It’s an extraordinary list... ranging from 21st century household names to little- known figures from history.
But what the stories of these 100 Great Black Britons show, is their considerable and varied contribution.
The original list was launched as part of a campaign for recognition in 2003 but it has now been updated in a new book based on 2019.
Celebrities such as Sir Lenny Henry and Dame Kelly Holmes are there, but so also are a Tudor trumpeter, a 19th century taxider- mist and many other fascinating figures.
Ira Aldridge
(1807–67) Actor
One of the greatest actors of his day, Ira Aldridge was the first major black Shakespearean actor in Europe and was reputed to have travelled more widely than any other performer.
He played black and white roles to international acclaim. Despite winning many awards, he was rarely invited to perform in London.
He succeeded against huge odds in a profession not open to black people. In the era of slavery in the Americas, he contradicted the stereotype many white people at the time held of black people. His dignity and intelligence surprised audiences. Born in new York in 1807, he later left for england.
In 1825, aged 18, he made his debut in The Revolt of Suriname, or a Slave’s Revenge, at the Royal Coburg Theatre (the site of the old Vic) in London. The audience was on his side, but critics reacted with hostility. It took eight years before he was invited to perform again in a major London theatre. He performed for the next 19 years in the provinces, extending his repertoire with white roles, including Richard III and Macbeth.
In 1852 he embarked on his first European tour, and spent his final years performing in France and Russia where he was acclaimed as one of the greatest tragedians of all time.
John Blanke
(16th century) Trumpeter
Archival records have made him Tudor england’s most widely recognised African.
The circumstances of his presence at the courts of Henry VII and Henry VIII are not known.
It has been suggested he arrived from Spain with Catherine of Aragon when she came to marry Arthur, Henry VII’s eldest son, in 1501.
It was the trend for european royalty to employ Africans as musicians, entertainers and servants. But many people of African descent were born here, were baptised, married and buried here.
They occupied positions varying from house- hold servants to dignitaries for overseas territories.
Yet John Blanke remains a mystery. His last name is an ironic joke, his first name an english one; did he have an African name?
He was one of eight royal trumpeters who played at the funeral of Henry VII and coronation of Henry VIII in 1509. In 1511 he played at the Westminster tournament marking the birth of Henry’s first short-lived son.
Documents suggest Blanke petitioned the king to permit him to take the position of a deceased trumpeter and to double his wages from 8d to 16d per day.
When he wed in 1512, Henry presented him with a gown of violet cloth, a bonnet and a hat.
Winifred Atwell
(1914–83) Musician, entertainer, broadcaster
In his memoir Me, Elton John says Atwell is one of his musical heroes.
It is said he was playing her songs by ear on the family piano when he was three or four.
“My hero had been Winifred Atwell,” he wrote, “a jolly Trinidadian lady who performed on stage with two pianos.
“I loved her sense of glee. I’d never experienced anything like it.”
In the 1950s and 1960s, Atwell was known as the Queen of the Ivories with her boogie-woogie and ragtime hits. She sold 20 million records, was the first artist to have three million-selling discs and was the first black artist to hit number one. At the height of her fame she had shows on ITV and the BBC.
Born in Trinidad, she began playing at four and went to the Royal Academy of Music in London. She developed a routine of having two pianos on stage, one beautiful and one old and battered.
She would play classical works then halfway through her act say, “Now I’m going to play my other piano” – and switch to boogie- woogie and ragtime, happy tunes to ease the post-war gloom.
The rise of rock and roll led to the decline of her popularity here but she remained popular in Australia, where she died in 1983.
Vanley Burke
(Born 1951) Photographer
Hailed as the godfather of black British photography, Vanley burke has created a visual documentary of the lives of black Britons in Birmingham for 50 years.
Born in Jamaica, he was given a box brownie camera when he was 10.
Arriving in the Handsworth area of Birmingham as a teenager to join his parents, his first photographic subjects were his siblings and the people who came into his family’s shop.
His photos from the 1970s are iconic. The boy with the Flag – a black lad with his bike from which a Union Jack flies – is one of the most memorable for what it represented and what it challenged.
Queen Charlotte
(1744–1818) Wife and consort of George III
Over the years, the subject of Queen Charlotte’s ancestry has been debated.
Born in Mecklenburg-Strelitz, a northern German duchy in the Holy Roman Empire, Charlotte married George III aged 17 and bore him 15 children, 13 of whom survived.
As Queen she earned huge public affection for her loyalty and devotion to the king as he struggled with mental illness.
And her legacy lives on. The city of Charlotte in North Carolina is named after her, and she is also credited with founding Kew Gardens.
