Marika,

For Ottobah Cugoano Fryer gives the dates of birth/death as: c.1757-1801.

Re. Kamal Chunchi (1886-1953) my initial email to the list stated that the
site of the first Coloured Men's Institute at 13-15 Tidal Basin Road,
Victoria Docks, London, could be the site of the EH blue plaque as the top
floor of the Institute was Chunchie's residence for c. 4 years. (NB: The
original building was demolished in the 1930s, but this should not preclude
EH putting the plaque as close to the original location as possible.)

Other dates:

Learie Constantine (1901-1971)

Krishna Menon (May 1896 - October 1974)

Mary Prince (c.1788- 183?)- Prince's influential slave narrative,'History of
Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave', was published by the
Anti Slavery Society in 1831.

Ladipo Solanke (1884 - 1958)

Carol
-----Original Message-----
From: Marika Sherwood
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: 12/07/2002 16:53
Subject: Blue Plaques

English Heritage have been in touch re our nominations. No-one not dead
for 20 years, or whose dob is less than 100 years ago can be considered.
At present only the original houses can have plaques put on them. As
this seems to have been an LCC then GLC position, I have approached Ken
Livingstone, asking him to advise EH that this is nonsense, given
bombing and post-war etc. rebuilding. I have not yet heard from him.

John Alcindor, John Archer, Dadabhai Naroji, Claudia Jones and George
Padmore have all been rejected. The normal period for reconsideration is
10 years. I have lodged a request that these people should be looked at
again now.

What EH require: dates of birth/death; short bios with reading list;
known addresses.

Please add to the following and if at all possible, supply missing data:

Ira Aldridge c.1804 - 1867; US-born actor; received various awars,
performed Othello etc in UK and rest of Europe incl Russia. First Black
actor to perform Othello. See Herbert Marshall & Mildred Stock, Ira
Aldridge, 1958

William Afflick c. 1787 - 1855, the most decorated Afro-Caribbean
soldier in the Napoleonic British Army, receiving both the Waterloo
Medal and the Military General Service Medal, 1793-1814 with  four
clasps for Sahagun & Benavente, (one shared clasp), Vittoria, Orthes and
Toulouse, (making him one of the 10th's most decorated enlisted veterans
of the Napoleonic Wars). Afflick spoke out against flogging in the
military.
Two sites are possible, his places of residence in London, (since
destroyed) and death:  1851 Census: 30 March 1851. 45 Gore Lane ["Gore"
crossed out and "Park" substituted]. William Affleck. Head. Married. 62
years. Chelsea Pensioner (Barber). West Indies (British subject). Ann
Affleck. Wife. Married. 45 years. Dressmaker. John, what is this? a
burial notice somewhere? Registration District. St. George Hanover
Square. Year. 1855. Subdistrict. Belgrave. In the County of. Middlesex.
No. 395. When & where died. Seventh May 1855. St. George Hospital. Name
& Surname. William Afflick. Sex. Male. Age. 68 years. Occupation.
Coloured native of St. Kitts, WI. A Barber at St. Georges Hospital.
Chelsea Pensioner 10th Hussars. Cause of death. Senile Gangrene.
Signature, description & residence of informant. Ann Afflick. Present at
the death. 36 Gore Lane, Kensington Gore. When registered. Ninth May
1855. Registrar. William Price Jordan.

Duse Mohamed Ali  1866 - 1945, author, publisher of African times &
Orient Review  1912-1920, political activist in Britain, the USA and
finally in Lagos, where he also published and edited The Comet. The
AT&OR offices were at 158 Fleet Street. See Hakim Adi & Marika Sherwood
???? [Hakim: what tis he latest version of the title?], London 2002/3.

M. Bhownagree  1851 -1933 First Asian-born Conservative and
longest-serving Indian MP (Bethnal Green  1895-1906); lawyer; chair of
the Parsee Association of Europe, author,  translator. Supported the
Aliens Bill of 1905, anti Home Rule for Ireland and generally a
pro-imperialist (I can't find my pamphlet bio of him!)

Kamal Chunchie  1886 - 1953, Ceylon-born Muslim of Malay origins, came
to Britian in 1915; served WWI and became a Methodist; appointed to
Queen Victoria Seamen's Rest in Poplar to minister to the 'strangers
within our gates'.  Set up Coloured Men's Methodist Church in Canning
Town early 1920s;  then Coloured Men's Institute 1926 which 'served as a
religious, social and welfare centre for Black and Asian peoples in East
London'. He and the Methodists parted company c. 1933, and Chunchie
re-established the CMI under a multiracial council to continue the work
till his death. See Rozina Visram, 'Kamal A. Chunchie of the Coloured
Men's Institute', Immigrants & Minorities, 18/1, March 1999.

Learie Constantine........cricketer, lawyer, author, first High
Commissioner form independent Trinidad.

Edric Connor

Ottobah Cugoano, ? ? author of Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil adn
Wicked Traffic of the Slavery.... published in 1787, the first
Black-authored anti-salvery book. He was the manservant to the painter
Cosway, for whom an address should be obtainable. There are no
biographies, as far as I know, except what is in Fryer.

Ranjani Palme Dutt 1896 - 1974, Communist Party activist, publisher,
political philosopher. SeeJohn Callaghan, Ranjani Palme Dutt , London
1993

Africanus Horton 1835 - 1883, Sierra Leone-born physician, head of Army
Medical Dept. in the Gold Coast, publisher of scientic papers and
ground-breaking book of sociology/history, West African Countries and
Peoples. London address in 1880s: 40 St.Luke's Rd, Westbourne Park (he
was establishing the Commercial Bank of West Africa) See Christopher
Fyfe, Africanus Horton, London

Krishna Menon 1896 -    , fighter for Indian independence, prolific
writer and editor in this cause, head of London-based India League;
editor at Penguin Books; first High Commissioner from independent India;
elected MP,  one of India's representatives at the UN; appointed
Minister of Defense. See TJS George, Krishan Menon, London 196; Suhash
Chakravarty, Krishna Menon and the India League, New Delhi 1997

Mary Prince                  author

Shapurji Saklatvala 1874 - 1935, first Asian-born Communist MP (1922,
Battersea), anti-imperialist activist. See Mike Squires, Saklatvala,
London 1990

Ladipo Solanke   - 1958; Nigeria-born lawyer, founder of the West
African Students' Union, which nourished African anti-imperialists. See
Hakim Adi, West Africans in Britain, London 1998

Walter Tull  1888  - 1918; first officer in the British army;