in Bloomsbury, in the London Borough of Camden near Euston Station. History Tavistock Square was built shortly after 1806 by the property developer James Burton and the master builder Thomas Cubitt for Fr ...

and

Portobello Road is a street in the Notting Hill district of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in West London. It runs almost the length of Notting Hill from South to North, roughly parallel with Ladbroke Grove. On Saturdays it is home to Portobello ...

(organised by the

Nubian Jak Community Trust Nubian Jak Community Trust (NJCT) is a commemorative plaque and sculpture scheme founded by Jak Beula that highlights the historic contributions of Black and minority ethnic people in Britain. The first NJCT heritage plaque, honouring Bob Marle ...

), facing another blue plaque that commemorates

Claudia Jones Claudia Vera Jones (; 21 February 1915 – 24 December 1964) was a Trinidad and Tobago-born journalist and activist. As a child, she migrated with her family to the United States, where she became a Communist political activist, feminist and bla ...

, who in 1959 organised an indoor Caribbean carnival event. On the eve of the 2016 Carnival, in a series of articles, the leading

black Black is a color that results from the absence or complete absorption of visible light. It is an achromatic color, without chroma, like white and grey. It is often used symbolically or figuratively to represent darkness.Eva Heller, ''P ...

newspaper '' The Voice'' recognised that "Yes, this is Notting Hill Carnival's 50th year" and "Rhaune Laslett: The true founder of Notting Hill Carnival".Davina Hamilton
"Rhaune Laslett: The true founder of Notting Hill Carnival"
''The Voice'', 28 August 2016.

Notes

External links

Rhaune Laslett – page dedicated to the recognition of her role as founder of Notting Hill Carnival
*Gary Younge
"The politics of partying"
''The Guardian'', 17 August 2001. *Bill Tuckey

''The Independent'', 22 August 2002.
Notting Hill in 1966
* - video interview with Peter Joseph. *

Margaret Busby Margaret Yvonne Busby, , Hon. FRSL (born 1944), also known as Nana Akua Ackon, is a Ghanaian-born publisher, editor, writer and broadcaster, resident in the UK. She was Britain's then youngest publisher as well as the first black female book p ...

"The Notting Hill carnival has an unsung hero – Rhaune Laslett"
''The Guardian'', 24 August 2014. {{DEFAULTSORT:Laslett, Rhaune 1919 births 2002 deaths English activists English people of Russian descent English women activists

Biography

Notting Hill Carnival

Neighbourhood Service

Legacy

Notes

Further reading

External links