George Africanus - Burial Place and Legacy

Burial Place and Legacy

Len Garrison, director of Afro-Caribbean Family and Friends (AcFF), ensured that Africanus was included in Nottingham Castle's 1993 Black Presence exhibition. It was only in 2003 that, after painstaking research, Africanus's grave was uncovered, despite its worn inscription, in the churchyard of St. Mary's Church, Nottingham. His wife was buried alongside him. Their children are buried in a separate grave nearby.

A gravestone bearing an epitaph now reads:

In Memory of George Africanus
Who died May 19th 1834
Aged 70 years
Also Ester Africanus, wife of the above
Who died May 12th 1853?
Aged 81 years

Oh cruel death that separated here
A loving father from his daughter dear
Also a tender parent in decline of life
A loving mother and a careful wife
While in this world they did remain
Their latter Days were full of pain

A memorial plaque in memory of Africanus, "Nottingham's first black entrepreneur", was unveiled on St Mary's churchyard railings in April 2003.

On 25 March 2007, as part of the events taking place to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of Abolition of Slave Trade Act, an hour-long grave re-dedication service was held at St Mary's Church, High Pavement, Nottingham, as a memorial to the life of George Africanus, with the Bishop of Jamaica, the Rt Revd Alfred Charles Reid, among the guests. In the same month, an exhibition was held at Nottingham Council House celebrating the life of Africanus, displaying documents and illustrations connected with his life in Wolverhampton and Nottingham.