Tributes paid to ‘Windrush pioneer’ Alford Gardner after death aged 98

Mr Gardner was one of the last surviving passengers of the Empire Windrush and worked to break down racial barriers by setting up Britain’s first Caribbean cricket club.

He set up the club in Leeds in 1948 – three months after arriving in the UK from Jamaica on the HMT Empire Windrush.

Mr Gardner had also served in the RAF as an engineer and motor mechanic during the Second World War.

On Wednesday, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said Mr Gardner “did so much for the black cricketing community in this country”.

Actress and campaigner Baroness Floella Benjamin said Mr Gardner “encapsulated joy, dignity and courage”.

Leeds City Council said it presented him with the Leeds Award in February “for his vast achievements and contribution to the city”.

Mr Gardner was 22 years old when he boarded the ship in Kingston, Jamaica, with his brother Gladstone before they and hundreds of Caribbean migrants called on to rebuild post-war Britain disembarked the ship at Tilbury Docks in Essex.

Last year, the King hailed new portraits of the Windrush generation, including Mr Gardner, as pictorial records of a “very special” group of people.

Charles told Jamaican-born Mr Gardner at a Buckingham Palace reception that his portrait by artist Chloe Cox was “marvellous”.

In 2018, 70 years after stepping off the Empire Windrush to start a new life in the UK, Mr Gardner said: “If I had to do it again, I would do every damn thing just the same.”

He also said that he was first warned about the possibility that Windrush migrants could be thrown out of the UK almost three decades earlier.

Mr Gardner said he was told by a friend in 1987 that “people like me could be thrown out of the country”, adding he responded by applying for British citizenship at a cost of £80.

He said the Windrush scandal, which erupted in 2018 after it emerged that the UK Home Office had kept no records of those granted permission to stay – and had not issued the paperwork they needed to confirm their status, was a “disgrace”.

“It shouldn’t be happening,” Mr Gardner said in 2018, adding: “It’s disgraceful what’s going on. People don’t realise how hard we worked to get this country back on its feet.”

Last year, the Prince of Wales visited Mr Gardner at his home in Leeds for ITV’s Pride Of Britain: A Windrush Special documentary, before taking him to Headingley cricket ground for a surprise celebration with cricketing stars.

Paying tribute to Mr Gardner in a social media post, the ECB wrote: “A pioneer and a trail-blazer.

“A founder of Leeds Caribbean CC, and someone who did so much for the black cricketing community in this country.

“Rest in peace, Alford Gardner.”

In a social media post, Baroness Benjamin said: “I have total respect and admiration for Windrush pioneer Alford Gardner who died aged 98.

“He encapsulated joy, dignity and courage.”

Leeds North East MP Fabian Hamilton said he was “deeply saddened by the passing of Alford”.

Mr Hamilton added in a post on social media: “Alford was a pioneering part of the generation that helped to rebuild Leeds and Britain after WW2.

“His legacy is one of equality and social justice. He will be missed by everyone he met in his many years since arriving on HMS Windrush.”