Pauline Henriques

Pauline Henriques and Samuel Selvon reading a story on BBC's Caribbean Voices in 1952.

Pauline Henriques, born Pauline Clothilde Henriques (1 April 1914 — November 1998) was a Jamaican-born English actress. In 1946, she became the first black female actress for British television. She was also the first black female Justice of the Peace, and was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1969. She worked extensively with unmarried mothers and helped found the Brooke Counselling and Advisory Clinic.^[1]

Early life

Pauline Henriques was born in Kingston, Jamaica to Cyril Charles Henriques, a wealthy merchant, and Edith Emily Delfosse.^[2] One of six children, she moved with her family to England from Jamaica in 1919, as her father wanted to give his children an English education. Her elder brother, Cyril George Henriques (1908-1982),^[3] became a Lord Chief Justice of Jamaica.

Her other brother, Fernando, was a President of the Oxford Union in 1944 and a published author.

Pauline and her siblings are mentioned in an exhibition about Jamaican families and their roles in the UK during the Second World War in Southwark.^[4]

In 1936 Pauline married Geoff Heneberry (died 1948). Their daughter Gail (born 26 March 1937) later married Keith Critchlow, artist, author, and professor of architecture in England.

In 1949 Pauline Henriques married Neville Crabbe (died 1960), with whom she had one son, Biff Crabbe. She was married to Joe Benjamin from 1969 until his death in 1995, and died three years later.

Career

Acting and radio

Pauline broke more than one glass ceiling in her time, the first of which was as the first Black female actress on British TV in 1946. Cast as Hattie Harris in All God's Chillun' Got Wings, she continued to perform on stage and screen in a variety of roles during the 1950s.^[5] She was also cast as Ella in The Heart Within.

She also acted in the BBC's A Man from the Sun, a television drama documentary that for the first time portrayed the lives of Caribbean settlers in post-war Britain.^[6]

Counselling

During the later part of her career Pauline, then known as Pauline Crabbe, worked extensively in counselling unmarried mothers and was involved in championing counselling for pregnant teenagers, especially those under the age of 16, to determine whether abuse had been involved.^[1]

In the early 1960s she was welfare secretary of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child.^[7] In 1966 she helped form the Haverstock Housing Trust, and in the following year was appointed to the Housing Corporation.^[8] In 1977, Pauline featured as a speaker at the Altrusa Convention,^[9] as the Secretary to the Brook Advisory Centres.^[10]]

For Channel 4's Faces of the Family show in 1994, Pauline appeared as the matriarch of an extended family.^[11]

For her role and responsibility towards women, she was quoted in the First Woman Sheriffs in the United States on the front page:

"Any woman who is a first in a field previously dominated by men has the responsibility of opening doors for other women."^[12]

Works