Sam Beaver King (1926-2016) *90

Biography Login to edit

was a Jamaican-British campaigner who was the first black Mayor of Southwark.

King was born in Portland, Jamaica on 20 February 1926. He was one of ten siblings and helped on the family's farm. In 1944 King responded to an advertisement in The Gleaner which called for volunteers to join the British Royal Air Force to fight in the Second World War. After carrying out initial training in Kingston, he was posted to an RAF training centre at Filey in Yorkshire and thence to RAF Hawkinge, a fighter base near Folkestone, where he worked as an engineer. He was demobilised in 1947 and returned to Jamaica.

King struggled to settle into civilian life, finding it difficult to get work, and it was another advertisement in The Gleaner - for tickets on the Empire Windrush - that saw him return to the UK. He disembarked at Tilbury Docks on 21 June 1948, on the Windrush's now famous first journey, and rejoined the RAF. He left the armed forces in 1953 and settled in Southwark where he found work as a postman, the start of a 34-year career with the Post Office.

King was heavily involved in London's West Indian community, starting the first Caribbean-style carnival in the city - that later evolved into the Notting Hill Carnival. He also helped to found the West Indian Gazette, the first British newspaper written specifically for black people, and was circulation manager in the mid 1950s. King served as a local councillor for six months before being elected mayor of the London Borough of Southwark in 1983. He was the first black mayor in the borough and was, at the time, the only black mayor in London.

Note: This and more additional futures and the new text editor functionality coming soon.

└─ Please, Login or Sign-up to post your comments.