Whittington Hospital is a district general and teaching hospital of UCL Medical School and Middlesex University School of Health and Social Sciences. Located in Upper Holloway, it is managed by Whittington Health NHS Trust, operating as Whittington Health, an integrated care organisation providing hospital and community health services in the north London boroughs of Islington and Haringey. Its Jenner Building, a former smallpox hospital, is a Grade II listed building.
Peter Fryer was an English Marxist writer and journalist. Among his most influential works is the 1984 book Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain.
Val Irvine McCalla was a Jamaican accountant and media entrepreneur who settled in Britain in 1959. He is best known as the founder of The Voice, a British weekly newspaper aimed at the Britain's black community, which he established in 1982 as a voice for the British African-Caribbean community. He was honoured as a pioneering publisher for the community, but also faced critics who deemed him sensationalistic.
Cyril Ewart Lionel Grant was a Guyanese actor, musician, writer, poet and World War II veteran. In the 1950s, he became the first black person to be featured regularly on television in Britain, mostly due to his appearances on the BBC current affairs show Tonight.
Kelso Cochrane was an Antiguan expatriate to Britain whose unsolved murder led to racial tensions in London.
Nubian Jak is a multi-award-winning board game, introduced in 1994, that combines questions on historical facts with pop trivia, to highlight some of the achievements by people of colour globally.
Nubian Jak Community Trust (NJCT) is a commemorative plaque and sculpture scheme founded by Jak Beula that highlights the historic contributions of Black and minority ethnic people in Britain. The first NJCT heritage plaque, honouring Bob Marley, was unveiled in 2006 after "two years of research and behind the scenes negotiating". The scheme has been run and managed by the not-for-profit organization Nubian Jak Trust Ltd since August 2016, with a remit to commemorate and celebrate the diverse history of modern Britain. Its objectives include the promotion of social equality and to encourage activities that promote cultural diversity in society.
The African and Caribbean War Memorial in Brixton, London, is the United Kingdom's national memorial to African and Caribbean service personnel who fought in the First and Second World Wars. It originated with a project for a memorial to Caribbean Royal Air Force veterans of World War II who arrived in Britain in 1948 on the MV Empire Windrush; this was an extension of the commemorative plaque and sculpture scheme run by the Nubian Jak Community Trust to highlight the historic contributions of Black and minority ethnic people in Britain. The memorial was originally to have been placed at Tilbury Docks, as part of the commemoration for the centenary of the outbreak of World War I. However, as the project began to evolve into a larger tribute that included both World Wars and commemorated servicemen and women from both Africa and the Caribbean, it was agreed by the memorial recipient – the Port of Tilbury – and the project organisers that a new, more accessible location needed to found. The memorial was ultimately permanently installed and unveiled on 22 June 2017 in Windrush Square, Brixton.
Constance Winifred Mark, MBE, BEM was a Jamaican-born community organiser and activist. She served as a medical secretary in the Auxiliary Territorial Service in World War II. After moving to England in the early 1950s, she became an activist for West Indians in London, after being denied her British Empire Medal. She worked to gain recognition for Black service personnel who were overlooked for their services and co-founded the Mary Seacole Memorial Association to bring recognition to the accomplishments of the noted Jamaican nurse.
Windrush Square is an open public space in the centre of Brixton, South London, occupying an area in front of the Brixton Tate Library. After changing its name to Tate Gardens, it was again retitled and given its current moniker in 1998. The square was renamed to recognise the important contribution of the African Caribbean community to the area, marking the 50th anniversary of the arrival of the HMT Empire Windrush. It was the Windrush that in 1948 brought to the United Kingdom from Jamaica the first large group of post-war West Indian migrants, who on arrival were temporarily housed less than a mile away from Coldharbour Lane in Brixton.
Patrick Philip Vernon is a British social commentator and political activist of Jamaican heritage, who works in the voluntary and public sector. He is a former Labour councillor in the London Borough of Hackney. His career has been involved with developing and managing health and social care services, including mental health, public health, regeneration and employment projects. Also a film maker and amateur cultural historian, he runs his own social enterprise promoting the history of diverse communities, as founder of Every Generation and the "100 Great Black Britons" campaign. He is also an expert on African and Caribbean genealogy in the UK. He was appointed a Clore Fellow in 2007, an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours for "services to the Reduction of Health Inequalities for Ethnic Minorities", and in 2018 was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton.
Laura Serrant, is a British nurse and academic. She is currently Regional Head of Nursing for North East and Yorkshire at Health Education England and Professor of at Manchester Metropolitan University where she was previously Head of Department.
Daphne Steele was a Guyanese nurse, who in 1964 became the first Black Matron in the National Health Service.
Windrush Day is a commemoration in the United Kingdom held on 22 June to honour the contributions of migrants to the post-war economy. Specifically, it celebrates Afro-Caribbeans who began arriving on the HMT Empire Windrush in 1948. Later known as the "Windrush generation", these economic migrants were an important part of the UK's recovery from the privations of World War II. Windrush Day is not a bank holiday but has grown in popularity since a campaign by Patrick Vernon led to its introduction in 2018.
Whittington Health NHS Trust is an NHS trust in London, England, that manages the Whittington Hospital. It primarily serves the London boroughs of Islington and Haringey, but also provides some services to the London boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Enfield and Hackney. It runs the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering Children.
The NHS Nightingale Hospital London was the first of the NHS Nightingale Hospitals, temporary hospitals set up by NHS England for the COVID-19 pandemic. It was housed in the ExCeL London convention centre in East London. The hospital was rapidly planned and constructed, being formally opened on 3 April and receiving its first patients on 7 April 2020. It served 54 patients during the first wave of the pandemic, and was used to serve non-COVID patients and provide vaccinations during the second wave. It was closed in April 2021.
Aggrey Washington Burke FRCPsych is a British retired psychiatrist and academic, born in Jamaica, who spent the majority of his medical career at St George's Hospital in London, UK, specialising in transcultural psychiatry and writing literature on changing attitudes towards black people and mental health. He has carried out extensive research on racism and mental illness and is the first black consultant psychiatrist appointed by Britain's National Health Service (NHS).
Cecile Yvonne Conolly CBE was a Jamaican teacher, who became the United Kingdom's first female black headteacher in 1969, aged just 29-years-old. She arrived in the UK in 1963, as part of the Windrush generation, and went on to have a career in education that spanned over 40 years. In 2020, Conolly was made a CBE for services to education.
