Actor, singer and dancer Layton Williams was born on 13 September 1994 in Bury, Greater Manchester. Aged 12, he moved to London to star in Billy Elliot the Musical.
“Moving to London at the age of 12, I loved it,” he says. “I started to meet people that were like me. All I’ve known is being gay as a negative thing, and all of a sudden this new world opened up to me. My Mum’s mum’s mum was a Londoner, so if there’s history of my family in London, that’s kind of iconic, because it’s the first place that accepted me.”
To start his journey, Layton visits his mother in Bury. They reminisce about his great grandmother Josephine Kirby, known as ‘Cat Nana’. She was from Hoxton in London. Her parents were William and Matilda Downing. William fought in the Second World War, and Layton is intrigued by a postcard he sent to Josephine as a girl called ‘Souvenir From France’.
William’s military records show that he joined the army aged 17, in 1919. He was a remount rider, responsible for training cavalry horses. He is praised for his riding and leadership skills. William left the army in 1931, married and had a daughter, Josephine. But he was still in the reserves, and when the Second World War began in 1939, he was called back in to service.
Layton meets military historian Dr Sarah-Louise Miller on board the Papillon, a boat moored on the Thames. She tells him that William was stationed in France at the start of the war. At first it was ‘Phoney War’, a period when not much was happening. But in 1940, Germany invaded France. The British army was overwhelmed and forced to retreat to Dunkirk. In the famous ‘miracle of Dunkirk’, 330,000 men were evacuated by volunteers on ‘little ships’ such as Papillon. Among them was William Downing.
“He was clearly a very courageous man,” Layton says. “I’m just super proud.”
Next, Layton meets genealogist Laura Berry. She says she’s traced the Downing line back to his 5x great grandfather Edward Matthew Downing. Edward was baptised in Piccadilly in 1812 and an 1865 trade directory lists him as a furniture broker in Camberwell Road, South London – near where Layton lives. Layton’s thrilled that his London roots go so far back.
In 1847, Edward was running a furniture dealers, which closed. In 1848, he had to go to debtors’ prison. He also went bankrupt again in 1865, and he died in 1869.
Edward’s life ended in poverty, but his parents were more affluent. In his sister’s 1820 baptism record his family’s address is given as the high-class 1 Golden Square in Soho and his father, also Edward Downing, is described as a ‘tuner’.
Layton visits Hammerwood Park in rural East Sussex, where he meets historian Dr Marie Kent. She tells him that Edward Senior was a piano tuner and agent for the Stoddart family, an important piano-making firm who supplied the royal family.
Next, Layton wants to find out more about his father’s side of the family. His father’s parents Clarence and Berneta Williams moved to Britain from Jamaica. Layton goes to Porus in Jamaica, where his great grandmother Jane was from. The pastor of the local church tells him that Jane, real name Iris, was the daughter of Jonathan and Ellen Bradford. Ellen, maiden name Denton, was a washerwoman who worked hard to build a better life for her family. Ellen’s father Alexander Denton was born in 1825 as a slave. His mother Jessie was born in Africa and forcibly taken to Jamaica. After slavery was abolished, Porus became a free village on the site of a former plantation, where former slaves could own their own land.
“I’m proud to have come from people who went through that, but came through the other side,” Layton says. “It’s really beautiful and it’s important that we don’t forget, because it’s real and it happened and it was sad, and I’m sure it was awful but we’ve made it here. I will look back at this experience for sure and be really happy and really proud of the family that came before me.”
