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The aPProPriaTion oF a CommerCial Trademark:  
The golliwog as a CulTural marker 

robert mACgregor

Peebles is an ancient small rural town in the border region of Southern Scotland. 
It was granted a Royal Burgh Charter in 1140 by King David I of Scotland. A major 
claim to fame is that it is the home of and a key breeding center for the world-
famous Border collie.

Infamy surrounded the town in June 1991, when what should have been 
a joyous annual children’s parade turned into a national incident over a small 
number of children who were “blackened” up in a minstrel/Samboesque mode 
of dress. Critics of the costumes and “blacken-faced” young people saw them as 
golliwogs, a highly criticized doll-like figure from Enid Blyton’s “Noddy Series” of 
children’s books. Others saw them as a golliwog, the international trade character, 
of a major British jam manufacturer, James Robertson and Sons. Numerous 
dimensions that surrounded this incident and many other related points of view 
will be critically analyzed.

The Golliwog, a Brief History

Historically, in Britain, Florence K. Upton (1873-1922) used a golliwog figure in 
a series of children’s books. Soon after the publication of the first book in 1895 
it became a commercially used symbol to sell a large array of products, such as 
toys, games, dolls, postcards, novelties, dishes, packaging, and, in the 1920s, food 
products. From the late 1920s until 2001, the golly was used by Robertson’s, the 
jam manufacturer (Nicholson 1981; Hartlap 1984, Fisher 1975).

Throughout the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, controversy has ranged from 
the local grassroots to public debates, discussions of the golliwog in the House of 
Commons, letters to her Majesty the Queen, and many other avenues of discourse. 
All of these discussions have basically focused on whether or not the golliwog was 
a cherished doll, a cultural icon, an integral toy/doll that many British children 
had played with and loved; or was it a racist image, a play object that could instill 
racist values in children and psychologically harm minority, non-white British 
children?

January of 1987 marked a watershed point in this ongoing heated debate. 
British book publisher Macdonald Purnell decided to delete the Golliwogs from 
Enid Blyton’s “Noddy Series.” The director of children’s publishing at Macdonald 
Purnell said:

We have produced a completely new Noddy library and the decision 
was taken to revise the text, the illustrations and characters. A 
decision was taken to take the golliwogs out. A lot of people feel 
uncomfortable about gollies either because they are felt to be racist or 
because they always seem to be villains (Bates 1987, 2).

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The new Noddy books of 1987 were welcomed by the Commission for Racial 
Equality (C.R.E.). A spokesperson said, “We had a number of complaints from 
people who felt that the depiction of the Noddy characters was insensitive.”

Writers and critics of children’s literature Dixon (1978) and Mullan (1987) 
discussed at length the serious, damaging implications that these grotesque, 
malevolent characters may perhaps have conveyed to young minds. Dixon 
believed that the golliwog was a part of most children’s fictional nursery. 
He suggested focusing upon two considerations. Firstly, the golliwog was a 
standardized racial caricature, the Sambo, the minstrel, a creation of whites. 
Secondly, the names of the characters were widely used as racial epithets.

Seemingly, this grotesque doll, Dixon believed, was meant to confirm the 
connection and association of fear with black faces in particular. These naughty, 
mean, evil and menacing roles allowed Blyton to portray blackness a la golliwogs 
a sufficient cause for their dislike by young readers. Her “The Three Golliwogs,” 
published in the early 1940s, had three golliwogs called Golly, Wollie, and Nigger 
who were disliked by Angelae, their mistress, because of “the blackness of their 
faces.” The names, as stated previously, did not change until 1973, and the “Three 
Golliwogs” book was sold into the early 1990s. As early as 1964 some libraries 
phased out the Blyton books.

Mullan reinforced the outlook that it was extremely important not to perpetuate 
racism by drawing misleading stereotypes of cultures and races in literature, 
especially those focused on children, where the images tended to work on a 
symbolic and unconscious level.

