18 Facts About Ignatius Sancho

Unable to bear being a servant to them, Ignatius Sancho ran away to the Montagu House in Blackheath, London where John Montagu, 2nd Duke of Montagu taught him how to read and encouraged Ignatius Sancho's budding interest in literature.

Ignatius Sancho quickly became involved in the nascent British abolitionist movement, which sought to outlaw both the slave trade and the institution of slavery itself, and he became one of its most devoted supporters.

Charles Ignatius Sancho was born on a slave ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean, in what was known as the Middle Passage.

Ignatius Sancho's mother died not long after arriving in the Spanish colony of New Granada, which formed parts of modern-day Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, and Venezuela.

Ignatius Sancho was baptised and named by the Catholic bishop of the colony.

Ignatius Sancho's owner took him, then barely two years old, to England and gave him to three unmarried sisters living together in Greenwich, where he lived from 1731 to 1749.

Ignatius Sancho encouraged Sancho to read and lent him books from his personal library at Blackheath.

For two years until her death in 1751, Ignatius Sancho worked as a butler for the Duchess of Montagu at her residence, where he immersed himself in music, poetry, reading, and writing.

Around the time of the birth of their third child, Ignatius Sancho became a valet to George Montagu, the son-in-law of his previous patron.

The Portrait of a Man in a Red Suit was thought to be Sancho and was attributed to Allan Ramsay.

In 1774, with help from Montagu, Ignatius Sancho, suffering from ill health with gout, opened a grocery shop, offering merchandise such as tobacco, sugar and tea, at 19 Charles Street in Westminster.

Ignatius Sancho is the first known person of African descent to vote in a British general election.

Ignatius Sancho wrote and published a Theory of Music, though no copy is extant.

Ignatius Sancho received many prominent visitors at his shop, including statesman and abolitionist Charles James Fox, who successfully steered a resolution through Parliament pledging it to abolish the slave trade.

Ignatius Sancho voted for the Westminster constituency in the 1774 general election and the 1780 general election.

Ignatius Sancho is the second person of African origin known to have voted in Britain after victualler John London.

Ignatius Sancho was the first person of African descent known to be given an obituary in the British press.

Ignatius Sancho was unusually blunt in his response to a letter from Jack Wingrave, John Wingrave's son.