Jane Schon, Collections Officer, Library and Archive, writes: Eric Walrond was an unassuming Caribbean man who lived in Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire, in the 1940s. He worked at a local factory, lodged in the town and went 'under the radar' - apart from being the only Black resident in a town of 4,000 people. What many of his neighbours did not realise, however, was that Walrond was an established writer and the author of Tropic Death, a novel considered to be a classic of 1920s New York’s ‘Harlem Renaissance’.
Published in 1926, Tropic Death comprised of ten short stories, reflects Walrond’s own experiences of living within the British Empire as a Caribbean man. Through the lens of several Black characters, his stories centre around themes of migration, death and Caribbean culture. His book, addressing colour and class, helped him win the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1927 in the hope he may write further novels, which due to circumstance he never did.
Walrond’s fiction vividly recalls his upbringing in British Guiana (now Guyana) and Panama, in addition to American racism. He later moved to France and then London, before arriving in Wiltshire at the outbreak of World War II. He records city evacuees in rural Wiltshire, and how locals both welcomed and ostracised Black American GIs, Commonwealth soldiers and Black Britons stationed on Salisbury Plain.
In 1952, poor mental health led Walrond to self-refer to the Roundway Hospital in Devizes. Here, he became the assistant editor for the Roundway Review, a magazine for the hospital which was overseen by members of staff. He contributed to 40 of the 50 issues before his discharge in 1957, which included the stories of the racism Black troops faced whilst stationed in Wiltshire. After leaving the hospital in 1956 he moved to London, working for an import-export firm in his later years. He died of a heart attack in 1966 and is buried in Abney Park Cemetery, London.
This signed, first edition copy of Tropic Death includes a short message by Walrond to his literary patron and agent Edna Worthley Underwood. Mrs Underwood, who was crucial in helping him reach literary success. The signed copy was the highlight of Wiltshire Museum’s special exhibition Walrond: A Caribbean writer living in Wiltshire, which ran from Autumn 2023 to Spring 2024. This exhibition detailed Walrond’s life moving from the Caribbean to New York, where he wrote Tropic Death, until he finally settled in the Wiltshire countryside during World War II. The exhibition and display of the novel aimed to draw attention to Eric’s writing and the political issues which he sought to tackle.
The purchase of Tropic Death diversifies and adds to the Museum’s collection of Walrond’s writing. It forms an important part of a small, but growing, collection of artefacts representing people of colour who have lived in Wiltshire.