As Elaine Moss (1986) has argued, the 1970s were years in which “Britain was 
coming to terms with its post-Imperial role as a multicultural nation” and this 
had its effect on the content of the content of children’s books. The editors of 
Children’s Books for a Multi-Cultural Society (1985) argued that unless:

we want our children to develop an inward-looking, insular 
perspective, educating them for the future must imply educating them 
to live and play a positive role in a society where cultural diversity is 
recognised and respect (Mullan 1987, 124).

Wilkinson (1984, 1987) discussed the psycho-cultural analysis and impact of 
black dolls and role stereotypes. She believed the vivid symbolic artifact called 
the golliwog was a most grotesque example of frightening images. Ironically, she 
stated, psychologists continued to criticize children’s play with golliwogs “on the 
grounds that the black face, the pop eyes and the red mouth are the unconscious 
source of many childish nightmares” (Wilkinson 1987, 21).

Forster (1989) condemned Blyton’s The Little Black Doll (1937, 1964) because 
of its character ‘Sambo’ and Oliver Tinkle’s The Golliwog (1982). Forster stated the 
golliwog had rapidly established itself among the characters of the English nursery, 
but by way of its longstanding use as a commercial trademark, it had entered the 
repertory of contemporary racist abuse (73) ; more on this point later.

Opposition to Macdonald Purnell’s decision was immediate. Critics of the 
changes saw it as a process of degollification, a bowdlerisation of the 1940s 

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classic. Newspaper columnists called opponents of the golliwog ‘barmy’, ‘the 
loony left’, left-wingers, labour councillors, left-wing councils dividing the right 
from the left with political labels such as those forementioned. Newspapers that 
carried articles on the Macdonald Purnell decision would include the News of the 
World, the Daily Mail, the Daily Star, the Guardian, the Sun, the Daily Mirror, 
and the Daily Telegraph; see works cited for more complete details.

As previously stated, many other forms of protest against the golliwog gained 
national momentum in the 1980s. Although protestations against the trademark 
had begun approximately 30 years previous to the Blyton affair, historically, 
Robertson’s golliwog appears to have been used by the firm since about 1910. 
It was in 1928, however, that the lapel badge began to be used as a three-token 
redemption item. Children and mothers were encouraged to buy a jar of jam, 
cutting from the label a small stamp-like token, collect three, mail them to the 
company, and receive an enamel badge of the golliwog. To date, well over twenty 
million badges of the golliwog have been distributed. The golliwog also appeared 
on cups, towels, pens, pencils, writing pads, erasers, cutlery, ties, and other items, 
all purchasable from Robertsons (see examples).

One major campaigner against the perceived racist promotional items was 
the National Council Against Racism in Children’s Books; other institutions 
would include The Commission for Racial Equality, the Greater London Council, 
the Camden Council for Community Relation, Searchlight magazine, Dragon’s 
Teeth, the North Lewisham Project, the George Jackson Media Collective, the 
Merseyside Labour Council, and many, many individuals from various walks of 
life. All protesting discourses intersected on the complex, multidimensional, widely 
circulated stereotype. The ‘grotesque’ golliwogs, whether portrayed in books, 
commercial trademarks, or numerous and varied commercial items, all had a wide, 
simple grin, large, bulbous, round eyes, a shock of fuzzy/wool-like hair, and thick 
lips. The clothes are always in bright, basic colours: usually red blue, green and 
yellow. The trousers frequently have blue and white stripes; the brightly colored 
jacket is short, and the golliwog usually wears a bow tie. This image clearly 
indicated the historical associations, the southern Sambo, the Minstrels of ‘burnt 
cork’, vaudeville, theatrical fame and infamy. One must also remember that until 
the 1973 Pan edition, when golliwogs’ names change, the three Blyton characters 
were called ‘Nigger’, ‘Wollie’, and ‘Golly’. These racial and racist epithets were 
changed to ‘Wiggie’, ‘Waggie’, and ‘Wollie’.

