"Britain's first black editor achieved so much in such a short life"

WHEN I RECENTLY CAME ACROSS THE MAN considered Britain's first black editor, I was surprised that I had never before heard his name. Samuel Jules Celestine Edwards was born in Dominica, the youngest of 10 children, near the end of the 1850s. In 1870 he travelled to North America and then, some seven years later, to Edinburgh, where he worked as a labourer. He later spent time in Sunderland, where he reconnected with his Christian faith, practising as a Methodist, and became a vocal proponent of temperance.

- KAVITA PURI

He then moved south to study theology at King's College London. In a photograph from the university archives dated 1888, he is noticeably the only person of colour pictured among a sea of men in their sombre suits. He stands right at the very back, looking smart and wearing a mortarboard; his head is turned away from the camera, his gaze fixed into the distance.

Edwards soon became a celebrated speaker on the lecture circuit, addressing audiences in venues across Victorian England. He also held forth at the spot dubbed "The Forum' in Victoria Park, east London, which rivalled Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park as a hotspot for open-air orators. He spoke about racial justice, the ills of imperialism, and abstinence from alcohol.