John Richard Archer was born in Britain but from West Indian stock; his father came from Barbados and his mother was Irish. Archer attended Coleridge-Taylor’s funeral and was politically active from a young age, becoming one of the first Africans to win public office in Britain and becoming a councillor for Battersea in 1906. In 1913, after a campaign marked by racial aspersions and questions over his nationality, he became mayor. As well as municipal politics he was active in Pan-Africanist and Labour politics, and corresponded with black political leaders in the United States.