Examination of racial labels and their conventional meanings, as in Blyton’s 
golliwog trio, reveals some insights into Britain’s racial outlook towards such 
names; that is, they were acceptable. MacGregor (1993) highlighted examples 
where the word ‘golly’ and golliwog epithets were used in numerous social 
settings. Salman Rushdie, in Hamilton’s New Yorker article (1996), recalled the 
school life of the well-known author in England. In 1961, at the age of 13, Rushdie 
was sent to Rugby Public School in England, His time there was one of taunts and 
anti-Indian jokes. He described catching a studymate crayoning “wogs go home” 
on a wall. The slogan, he thought, was clearly aimed at him. He said, “I went 
insane … I banged him as hard as I could against the wall he was writing on “ 
(94). Rushdie has called this a determining moment in his school career; indeed, 

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his whole attitude toward life in England. It was the moment when he learned 
how to strike back. Later, in an end-of-term satirical revenue during his final year, 
he heard himself lampooned: “What is this shape ‘midst the nebulous fog?’ Merely 
the resident Bradley House wog” (95).

Rushdie, in his book of essays, Imaginary Homelands (1991), openly discussed 
racism in Britain; he believed that the English language historically coined 
many terms of racial abuse such as ‘nigger’ and ‘wog’ and posed the question, 
“Can there be another language with so wide-ranging a vocabulary of racist 
denigration”(130). He went on to say, “Yes, the golliwog, too; at football grounds, 
black players are taunted with the cry, “Get back on your jam jar’” (146). This last 
example was widely used as one of many racist slogans that football hooligans 
hurled at black soccer players in the 1980s.

Describing in some detail numerous examples of racial labeling and role 
stereotypes from various written sources, we now turn our attention to the 1991 
Golly Parade at the Peebles Beltane Festival.

The Golliwog Controversy: Beltane Festival

On February 15, 1991, The Peebleshire 
News reported that the wearing of 
golliwogs costumes had been banned 
from the 1991 Beltane Festival Parade 
in Peebles. It was found that the 
costume contravened the spirit of the 
Regional Guidelines on Multicultural 
Education. The costumes owned by 
the Beltane Committee and stored at 
the town’s Kingsland Primary School 
were not to be used in the Children’s 
Parade. In 1990, a Mrs. Margaret 
Macintosh, a retired schoolteacher living 
in Edinburgh expressed her concern 
about the costumes She was shocked 
when she saw ten children riding on 
the back of a truck dressed as golliwogs 
and in blackface. She thought that the 
costumes and blackface were racist and 
she offered fifty pounds to help replace 
the gowns. The Festival Committee met 
with the local school board and the 
“no” golliwog decision was reached, 
reluctantly.

It is worthwhile to note that the 
Regional Guidelines on Multi-cultural 
Education were established in 1986 by a special working group under the title 
“Multi-Cultural Education in Primary Schools.” It was up to the head teachers to 

Figure 1. Marchers in the Beltane 
parade in Peebles, 1991.

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decide on the implementation of the Guidelines and until Mrs. Macintosh’s protest 
no one locally had thought about or given their opinions on the Beltane costumes. 
The document stated: “Everyone involved in education must instill in children a 
respect for themselves and other human beings regardless of race, color, or creed.” 
It was not clear why it took five years for the guidelines to be applied to the 
Beltane costumes and why other stereotypical costumes — Arabs, Chinese —  
were also not affected and eliminated.

Once the banning decision was made public, there arose much local protest 
against that outcome. The first major player to enter the fray was the former 
principal and teacher of history at Peebles High School. Ted Smith “begged” the 
committee to reconsider its decision. Part of the text of his letters follows:

Two of the highlights of the Beltane Festival are the Children’s 
procession and the parade of floats containing numerous characters, 
some of which represent real-life people but not all. The rest may 
be mythical creatures, animals, or even toys such as soldiers and 
golliwogs. The latter simply depict dolls or inanimate objects which 
like teddy bears are usually to be seen on a child’s pillow. To pretend 
that they are racially offensive is so ludicrous that one is inclined to 
retort ‘You cannot be serious’ (Keddie 1991, 1).

