Skip to main content
'Forgotten' figure of black British history to be honoured in central London church
HONOURED: Blue plaque erected in 2020 by English Heritage at Schomberg House, 80-82 Pall Mall, London, SW1Y 5HF, City of Westminster [Wikipedia/Spudgun67]

A “LARGELY forgotten figure” in black British history was yesterday honoured with a plaque in a central London church.

Rector Lucy Winkett, of St James’s Piccadilly, said it was the church’s “duty and honour to mark the 250th anniversary” of the baptism of Quobna Ottobah Cugoano, one of the most prominent abolitionists of the time.

The Diocese of London said Cugoano’s exact dates of birth and death are unknown and the only verifiable place and date of his story was his baptism at the church on August 20 1773, a year after he was freed from slavery.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
banksy
Opinion / 1 May 2026
1 May 2026

ANGUS REID appreciates the political candour expressed in Bansky’s latest and brilliant work of public art

Archbishop of Westminster Richard Moth
Britain / 15 February 2026
15 February 2026
STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY: Enslaved black people cut the sugar cane and load the bundles or junks into a horse-drawn cart in Antigua, a former British colony
Features / 1 August 2025
1 August 2025

On the anniversary of the implementation of the 1833 Slavery Abolition Act, ROGER McKENZIE warns that the legacy of black enslavement still looms in the Caribbean and beyond

biennale
Liverpool Biennale 2025 / 17 June 2025
17 June 2025

SYLVIA HIKINS casts an eye across the contemporary art brought to a city founded on colonialism and empire