About the Sancho Memorial Appeal
In September 2022, the University of Greenwich working together with the Sancho Memorial Committee launched the Sancho Memorial Appeal raised awareness of Sancho and raised over £25k from alumni and supporters for a permanent memorial in Greenwich Park.
The memorial – a relief sculpture in colour on the wall of Greenwich Park based on Thomas Gainsborough’s portrait of Sancho – celebrates his legacy.
It designed by the well-known sculptor Christy Symington, who created the sculpture of Olaudah Equiano displayed at the Queen’s House, Greenwich; Parliament's Portcullis House, London; and the International Slavery Museum, Liverpool.
After reaching its initial target in November 2022 of £15,000, the Appeal embarked on its final phase into 2023.
The support of our donors has brought us closer to ensuring a new generation learns about Ignatius Sancho – a man who was celebrated in his lifetime and who existed within, and not outside, society's margins. His history is British history; it belongs to all of us and should be celebrated, taught, and learned all year round.
Who was Ignatius Sancho?
Charles Ignatius Sancho was born on a ship carrying enslaved Africans across the Atlantic in around 1729. He later became a celebrity in Georgian London and the first Black person to vote in a Westminster election.
Sancho was transported, aged two, to work for three sisters near Dartmouth Row, Greenwich, where his talent was spotted by the Duke of Montagu, through whom he learnt to read.
At the Duke’s death in 1749, he fled from the sisters to the Duchess. He was freed and became her butler and head of a large household close to Greenwich Park.
Sancho inherited £30 and a year’s salary when the Duchess died in 1751. When a revived duchy of Montagu was created in 1766, he became valet to the Duke.
During this period, he wrote a letter to Laurence Sterne, author of Tristram Shandy, appealing to him to publicise the evil of slavery. Sterne's publicised response to Sancho's letter plays an important role in 18th-century abolitionist literature.
Sancho was a man of many talents. He composed 100 dances and minuets which were played by fashionable Londoners and wrote two plays and a book of composition.
The Rt Hon Lord Paul Boateng, Chancellor of the University of Greenwich and Britain’s first Black Cabinet Minister, on Sancho:
Sancho was a multi-talented trail blazer whose achievements and engagement with the struggle for emancipation not only deserves better recognition but remains a source of continuing inspiration. We are all of us whatever our ethnicity the beneficiaries today of his courage and resilience
A campaign update
Thanks to our alumni and friends, we raised over £25k to commemorate the legacy of Charles Ignatius Sancho, and work has started on the new memorial in Greenwich Park.
Ignatius Sancho was celebrated in his lifetime, and you can ensure a new generation remembers him today. Celebrating Black excellence inspires us all to address continuing racial injustice and disadvantage in society today.
A spokesperson for The Royal Parks, the charity which looks after London's Royal Parks including Greenwich, said:
“Ignatius Sancho was the first known person of African heritage to vote in a British election or to be published in prose in Britain. A physical reminder of his place in history can be found in the southwest corner of Greenwich Park – which he lived by. We support Greenwich University’s campaign to recognise his lifetime’s achievements and the difficult times he lived in, by raising funds to mark his memory with a new, more notable memorial which will be installed in Greenwich Park permanently.”
We are excited to be able to invite our supporters to the unveiling of the memorial and hope to announce the date.