Mr. Turnbull, the chairperson, of the annual general meeting for the Festival, 
went on to read a second letter that had been sent to a national newspaper. 
Scott Kerr believed that Mrs. Macintosh’s offer of fifty pounds was offensively 
patronizing. He believed that she evidently failed to understand that education 
was about establishing children’s community identity and had nothing to do with 
indoctrinating socialist shibboleths. This is an interesting last comment, particularly 
since it invokes the word ‘socialist,’ which has somewhat specific politically 
ideological overtones. This reference to socialism and the political left reappeared 
in numerous ways throughout the Golliwog debate.

During the week of March 15, 1991, the Beltane Festival Committee announced 
that it had reached a compromise with the head teachers of the three local primary 
schools. The members felt that under the Education Guidelines covering Multi-
Cultural Education in Schools the following changes would be made:

As far as the Beltane Committee is concerned these costumes were 
never intended to be seen as any form of racial jibe, but were 
meant to represent a Golliwog doll, as they have done for many 
years. However, we agree that perhaps the term ‘Golliwog’ was now 
outdated and could, in some eyes, cause offence.

The Golliwog costumes will be used within new characters to 
be created, called Rag Dolls. They will be placed in the Beltane 
Programme under ‘Toyland.’

It is hoped that this clarification of the much loved character will end 
this controversy (Golliwogs 1991, 1, 2).

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The statement did not specify if the new characters would be “blacked up,” but 
one committee member believed that the black make-up would cover the entire 
face and not leave white rings around the eyes and the mouth, as had been 
the case with the previous golliwogs. He believed that the woolly wigs would 
continue to be used.

The golliwog compromise did not succeed and one week later, it was 
announced by lan Thorburn that although there had been initial agreement, the 
staff of Kingsland Primary School, who had to handle the costumes, refused to 
accept the compromise. On March 22, the school staff gave Mr. Thorburn the 
following statement:

Although it was felt after a meeting between Beltane Committee 
office-bearers and the head teachers of Peebles Primary schools that a 
compromise could be reached as to how the golliwog’s costumes may 
be used in future years, this has proved not to be the case.

The staff of Kingsland feel that to use the costumes with 
accompanying blackface and hair is unacceptable.

It is with regret, therefore, that we have decided that the costumes be 
returned to the Beltane Committee (It’s Goodbye Gollies 1991, 1).

Head teacher of Kingsland Mrs. Marlene Galashan, who had agreed to the 
compromise solution of renaming the dolls, said that her staff believed that the 
costumes were still “golliwogs with another name” and felt unable to administer 
them (Golliwogs Renamed 1991). Reaction to the banning of the golliwogs was 
quick and, at times, demeaning. Ex-Provost Alex Walker told the Peebleshire News:

I can contain myself no longer. As far as I can see there are a few 
jackaroos who are posing a threat to our way of life and creating 
problems where none existed.

Howard Purdie, the local self-styled bard of Traquair, had the following satirical 
article published in the local newspaper. He called Mrs. Macintosh a Mrs. Mary 
Maclntrouble who, at 91, objected to the Peebles police wearing black uniforms: 
“Your policemen, I see a black-and-white minstrel. That is a racial stereotype and 
should not be tolerated.” When she was asked what sort of uniform would fit the 
situation in Peebles:

“Oh, I envisage something really colourful,” trilled the excitable lady 
who used to teach Mixamotosis at the Golliwog’s Primary School. 
“Something like funny-worded t” shirts, tartan boxer shorts and 
American baseball caps.”

“After all, our friendly bobbies should keep up with fashionable 
trends” (1991).

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In the satire, Mrs. Maclntrouble sent the fifty pounds to the desk sergeant for 
new-style uniforms. The bard asked the policeman, Al Jolson, aged 113, if he was 
concerned about the lady in question.

“Mammy!” sang the policeman, frantically waving his white-gloved 
hands. “I’d walk a million miles for one of your smiles, Mammy!”

