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Blue plaque for Equiano please
• AS we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade on March 25, I have come across an interesting fact about Olaudah Equiano, the Nigerian ex-slave, who fought this barbarous trade.
It is well known that he lived at 13 Tottenham Street in Camden in 1788, the year before he wrote his autobiography exposing the suffering he had experienced.
But I have discovered from a map of 1793, showing the original street numbering, that what was number 13 is now number 37. And that is next door to the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Centre – where his portrait adorns the mural on the outside wall.
The mural also includes a copy of Turner’s painting Monsoon Coming On, depicting the throwing overboard of 130 sick slaves at sea – because the insurance paid slave owners compensation for those drowned but not those who died of disease.
This atrocity was publicised by Equiano while working for an organisation called Black Poor in Warren Street.
His autobiography also awoke the consciousness of many and helped pave the way for abolition.
How appropriate it would be, therefore, if a plaque was erected at number 37 Tottenham Street.
MIKE PENTELOW
Nassau Street, W1W
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