The topic of Charlotte’s ancestry is significant, because of the possibility that she passed her African heritage into the royal bloodline.
She was a direct descendant of Margarita de Castro y Sousa, a 15th-century noblewoman, who could trace her ancestry to the 13th-century King Alfonso III of Portugal and his mistress, Madragana, who is thought to have been a Moor, a term used to describe people of African descent.
John Edmonstone
Taxidermist
In 1825, Charles Darwin mentioned in a letter to his sister that he was taking lessons in taxidermy from “a negro [who] lived in Edinburgh”.
John Edmonstone, an ex-slave from Demerara (in present day Guyana), is the man who taught this skill to the then Edinburgh University student.
As with many other great scientists, Darwin was inspired by some people whose contribution has been overlooked and uncredited. Edmonstone is one such individual, almost lost to history, but who was hugely influential on Darwin’s thinking.
There are only small clues as to how he taught one of the greatest figures in the history of science a skill that played no small part in his thinking about how life developed over time.
Little is known of Edmonstone’s early life, except that he was born in the second half of the 1700s. The Edinburgh Post Office directory for 1824/5 records him as living at 37 Lothian Street. He earned his living stuffing birds at the National Museum and teaching taxidermy to students.
Darwin, who paid Edmonstone one guinea per lesson in bird taxidermy, also had hours of conversations with him about his homeland and its tropical rainforests, plants and animals.
It fired Darwin’s imagination and his interest in tropical regions.
A-Z of the 100 Great Black Britons
Victor Adebowale
Baron Adebowale CBE
Adedoyin Olayiwola Adepitan MBE
Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE
Professor Hakim Adi
Sir David Adjaye OBE, RA and Elsie Owusu OBE, RIBA
Akala
John Akomfrah CBE
Ira Aldridge
Valerie Amos, Baroness Amos CH
Kehinde Andrews
Sir Lenny Henry CBE
Professor Dame Elizabeth Anionwu DBE
Dr Elaine Arnold
Amma Asante MBE
Winifred Atwell
Dame Jocelyn Barrow DBE
Lance Sergeant Johnson Beharry VC, COG
Dame Floella Benjamin of Beckenham DBE, DL
Munroe Bergdorf
Jak Beula Dodd
Karen Blackett OBE
Malorie Blackman OBE
John Blanke
Dennis Bovell
Sonia Boyce OBE, RA
Dr Aggrey Burke
Vanley Burke
Margaret Busby OBE, FRSL
Dawn Butler
Earl Cameron CBE
Betty Campbell MBE
Naomi Campbell
Queen Charlotte
Edric Connor
Lloyd Coxsone
William Cuffay
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano
Dame Linda Dobbs DBE
John Edmonstone
Idris Elba OBE
Edward Enninful OBE
Olaudah Equiano
Bernardine Evaristo MBE,
FRSL
Sir Mohamed Muktar Jama Farah CBE
Lenford Kwesi Garrison
George the Poet
Paul Gilroy
Bernie Grant
Stuart Hall
Lewis Hamilton MBE
Lubaina Himid CBE, RA
Dame Kelly Holmes DBE
Darcus Howe
Rose Hudson-Wilkin MBE
Eric Huntley and Jessica Huntley
Professor Augustine ‘Gus’ John
Linton Kwesi Johnson
Claudia Jones
Sheku Kanneh-Mason MBE
Jackie Kay CBE
Sam King MBE
Kwame Kwei-Armah OBE
John La Rose
Marai Larasi MBE
Doreen Lawrence, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon OBE
Andrea Levy
Sir Steven McQueen CBE
Dr Harold Moody
Olive Morris
Grace Nichols and John Agard
Chinyere (Chi-chi) Nwanoku OBE
David Adetayo Olusoga OBE
Phyllis Opoku-Gyimah ‘Lady Phyll’
Olivette Otele
Horace Ové CBE
David Oyelowo OBE
George Padmore
Professor Sir Geoff Palmer OBE
Alex Pascall OBE
David Pitt, Baron Pitt of Hampstead
Mary Prince
Marvin Rees
Bill Richmond and Thomas Molyneux
Marcia Rigg
Ignatius Sancho
Stafford Scott
Mary Seacole
Menelik Shabazz
Yinka Shonibare CBE, RA
Paul Stephenson OBE
Stormzy
Robert Wedderburn and William Davidson
Dame Sharon White DBE
Henry Sylvester Williams
Allan Wilmot
Simon Woolley, Baron Woolley of Woodford
Gary Younge
Benjamin Zephaniah
