Betty Campbell (1934 - 2017)

Betty Campbell was told that a working-class black girl could never succeed, and that her desire to become a teacher would face “insurmountable” problems.

She is now immortalised in a statue in Cardiff; Wales’ first black headteacher and responsible for putting Black culture and history on Cardiff’s curriculum.

Born in Butetown in 1934, Betty Campell was brought up in Tiger Bay where her mother struggled to make ends meet after her father was killed during the Second World War. She was always a keen reader and won a High School scholarship, but when she said that she wanted to become a teacher, she was told “Oh, my dear, the problems would be insurmountable”. 

Betty Campbell once said that this response made her cry. She declared that this was “the first time I ever cried in school. But it made me more determined; I was going to be a teacher by hook or by crook”

She was one of the first six female students at Cardiff Teacher Training College and qualified as a teacher before working her way up to headteacher. Determined to introduce her students to Black history, she championed multi-cultural education and helped to set up Black History Month.

Her statue is thought to be the first to a named, non-fictional woman in a public outdoor space in Wales. It was commissioned following a public vote from a shortlist of Welsh women, testimony to her significance and influence in Wales.

Read Alex Wharton’s poem Black and Bronze, a celebration of Betty's life. 

Black and Bronze

In this city,

buildings rise around me.

Borrowing slivers of sky, born

out of concrete.  I watch clouds

float by in the reflection of glass.

I am thinking, watching, living on,

                               Black and Bronze

I see the weight of human thought

as they busy their bodies past.  And

I am here, for those who stop, think,

watch - and those who drift-off.  I am

here for the children, books and

education. You should know that many

tears have shaped the face you see, but

anger too. Pain and passion, pride,

resilience. This is me, made with love,

carved with trust.  And I am proud.

Because I, am us. All of us. 

The questions we ask, truths we seek.

I am here because I need to be.

I was never afraid to dream. To bust

down walls, break boundaries.

    So come, watch the world spin.

Travel your thoughts through

history and look out with hope.                  

They told me I couldn’t, but I

proved them wrong.

I am thinking, watching,

living on.

For Betty Campbell