Person    | Male  Born 17/8/1887  Died 10/6/1940

Marcus Garvey

Pan-African nationalist leader. Born Marcus Mosiah Garvey in St Ann's Bay, Jamaica. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association in 1914 to foster worldwide black unity, and moved its headquarters to New York City two years later. His intention was that people of African descent would settle in Liberia and form a modern black state. Liberia feared that he intended to rule the country and rejected his plans. In 1925 he was convicted of fraud and deported back to Jamaica. He moved to rented accommodation at 53 Talgarth Road, Hammersmith, in 1935. At home recovering from a stroke he read in a newspaper his own premature, and uncomplimentary, obituary. He died shortly after.

Married Amy Ashwood in 1919, but the marriage was short-lived. In 1922 he married Amy E. Jacques, his first wife's chief bridesmaid. The same-name wives may have been convenient for him but they make the researcher's life rather difficult.

Garvey lived in London 1912-14. During that time he studied at Birkbeck College, spoke at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, and engaged with other pan-Africanists. On his return to Jamaica in 1914, he established the UNIA and African Communities League. In 1935, Garvey relocated to London, where he died in 1940. He was buried in Kensal Green. In 1964, his remains were moved to the National Heroes Park in Kingston, Jamaica.

2025: Hammersmith and Fulham Council reported: "In one of his last acts as outgoing US president, Joe Biden posthumously pardoned ... Marcus Garvey."

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Marcus Garvey

Commemorated ati

Amy Garvey

Amy lived here for 26 years. Unveiled by Jamaica's High Commissioner to the ...

Read More

Marcus Garvey - Beaumont Crescent

The plaque is very badly eroded and partly illegible, maybe the result of hav...

Read More

Marcus Garvey - Haringey

This is the foundation stone for the building.

Read More

Marcus Garvey - Talgarth Road

Marcus Garvey, 1887 - 1940, Pan-Africanist leader, lived and died here. L.C.C. 

Read More

Marcus Garvey - Willesden Library

The bust was unveiled on Garvey's 129th birthday, and is now inside a glass c...

Read More

Show all 6

Other Subjects

John MacGregor, Esq.

John MacGregor, Esq.

One of the managers of the 1873-75 changes at Aske’s Hospital.

Person, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

London borough formed by the London Government Act of 1963. The constituent parts were almost all of the Municipal Borough of Barking and the greater part of the Municipal Borough of Dagenham.

Group, Politics & Administration

4 memorials
Captain Francis Dansays

Captain Francis Dansays

Naval officer.  RN Lieut-Governor of Greenwich Hospital.

Person, Armed Forces, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
F. Brader

F. Brader

Alderman in the Borough of Hammersmith in 1948. Our colleague Andrew Behan has researched this man: Frederick Brader was born about 1880 and in late 1914 he married Lilian Soper in Fulham, their s...

Person, Law, Politics & Administration

1 memorial
County of London

County of London

This covered the area we would now call Inner London.  It was run by the London County Council. 

Group, Politics & Administration

1 memorial