John Archer is often held up as an icon of black British history. He was the first black man to become mayor of a London borough, and only the second in the whole country. In April 2013, he was selected by the Royal Mail as one of the subjects for a series of stamps celebrating “Great Britons”.
Archer was born on 8 June 1863 in Liverpool; his father, Richard, was a ship’s steward, while his mother, Mary, was an Irish Catholic. There is little evidence of his early life; he was a private man and even refused to let photographers take pictures of him later in life. However, it seems that he spent some time in the merchant navy, travelling round the world. By 1894, Archer had settled in Battersea with his wife Margaret, a black Canadian, and in 1906 he opened a photographer’s studio at 208 Battersea Park Road.
At this time, he was emerging as one of a small number of prominent black activists. In July 1900 he attended the first Pan-African Conference held in London. The conference set up the short-lived Pan-African Association, and Archer was elected to the executive committee. He was committed to challenging people’s prejudices towards people of colour. He served as the first president of the African Progress Union, which was established in 1918 with the aim of promoting the welfare, achievements and history of black people. In a speech at the organisation’s Inaugural Meeting, shortly after the end of the First World War, he declared: ‘… if we are good enough to be brought to fight the wars of the country we are good enough to receive the benefits of the country.’
He was also becoming increasingly involved in local politics. Battersea was a centre of working-class and left-wing politics at this time. There was a strong alliance between the both the local labour movements and the radical political organisations in the area. This alliance took control of nearly all Battersea’s municipal affairs and embarked on a programme of socialist policies such as fair wages and a wide range of social services. It was into this energetic political arena that Archer threw himself and he rose rapidly in the political organisation. In 1906 he stood as a Progressive candidate and was elected to the Battersea Council. Although he lost his seat in 1909, he was re-elected in 1912.
In 1913, he was elected mayor of Battersea; he was the first person of African descent to hold the title in London. He was shocked by the level of publicity that his election produced. However, his delight at his election was genuine and in his election speech he declared:
It is a victory such has never been gained before… I am a man of colour… I am proud to be. I would not change my colour if I could… my election tonight marks a new era. You have made history tonight. For the first time in the history of the English nation, a man of colour has been elected as mayor of an English borough. That news will go forth to all the coloured nations of the world and they will look at Battersea, and say it is the greatest thing you have done. You have shown that you have no racial prejudice, but recognise a man for what he has done.
Yet, this did not mean that Archer did not experience racism. One month after his election he delivered a speech where he condemned the abuse he had received, much of it directed at his mother, for choosing to marry a black man. ‘Am I not a man, the same as any other man?’ he said, ‘Have I not got feelings the same as any other man?’
Regardless of the hostility he sometimes faced, from the moment of his election, Archer was heavily involved in efforts to improve the lives of the local population. His term of office overlapped with the start of the First World War and he organised relief work for those whose lives were badly affected by the war. He was involved in a bitter struggle over unemployment relief, which was the responsibility of the Council, but he was unsuccessful in his attempts to stop young people being sent away to a workhouse in Surrey.
Although his term as Mayor ended in November 1914, he remained committed to the people of Battersea. In 1925, he was elected an alderman. He was an agent for the local Labour party during elections, and continued to serve as Deputy Leader of Battersea Council until his death in 1932. Although his fight was within the small community of Battersea, the respect he gained was deep felt and reached far beyond Battersea’s boundaries. Following his death, William Sanders, the MP for North Battersea, wrote that Archer, “was one of the largest hearted men I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. The poor had no better friend: he spared neither himself nor his substance in giving help to those in need… he left behind him a multitude of friends and not a single enemy.”
By Susan Leigh, a U3A Shared Learning Project researcher for the Citizens Project
Sources
Costello, Ray. Black Tommies: British Soldiers of African Descent in the First World War. Liverpool University Press, 2015.
Creighton, Sean. “John Archer and the Politics of Labour in Battersea (1906-32).” Immigrants and Minorities 28 (2010): pp.183-202.
Fry, Peter. “Archer, John Richard (1863-1932).” Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, 2010.
Phillips, Mike. Black Europeans. British Library Online Gallery.
Sanders, William. “Obituary,” South Western Star, July 1932