Eyes bulging enormously, our friendly bobby tap-danced on the pavement outside 
the police station, causing acute embarrassment to a person from Edinburgh 
(Keddie 1991).

By May 31, the controversy had reached a national audience and more and 
more attention was focused on the parade and the town. Sides in the issue were 
chosen, and it was rumored that the National Front would be at the Festival to 
defend the pro-golliwog side and that anti-racists groups would give their support 
to the ban the golliwog position. The situation was getting out of hand. There was 
also a proposed mass “black-up” by Peebleans protesting Mrs. Macintosh’s ‘outside 
interference’ in seeking to have the golliwogs banned.

A Mr. White, a local businessman, put up a prize of fifty pounds for the ‘Best 
Beltane Golly.’ Mr. Edge, a local hotel owner, announced that he would change 
the name of his hotel, The Green Tree, to The Golliwog’s Rest, for June 21 and 
22. Doug Mann, the Peebles singer-songwriter, saw his protest song “I Wanna Be 
a Golly in the Beltane Parade” become a local cu!t hit and eventually sell almost 
2,000 copies (Mann 1991). A well-known black dancer and television personality, 
Clive Donaldson, would support the pro-golliwog group. Ironically, his stage 
name is Wiggi, which is one of the golliwogs in the Enid Blyton series The Three 
Golliwogs. He read some of the newspaper reports, and he was not offended at all 
by the golliwog costumes.

Two weeks before the six days of festivities, some of the local officials started 
to worry about the “untold damage” to the event and to the future well-being 
of the event. An editorial of June 7, 1991, tried in an objective manner to clearly 
outline the two positions in the golliwog controversy. The writer went on to 
say that in fact the picture of the pros and cons of the golliwog were more 
complicated than they seemed and the nuances might be lost in some of the 
stories that were published in the tabloid press. A golliwog parade might be 
portrayed as some kind of Ku Klux Klan rally in a red-neck backwater of Scotland. 
Throughout the newspaper articles, there appeared to be a growing acceptance 
that there would be a golly protest parade. Seeing this protest as an inevitability, 
the local authorities pleaded with the would-be marchers to take to the street on 
Friday night and not to interfere with the Saturday’s Red Letter Day Parade for the 
local children.

Throughout the major protest time frame, the Peebleshire News started a 
“Golliwog Forum” to allow people to voice their opinions with letters to the 
newspaper. From February 22 to June 28, 1991, 37 letters were printed in the 
paper. From February 22 to June 28, 1991, 37 letters were printed in the paper. 
There were twenty-eight letters for keeping the golliwog costumes, eight against 
keeping the costumes, and one neutral reply; approximately seventy-five percent 

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of the respondents wanted to keep the golliwog costumes and the woolly hair and 
the blacked face.

Trying to discover just how long the golliwog imagery had been part of the 
children’s parade was difficult. Some of the age estimates say that the golliwogs 
had been in the festivities since 1901 (ninety years), one said seventy years or 
sixty years. Whatever date was the real one was not that important; what was 
more germane was that the tradition of the golliwog was old and firmly fixed and 
accepted by the majority of the respondents. Initially, Mrs. Macintosh was the lone 
dissident, with some slowly growing support.

The major theme that repeatedly appeared in the golliwog support letters was 
basically that the costume and the blackface were traditional images that were part 
and parcel of Britain’s heritage. The image was simply that of a harmless doll and 
only that, with no possible racist connotations.

Numerous people also strongly indicated that Mrs. Macintosh was a limousine 
liberal from Edinburgh, a sociologist, and not a true native Peeblean (a 
Gutterbluid). In fact, Mrs. Macintosh was born in Peebles and had worked in the 
community before moving to Edinburgh. This idea of an outsider causing trouble 
in a local community was echoed time and time again, as my on-site interviews 
and correspondence will show.

As a Stoorie Foot (someone who had left the community), Mrs. Macintosh 
defended her opinions and her six-month campaign to get rid of the golliwogs in 
the following manner:

1.  She firmly believed that this was not the most important issue 
but it is an issue. She believed that to many people the golliwog 
was an offensive image.

