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Former Mayor of Battersea, John Richard Archer (1863-1932), the first black man to hold a senior public office in London, is to be commemorated with an English Heritage blue plaque at 55 Brynmaer Road, Battersea, his home during the major milestones of his political career. The plaque will be unveiled by Councillor Angela Graham, the Mayor of Wandsworth at 10:30 am on Wednesday 13 November.

“John Archer’s importance was recognised earlier in the year when Royal Mail issued a commemorative stamp as part of its series on Britons with 1913 anniversaries” points out his biographer Sean Creighton. “He is a key figure in the story of the Black contribution in Britain in the early part of the twentieth century; not only was he active in black politics, arguing for social justice and more rights within the African and West Indian colonies, but he represented Battersea's white working class on the Council and the Board of Guardians, and he championed the rights of the poor, the unemployed and First World War ex-servicemen.”

A hundred years ago almost to the day - on 10 November 1913 - Archer was elected Mayor of Battersea by his fellow councillors, winning by a single vote, and thus becoming the first black man to hold a senior public office in England’s capital. In his acceptance speech, he anticipated that the news of his success ‘will go forth to all the coloured nations of the world. They will look at Battersea, and say, “It is the greatest thing you have done. You have shown you have no racial prejudice, but recognise a man for what you think he has done”.’ Congratulatory messages did indeed pour in from around the world, though there was also hate mail. Archer was conscious of the wider context when seeking the mayoralty: at the time of the election, there was an Anglo-American exhibition at White City and Archer wanted white Americans to know “that a Metropolitan Borough of London permitted a coloured man to be its chief magistrate.”

From Humble Beginnings

Born in Liverpool a hundred and fifty years ago in June 1863, Archer was the son of a Barbadian ship’s steward and an Irishwoman. After moving to Battersea with his Black Nova Scotian wife Margaret in the early 1890s, Archer had many different jobs; the 1901 census records that he was a professional singer, and he may also have been a student of medicine.

His early activities in Battersea appear to have included arguing at open air public meetings against spiritualists from a Catholic perspective. Archer attended the Pan African Conference held in London in 1900, where he met leading members of the African diaspora, and his decision to enter local politics chimed with the Conference resolution demanding that Black people be involved in government in the colonies. He joined the Battersea Labour League, the main organisation supporting Battersea's independent labour MP John Burns, within the local Progressive Alliance with radicals and liberals.

Having spoken at a pre-election public meeting in Battersea Park, Archer was voted on to Battersea Borough Council in November 1906. Although he lost this seat in 1909, he was elected again in 1912, in 1919 and finally in 1931, becoming deputy leader of the Labour group; in the period between the last two terms, Archer served for six years as an alderman. He was also an indefatigable member of many council committees, including those dedicated to baths and wash-houses, tuberculosis care, health, and finance. He attended many national conferences on health issues.

At the end of Archer’s one-year term as mayor - which coincided with the outbreak of the First World War - he and his wife were warmly thanked by his council colleagues, who recognised that ‘owing to the national crisis, the Mayoral duties have greatly increased and involved many and considerable personal sacrifices’. He gave the inaugural presidential address of the London-based African Progress Union in 1918, declaring that “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 also supported the adoption as Parliamentary candidate of the Communist Shapurji Saklatvala, who was elected as Battersea’s Labour MP in 1922, defeated in 1923 and re-elected in 1924. This period coincided with a radical phase Archer’s career, during which he opposed cuts in unemployment relief and the use of a workhouse for Battersea’s young unemployed, as well as supporting Poplar councillors who had been imprisoned for their stance on the Poor Law. Later he became secretary of North Battersea Labour Party. At some point Archer was widowed, and he was married for a second time in 1923 to Bertha White.

John Archer died on 14 July 1932 in St. James Hospital, Balham, after a brief illness. His brother Albert was at his side and stayed on for the funeral, himself dying some months later.

Number 55 Brynmaer Road, Battersea - a terraced house dating from the 1880s - was the home of John Archer and his first wife for approximately twenty years (c.1898-c.1918) - a period which saw the most significant events in Archer’s political career: his first election to Battersea Council and his historic elevation to the office of Mayor.

Councillor Angela Graham said: “As the current Mayor of Wandsworth, which since 1965 has encompassed the former Borough of Battersea of which John Archer was Mayor, I am delighted to have the opportunity to pay tribute to him in the centenary year of his being elected the first black mayor in London. He was a tireless campaigner for equalities and people’s rights and I am very pleased that English Heritage has marked his achievements with a blue plaque on his former home in Battersea.”

Howard Spencer, Blue Plaques historian, said: “The story of John Richard Archer’s successful career as a local politician and tireless worker for social justice and racial equality is an inspiring one that deserves to be more widely known. His mayoralty marked an important black British ‘first’ - a prime example of a local story with national and international significance, a fact of which Archer showed himself to be well aware.”