Prince William pens tribute to the Windrush Pioneer who ‘changed the lives of many’ through his groundbreaking cricket club

The statement

I was so sorry to hear of the passing of Alford Gardner, one of the last surviving passengers of the Empire Windrush.

I was delighted to spend some time with him last summer and hear his story. As a leading figure in the Caribbean community in West Yorkshire, he changed the lives of so many with his courage and positivity.

He leaves behind a legacy for us all to be proud of and will be remembered for his warmth, his courage, and of course his unwavering love of cricket! W

Prince William has paid a touching tribute to the trailblazing Alford Gardner, the cricket pioneer considered by many to be the ‘voice’ of the Windrush generation, after he passed away at the age of 98 this week. Gardner was one of the last surviving Caribbean migrants who answered the call to rebuild Britain, travelling to the country on the Empire Windrush in a journey that has come to symbolise ‘the beginning of multicultural Britain’.

The Prince of Wales struck up a friendship with Gardner last year, when the pair met for an ITV documentary detailing the lives and contributions of the Windrush generation. After speaking at Gardner’s home in Leeds, Prince William took the keen cricketer to meet some of the stars of the game at Headingley.

In a moving message on social media, the Prince spoke of how Gardner ‘changed the lives of so many’ with his commitment to positive change.

Gardner, who heralds from Kingston, Jamaica, was just 22 when he joined over 400 Caribbean migrants on the journey to Britain after the government called upon them to join the rebuilding efforts in the wake of World War Two. Arriving in the UK in May of 1948, Gardner, who had served in the RAF himself during the war, Gardner was met with considerable prejudice. Signs reading ‘No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs’ were posted up in windows, and the war hero struggled to find accommodation. Despite this, Gardner said he remembered his life in England fondly, and just three months after the Empire Windrush docked in his new home, he had co-founded Britain’s first Caribbean Cricket Club.

The Windrush generation found themselves at the centre of a national scandal in 2018 when it was revealed that the government had been erroneously labelling them, along with other British citizens, as illegal immigrants as a result of policies introduced in 2012 by then Home Secretary Theresa May. The Home Office, it transpired, had kept no record of those who had been granted permission to stay in the UK, nor had it issued them with the necessary paperwork to confirm their immigration status. Gardner became a vocal advocate for the Windrush generation in the wake of this scandal, calling the scandal a ‘disgrace’.

‘It shouldn’t be happening,’ he said at the time. ‘It’s disgraceful what’s going on. People don’t realise how hard we worked to get this country back on its feet.’

His service to the country, both during and after the war, was recognised when King Charles commissioned a portrait of Gardner in 2022 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Windrush generation. His son, Howard Gardner, recounted the moment Alford saw the painting unveiled to the Guardian. ‘He spoke about it all the time: “Me, a Jamaican country boy in Buckingham Palace…” He couldn’t believe it,’ said Howard in a warm recollection.

The portrait was one of many commissioned by the King, who penned a personal tribute in the introduction of a book accompanying the commemorative exhibition. ‘History is, thankfully and finally, beginning to accord a rightful place to those men and women of the Windrush generation,’ he wrote. ‘It is, I believe, crucially important that we should truly see and hear these pioneers who stepped off the Empire Windrush at Tilbury in June 1948 – only a few months before I was born – and those who followed over the decades, to recognise and celebrate the immeasurable difference that they, their children and their grandchildren have made to this country.’