2.  The abusive term ‘wog’ which black people have to endure 
daily comes from this innocent source.

3.  Britain in general was becoming more racist and there were 
many ways of combating it. This protest was her way. She 
believed that schools should be promoting positive images of 
all ethnic and racial groups. She believed that golliwogs were 
unhelpful and were an impediment to good teaching.

4.  Her offer of a cash donation for the cost of the replacement 
costumes was neither generous nor patronizing. She felt if 
change occurred because of her action she should contribute to 
that change (Macintosh 1991, 7).

For the persons who saw the costumes as unacceptable, their basic point was that 
the United Kingdom was becoming a multi-racial society where greater tolerance 
and humanity to others were a necessity. Peebles was seen as a town that was 
parochial, insular and unsympathetic to the needs and feelings of ethnic minorities.

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What I have tried to convey in the previous pages about the golliwog is that the 
image and name, in many different forums, have been controversial for many years. 
Considering the length of the controversy and the widely debated, widely reported 
nature of the various incidents, it is difficult to believe that some people of Peebles 
were not aware of the incidents; more and more the image of the golliwog was 
being seen as racist by a substantial segment of the population in Britain.

Within the town itself, a number of local “poets” and a well known folk singer 
had their works published and recorded which in themselves are revealing, The 
three verses of George Lewis clearly showed his sentiment and the frequent tie-in 
to the Robertson’s jam product:

“THE BIRTH OF A RAG DOLL”  
Sin-How nice to learn my Golliwog wasn’t just a jolly wog, but sad his 
smiling black friendly face, not longer will my table grace.

The golden shreds, and orange jelly too, hot buttered toast, and tea 
to brew, there’s something missing, this I know, I don’t want my 
Golliwog to go.

But nothing now can bring him back, you see his face was much too 
black for two-bob-bits afraid to see, he’s just another chap, like thee 
and me (1991).

Part of the wording in “The Birth of a Rag Doll” clearly echoed the long held 
outlook by the traditionalists that the golliwog image is nothing more than a doll, 
a cultural artifact, of folkloric and commercial Britain; note the references to jams. 

Perhaps the artistic endeavor with the greatest longevity was Doug Mann’s 
recording of “I Wanna Be A Golly in the Beltane Parade” (Golly Song Released 
1991, 2). The words suggest the importance of rules, the interference by outside 
forces, yet acknowledge the golly problem did exist. Doug eventually became 
so identified with the song that he was called “The Golly Man.” All the sales, the 
attention, and the controversy apparently delighted the artist. These words were 
recorded from the tape of the song sent to the author by the writer Doug Mann:

I WANNA BE A GOLLY IN THE BELTANE PARADE

I’d just one ambition when I was but a boy, Just one ambition tae fill 
my heart with job,

No to enter a profession or tae tak a trade  
But just to be a golly in the Beltane Parade.

Chorus: 

In the Beltane parade, in the Beltane parade, 
I wanna be a golly in the Beltane parade.

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A wifie up in Edinburgh frustrated aw’ my plans, Declaring golly’s 
racial and said they should be banned, She read it in some guidelines 
and guidelines must be right, And who would are tae argue when it’s 
Doon in black and white

Tae dress as an Egyptian I hear wid be just fine, 
A geisha or a gaucho frae distant Argentine, 
A songie Hielan laddie or ev’n an Injun brave, 
So what’s so wrong with gollies in the Beltane Parade?

Peebles golly problem is important there’s nae doubt, Ye’d think from 
a’ bickering, sae bitter is the rage, Small wonder they’re a symbol on a 
jar o’marmalade.

