Shacklebolt was the surname of a pure-blood wizarding family.
The Shacklebolts were included in the Pure-Blood Directory (published anonymously in Britain, although widely believed to have been authored by Cantankerus Nott), which listed them as one of the twenty-eight truly pure-blood families (the so-called 'Sacred Twenty-Eight').[1]
Among the family members was Kingsley Shacklebolt, an Auror active during the Second Wizarding War who rose to the position of Minister for Magic in the late 1990s. He was the only member of the family alive, at least as known to the Ministry, by 1997.[2]
Early History
The Shacklebolt family line can be traced back several centuries to the arrival in Britain of Sir Morien. As son of Aglovale, a knight of King Arthur’s Round Table, it is believed that Morien received his early magical training from Merlin himself
Unlike the patriarchs of many other wizarding families of the Sacred twenty-Eight, Sir Morien did not immediately establish a family manor in England, but returned with his father, Aglovale to his mother’s home in North Africa and as an adult, would travel extensively throughout Africa, trading magical secrets with witches and wizards throughout the continent.
Known Members
John Blancke (16th Century)
The first Shacklebolt ancestor to settle in Britain.According to muggle records, Blancke was one of six trumpeters in the royal retinue of henry VII and Catherine of Aragon, celebrating the birth of Henry, Duke of Cornwall in 1511. In fact, Blancke had been planted by the Wizard’s Council to protect the royal procession from a plot by dark wizards.
Balthazar Blancke (late 16th Century)
would be the first black wizard to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in 1596. His admission to Hogwarts was roundly protested by some wizarding families who considered wizards of African descent to be comparable to muggle-borns—unworthy of magic and who could only have obtained magic by deceit or theft. A contingent of wizarding parents, represented by Lucius Malfoy I, petitioned the Wizard’s Council to block young Balthazar’s enrollment, citing a muggle initiative that called for the deportation of all Africans from England. However, like their muggle counterparts, the resolution was defeated.
Tobias Newton/Freeman Shacklebolt (19th Century)
was an African wizard who was kidnapped from his mother at the age of three and sold into slavery in Barbados, where he worked as a valet on the sugar cane plantation of a Mr. Richard Newton. While accompanying the gentleman on a business trip to London, young Tobias unknowingly cast a false memory charm, causing the man to “decide” to free the young boy. Tobias would eventually find his way to the Leaky Cauldron where, calling himself Freeman Shacklebolt, he hired himself out as a houseboy. While working in the public house, Shacklebolt taught himself to read and learned all he could about wizarding culture. On his eleventh birthday in early 1808, he happily received his admission to Hogwarts, where he was sorted into Ravenclaw house. At the end of his seventh year, Freeman proposed to Galiana Blanke (descendant of Balthazar Blancke), a Gryffindor prefect, and following their nuptials, the couple settled in Bristol, where they opened an apothecary and raised ten children.
Maurice Shacklebolt (19th Century)
The son of Tobias and Galiana Shacklebolt. Served as headmaster of the Weikedu School of Magic from 1853 to 1900
Lindiwe Ross (nee Shacklebolt) (19th Century)
The daughter of Tobias and Galiana Shacklebolt.Was among the first women in the Auror office.
Legasse Shacklebolt (19th Century)
The son of Tobias and Galiana Shacklebolt. Served as research assistant to noted herbologist, Beaumont Majoribanks.
Morien Berhane-Bayissa Shacklebolt (20th Century)
Became one of the youngest representatives appointed to the International Confederation of Wizards in 1935. It was at the 1936 conference that he would meet Aida Gebre-Mariam, the representative from Ethiopia. The pair wed a year later and Aida joined the British Ministry of Magic in the International Magical Office of Law.
Kingsley Shacklebolt (b. 1959)
Minister of Magic (1998-present), former Auror. Member of the Order of the Phoenix. Fought in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries (1996) Fought in Battle of Hogwarts (1998). Son of Balthazar "Bally" and Candace Shacklebolt.
Recent History
By the mid-twentieth century, many members of the Shacklebolt family had departed England. Some emigrating to Africa and the West Indies, particularly Barbados, where they would unite the Shacklebolts with the Newton family (those descendants of the slaves who, like Freeman Shacklebolt, were taken as children before their magical abilities were evident), while others went to the United States to support black wizards during the country’s volatile civil rights era.
Among the few Shacklebolts who remained in Britain was Morien Balthazar Blanke Shacklebolt (known to friends and family as “Bally”). Bally Shacklebolt played chaser position for the Ravenclaw Quidditch team during his fifth, sixth and seventh years at Hogwarts. In 1956, he married Ravenclaw prefect, Candace Johnson. The couple worked at the Ministry of Magic in the Department of International Magical Cooperation. Bally, following his mother Aida’s footsteps, worked in the International Magical Office of Law. Candace, in the office of International Magical Trading Standards.
The couple would leave England in autumn of 1958, in the wake of the Notting Hill race riots, during which Bally violated the International Statute of Secrecy when he cast a shield charm to protect his then-pregnant wife from muggle gang members who were attacking blacks in the Kensington neighborhood near their home. Although he was ultimately cleared of the charges, the couple thought it best to get away for awhile. They would take their newborn son, Kingsley, and move to Barbados and live with Morien and Aida, who had retired to the island a few years earlier. The young family would return to England when Kingsley was four years old, settling into the South London community of Croydon. The young Kingsley would attend the Elmhurst School for Boys (muggle) until his acceptance at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
