FORGOTTEN CONTRIBUTIONS

Lola Jaye reveals how Britain's black population helped to shape the Edwardian period - from medicine to politics

- Lola Jaye

During the coronation D celebrations of King Edward VII and his queen, Alexandra, in August 1902, more than 2,000 representatives from the British empire's colonial forces took part in a procession that lined the streets of London. Among them was a contingent of black soldiers from the recently raised King's African Rifles, which had been formed to bring together the various imperial regiments in east Africa. So as the crowds cheered the procession as it passed through the capital on that August day, black faces were visible en masse. And as the coronation had been delayed by around six weeks due to Edward falling ill, the soldiers had already become something of a feature in London as they spent their time seeing the landmarks.

But it was not just those who visited from around the world that gave Edwardian Britain a black presence. There was a small but significant population of black Britons, consisting of people who had travelled to the 'mother country' of the empire themselves, along with the descendants of those who had made the journey over the past few centuries: formerly enslaved people looking for a new life, troops who had fought in the wars in America, and wealthy elites who had come to the centre of British imperialism in order to study or work.