The Parade and The Gollies’ Protest

The first evidence of a “golly” protest took place on Wednesday, when two gollies 
waded across the River Tweed. Some say there were fifty; some counted seventy-
six, and other observers say over one hundred golliwog protesters marched in 
the parade. The actual figure was not all that important, but the fact did remain 
that despite the national media attention given to the event a sizeable section 
of the community dressed as gollies and blackened their faces, all to protest the 
withdrawal of the ten children’s golly costumes. Some of the titles and images that 
I researched include the following: Kingsland Escapees (Primary School “home” 
of the costumes), Gollie Busters (Ghost Busters film), Golly For Us, I am no Golly, 
Robertsons, Oily and his golliwog, Persil washes gollies whiter, Jollie Gollies, Rev. 
I. M. Golly, A Funeral Cortege, A Golly Detector Van, and Mrs. Maclntrouble. For 
some of the actual costumes that were used in the parade, see figure 1.

Rumors had circulated throughout the town on Friday that contingents of 
the National Front and the Anti-Racist League would be making an appearance, 
but they did not prevail. Nevertheless the media was out in force, and a BBC 
television crew did record the parade. Their interviewer and spokesperson was 
the black actor Craig Charles. Charles told the viewers of the eventual program 
“Them and Us” that he found the golliwog costumes “a hideous caricature of 
black people and offensive.” After interviewing the owner of the Green Tree Hotel 
who had changed its name to The Golly Rest for two days, he turned to the still 
running camera and said: “I think the people of Peebles need a good kick up the 
backside.”

Some other media personnel believed that the golly protesters showed “a good 
humored gesture of defiance.” Mrs. Galashan, of Kingsland Primary School, closed 
off the school’s involvement by saying:

As an educational establishment we are concerned with the academic 
and social education of our pupils in preparing them for life in the 
modern world. We must not be seen to promote anything that might 
be taken as racially offensive.

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Sadly, however, the staff of Kingsland Primary believed they had been let down 
by the Border’s area School administration. Mrs. Galashan took a swipe at the 
educationalists by saying:

We have not actually had any official backing from any official body 
even among professionals, the whole of the Region. I don’t know 
what that says, but I find it rather sad (It’s Goodbye Gollies 1991, 1).

As one writer from the region wrote: “If golliwog costumes in a children’s parade 
are an anachronism they are not alone. Why it happened this year, and not during 
the Jam Jar row of the ‘70s, is still a mystery.”

Cultural Markers and the Appropriation of Names and Images 

Said (1993) believed that self-definition is one of the activities practiced by all 
cultures. It has a rhetoric, a set of occasions, such as festival, and a local and 
regional acceptance and familiarity all its own. Peebles had its Beltane Festival and 
parade for close to one hundred years.

This festival and parade were part of the local cultural traditions. In 1991 an 
‘outsider’ threatened the longevity and continuation of a black-face’ tradition. The 
‘insiders,’ the locals, took to the walls and defended this cultural icon atavistically. 
According to Said, people were mobilized, throwing their outlooks and discourses 
back to an earlier imperial, colonialistic time (1993, 37). He also believed that 
culture comes to be associated, often aggressively, with a nation that differentiates 
‘US’ from ‘THEM.’

Rehin (1975, 1981) discussed the long history of the Harlequin character, Jim 
Crow, to blackface minstrels in Victorian London and its seaside resorts. Hern 
(1967) discussed blackfaced minstrelsy in England’s seaside resorts and theatres. 
Pickering (1986) was interested in how minstrelsy symbolically worked out 
questions about the status of white Victorians posed within a framework of social 
and biological and class orders and distinctions. He went on to say that minstrelsy 
in Britain was responsible for crystallizing and establishing certain stereotypes of 
blacks and black ‘racial’ characteristics in Britain. In helping to shape a symbolic 
lexicon that people carried away in their minds after leaving minstrel shows, the 
presentations contributed to the development of racial prejudice. Later, when 
scapegoating took place towards blacks and other visible minorities, they had a 
ready-made lexicon of derogatory ideas, images, and names at hand: ‘Sambo’, 
‘Wog’, ‘Golliwog’, and ‘Nigger’.

