Actor. Born Ira Frederick Aldridge in New York City (his date of birth is approximate). He started his acting career with the African Company in the early 1820s, but faced with racial discrimination, he emigrated to Britain in 1824. His various roles culminated with the lead in Othello. He toured extensively throughout Europe and died while in Łódź, Poland.
Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk
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Ira Aldridge
The British abolition of slavery came in two parts: first the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act became law on 25 March 1807, which left slavery itself still permitted until the Slavery Abolition Act...
Event, Race Issues, Social Welfare, Africa, Australia, Bermuda, Caribbean Islands, Ceylon, Indian Sub-continent, Jamaica
Tory politician, slave trader and philanthropist. Date of birth unknown so we use his date of baptism, which took place at St Botolph, Aldgate. 1705 became a director of the Royal African Company w...
Person, Philanthropy, Politics & Administration, Race Issues
A slave-trader turned preacher and abolitionist. Born Wapping. Began his ecclesiastical career at Olney in Buckinghamshire where he wrote the words to 'Amazing Grace' and published the hymn in a ...
American industrialist, business magnate, founder of the Ford Motor Company, and chief developer of the assembly line technique of mass production. By creating the first automobile that middle-clas...
Person, Commerce, Industry, Race Issues, Seriously Famous, Transport
Born Arthur Wesley (later Wellesley) in Dublin to Irish parents. After the Battle of Waterloo in which 60,000 died Wellington wrote to a friend "Next to a battle lost, the greatest misery is a batt...
Person, Armed Forces, Politics & Administration, Race Issues, Ireland
