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Photographs uncovering Britain’s black history before the Windrush Generation have been unveiled in a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery.

Portraits of black Britons dating back to the invention of photography have been unearthed after 125 years wrapped in tissue paper and hidden from public view.

Black Chronicles is a collection of portraits of black British figures, challenging the assumption that there was not a black presence in Britain before the arrival of SS Empire Windrush from the Caribbean in 1948.

Curator Renée Mussai said: “These images have been wrapped up in brown tissue paper and string for 125 years, not seen and not accessible in the public realm until now.

“We know that black people have been in this country for hundreds and hundreds of years, a history that can be traced back all the way to the Roman Empire.

“However, in terms of a visual record, we often seem to locate those images in the twentieth century in a kind of post-war, Windrush moment.

“The truth is, however, that there are photographic records and evidence that really show a very rich and diverse black presence that existed in the Victorian times, in the Edwardian times, and way before that.

“The objective is to gently disrupt this national narrative that is often dominated by the arrival of the Empire Windrush, and look into the archive, extract and release images in order to build a different image.”

The exhibition includes portraits of black sitters from African, Indian and Caribbean backgrounds, including in Victorian London.

A series of images focuses on Sarah Forbes Bonetta, who was a protégée of Queen Victoria, and represents one of the earliest images of a black woman photographed in 1860s Britain.

Other images include the first ever Indian MP elected to the House of Commons and heavyweight boxing champion Peter Jackson, known as the ‘Black Prince’.

Head of archive at Autograph ABP, Renée Mussai, added that: “A majority of the images in the display are formal studio portraits – these images would have been commissioned often as part of a promotional contract.

“They were meant to be distributed as a carte de visite, or cabinet card, so they were visual calling cards often traded amongst people and photographers would sell them.

“If you were a figure in the public realm – whether as a performer, or a dignitary or a member of the royal household – you would have your portrait commissioned by one of these studios and then circulated in order to increase the recognisability of your image and to visually exist within a kind of celebrity culture of the time.”

The free exhibition – a result of collaboration between Autograph ABP and Getty Images’ Hulton Archive – runs at the National Portrait Gallery until December 11, 2016.