As of November 2000, this lexicon, this ideological legacy in Britain had still 
to be overcome (Pickering 87). Lively (1999) briefly mentioned the successful 
television show in Britain ‘The Black and White Minstrel Show,’ which, in the 
1960s, attracted an audience of over twenty million viewers on approximately fifty 
percent of Britain at that time. It ran until 1978. Even today, a continuing debate 
appears in the media concerning AI Jolson impersonators who appear in British 
benevolent venues and local halls (Kuttner et al. 1987).

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Britain has a long tradition of differentiating blacks as ‘THEM’ from its white 
population as ‘US,’ the insiders; this ideological outlook almost always is discussed 
with some degree of xenophobia. Culture and its racial markers provide a 
source of identity. The numerous arguments that have been presented in this 
paper against changing the cultural icon known as the golliwog were linked 
to the ‘loony left’ a liberal discourse and philosophy associated with hybridity 
and multiculturalism. Culture conceived in this way can become a protective 
boundary, an enclosure supported in some instances by manufactured commercial 
constructions such as the golliwog stereotype.

Ziff and Rao (1997) have defined cultural appropriation as ‘the taking’ from 
a culture that is not one’s own of intellectual property or cultural expressions. 
Expressions include artifacts, history and knowledge (1). Cultural appropriation 
is a multidimensional phenomenon. In the case of the golliwog, the ‘black-faced’ 
minstrel-like figure, where and when and how did the act of cultural blackening 
one’s face begin? Lively and Rehlins both discussed the very origins of the practice 
of’ ‘blacking up.’ In the context of English Morris dancing, Lively traces its origins 
to Africa and especially Morocco. The French Harlequin, or Italian Arlecchino, 
may have had its origins in the late Middle Ages. Rehlins discussed the early 
English example of 1377, when the Lord Mayor of London visited King Richard 
II at Kensington. Then and there mummers disguised as African princes, for 
example, danced and entertained the audience. In 1510, at the court of Henry 
VII, foreign ambassadors were entertained by Henry in a ‘blackface’ disguise, 
dressed as a Turk accompanied by twelve torchbearers “like Moreskoes, their 
faces blacke” (Rehlins 1975, 686). The humorous Negro made his appearance 
on the English stage in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Throughout 
most of the nineteenth century Negro minstrelsy was popular as vaudeville, 
theatrical entertainment. The idea, the process of taking, appears to have a long, 
long tradition: maybe first African, then European, with other appropriations of 
the Jim Crow representational format from America. The doll-like images, the 
representations of a minstrel-like, Samboesque figure, however were already 
widely seen and accepted by large sections of the British public. The stereotype 
of the dandified, brightly clothed persona of the black comic figure had already 
been somewhat fixed with British theatrical and other venues of popular culture, 
parades, dances, children’s puppet shows, jokes, cartoons, and vernacular 
expressions, for example. What seems to have happened is a chronological 
serialization of cultural appropriation taking place over many centuries.

The pro-golliwog protesters in 1991 were a fleeting continuation of this 
adaptational process. They basically converted a ‘black-faced’ brightly costumed 
child into a somewhat parallel, similar image, the Robertson’s golliwog. Much 
of the discourse and protestations for and against the golliwog clearly used the 
commercial trademark as the anchor, the cornerstone for all discussions.

In 1991 the golliwog, as a cultural icon, was part of the symbolically 
constructed social order of Britain. However, as we have previously discussed 
in this work, there has been a growing demand from 1950 to the present, for 
a recognition and re-allocation, of social status by visible minorities in British 
society. The historically collective identity was fragmenting, due mainly by the 

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large influx of non-whites, and images such as the golliwog were oriented and 
constructed with the view of a white Britain.

With the growing awareness of their own collective identity and power, black 
Britons and their supporters began to express their displeasure with numerous 
institutions (publishing houses and football teams and manufacturers, for example) 
and demanded change. There was a victory in 1991. The Beltane Festival stopped 
the ‘black-faced’ dolls. Robertson’s and Sons, in 2000, continued to use the 
golliwog trade character. The pressure for change in the symbolic cultural capital 
in Britain is changing, but resistance to change also presently continues into the 
new millennium.

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