Pauline Henriques

Featured in: Bourne, Stephen (1998) Black in the British frame: Black people in British film and television, 1896-1996. Cassell Murray, Jenni (1996) The Woman's Hour: 50 years on women in Britain. BBC Books Nicholson, Mavis (1995) What did you do in the war, mummy? Chatto & Windus Pines, Jim (1992) Black and white in colour: Black people in British television since 1936. BFI

For Channel 4's Faces of the Family show in 1994, Pauline appeared as the matriarch of an extended family.

From 1957 to 1969 she was first welfare secretary and then Deputy General Secretary of the National Council for the Unmarried Mother and Her Child. In 1966 she helped form the Havistock Housing Trust, and in the following year was appointed to the Housing Corporation. From 1969 to 1971, Pauline worked as a Conciliation Officer with the Race Relations Board before moving to the London Brook Advisory Centre to work as first Secretary and then, from 1976 as Senior Counsellor until, in 1980m she was appointed as the National Vice-Chairman until her retirement in 1986. In 1977, Pauline featured as a speaker at the Altrusa Convention, as the Secretary to the Brook Advisory Centres. At some time in the She was also interviewed at length for the National Sound Archive.

In 1948 Pauline Henriques married the actor, Neville Cobbiah Crabbe (1923–83), with whom she had one son, Biff Crabbe (born 1953). In 1969 she married Joe Benjamin (1921-1995), taking on three step-sons Mark (born 1952), Simon (born 1956) and Adam (1958) Pauline died in Brighton in 1998.

She was an actress, known for All God's Chillun' Got Wings (1946), BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1950) and The Heart Within (1957). She was married to Neville Crabbe.

Another brother, Fernando, was a President of the Oxford Union in 1944, and a published author.

Pauline was a regular presenter on Caribbean Voices for the BBC's West Indian Service from the show's inception int 1943.

In 1936 Pauline married Geoffrey William Heneberry (1909-1994). Their daughter Gail (born 26 March 1937) later married Keith Critchlow, artist, author, and professor of architecture in England.

In 1932, she enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts to study drama. During this time she experienced challenges due to roles that were available to her, she explained in a later interview, ″I appeared in many school productions, but I had to play my parts in white face, including Lady Bracknell and Lady Macbeth! I went along with it because I was very anxious to learn my craft, and to be taken seriously as a dramatic actress. You see, I couldn't sing or dance, and dramatic roles were non-existent for black actresses, so I had to "white up" to gain experience."

Pauline Henriques was born in Kingston, Jamaica, to Cyril Charles Henriques, a wealthy merchant, and Edith Emily Delfosse. One of six children, she moved with her family to England from Jamaica in 1919, as her father wanted to give his children an English education. Her elder brother, Cyril George Henriques (1908–1982), became a Lord Chief Justice of Jamaica and was knighted in 1963.

Pauline Henriques was born on April 1, 1914 in Kingston, Jamaica as Pauline Clothilde Henriques.