For most Wandsworth residents, John Archer (1863-1932) needs no introduction. He was London’s first Black mayor, and a strong proponent of Pan-Africanism throughout his life. He features frequently in the scrapbooks compiled by long gone librarians who chronicled the borough’s comings and goings through careful cutting and pasting and the odd handwritten comment.
Home for John Archer was 55 Brynmaer Road – prior to his election as Battersea’s Mayor in 1913, he had lived in Battersea for 23 years, and run his photography business from 214 Battersea Park Road. He lived with his wife, Bertha, as well as Jane Roberts, a former slave who died in 1914 aged 95.
Both buildings are still there – and his former home now proudly sports an English Heritage blue plaque which reminds passers by of the house’s former resident and what he stood for.
The records we have which document John Archer sadly don’t contain any personal papers – we have the Council’s corporate record which documents his work in the capacity of mayor and councillor, we have newspaper cuttings which document both the pride that Battersea took in his election as well as the prejudices he faced as a Black man, newspaper articles regarding his death, and a photograph taken by him in his studio which was found by a local historian in an antiques sale. But the closest thing we have to hearing Archer’s voice and beliefs is his acceptance speech, which we can see represented in our scrapbooks, and which lay out Archer’s beliefs in equality:
Interestingly, Archer discloses his Mother’s nationality in his acceptance speech, and the reason for this becomes all too apparent. One report of Archer’s victory points out that his speech was interrupted by a councillor who shouts ‘where were you born?’. He makes rather short shrift of the man in question, before pointing out that he was born ‘in England, in a little village probably never heard of until now – the city of Liverpool’. His Mother, Mary Theresa Archer (nee Burns) was Irish. His Father, Richard Archer, was a ship steward from Barbados. Archer had been brought up in densely populated area of Liverpool, and it is known that his Mother was illiterate because she signed his birth certificate with an ‘X’. He held the Catholic faith he had been brought up with throughout his life.
Archer had became a councillor in 1906 standing as a Progressive candidate. He lost his seat in 1909, but was re-elected in 1912, before being elected as Mayor with a majority of one. When the African Progress Union was formed in London in 1918, Archer was its first president, serving for three years. The union’s aims included promoting ‘the general welfare of Africans and Afro-Peoples’. In 1919, Archer was re-elected as a councillor, though by this point he was a Labour candidate. It was Archer who ensured that, when Shapurji Saklatvala stood in the 1922, 1923, and 1924 elections, he would not have an opposing Labour candidate. In 1931, he was deputy Labour Leader on Battersea council.
Archer may have been outward looking in his politics – news of his election as mayor was published as far afield as the USA – but in many ways his life and work was firmly rooted in Battersea. He was a governor for Battersea Polytechnic, president of the nine Elms swimming club, and a trustee of the borough charities. His work as a photographer was highly successful – he won prizes for his photography – and it is very likely his business suffered while he fulfilled his political commitments. As well as attending council and committee meetings, Archer served on the Wandsworth board of guardians, where he showed a great deal of empathy for those living in poverty – and this perhaps tells us something about his impetus in choosing a life of public service. In his text for the British Library online gallery, Black Europeans, Mike Phillips quotes a Labour councillor who stated on Archer’s death: ‘On the Board of Guardians he was always ready to take up the case of those who had to ask for assistance. He was persistent in his arguments for the maximum help for the needy’. He died in 1932 aged 69.
Wandsworth Borough Council have recently launched a bid to erect a statue of John Archer. You can find out more here.
Wandsworth Heritage Service 