Early Black Freemen and Voters – John Satia, John London and John Moore

By Audrey Dewjee (23^rd October 2025)

On 14^th September 1731 a proclamation was issued under the authority of Sir Humphrey Parsons, Lord Mayor of London. It conveyed an order from the Court of Aldermen that:

‘for the future no Negroes or other Blacks be suffered to be bound apprentices at any of the Companies of this City’.

This proclamation was mentioned in three of the early books about British Black History – Walvin’s Black and White (1973), Shyllon’s Black People in Britain (1977), and Fryer’s Staying Power (1984). When I read these books, I was curious to know what caused the proclamation to be made and it struck me as odd that none of these eminent historians had looked into what had prompted it. So, in 1985, when I had a bit of time, I went to the Guildhall to investigate further in their archives. There I discovered the proclamation resulted from the application for Freedom of the City by a man named John Satia.

Freedom of the City of London

The City of London over which the Court of Aldermen had jurisdiction was only the one square mile of ‘The City’ – roughly the financial centre of today. In 1731, much of what is now called ‘London’ was actually part of the City of Westminster and the two were separated in those days by open fields. While the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen and the Freemen of the various livery companies ruled the roost in the City of London, the City of Westminster was completely separate. The City of London was the province of the main business community, whilst the City of Westminster was the province of the King, parliament and the Church. [Even today, on all state occasions, the King has to ask the Lord Mayor of London for permission to enter the City. The Lord Mayor meets him at Temple Bar, the site of one of the old gates into the City, and ceremonially permits him to enter.]

The Freedom of the City was sought by anyone who wanted to prosper in the City of London and it was absolutely essential to anyone who desired to carry out a trade or handicraft within the City’s boundaries. Among the privileges of the Freedom were immunity from toll at all markets and fairs throughout England, freedom from impressment into the armed forces, exclusive right to trade by wholesale and retail within the City and to accept apprentices, and the right to vote at ward and parliamentary elections.

The city fathers guarded these privileges jealously, especially the freedom to trade, and they went to great lengths to prevent Jews and other ‘foreigners’ (whether from another country, another part of Britain, or even another part of London) from becoming Freemen.

Methods of gaining the Freedom

There were three basic methods by which a person could become a Freeman of the City of London:

(1)  By Patrimony. The child of a Freeman of the City, born in lawful wedlock after the date of his father’s admission, could be admitted to the Freedom.

(2)  By Servitude. A person who had completed a term of years as an apprentice (usually 7) could be admitted to the Freedom.

(3)  By Redemption (i.e. by purchase). Those not eligible for admission by patrimony or servitude might seek admission by ‘redemption’ usually requiring the payment of a higher fee. All such admissions required the approval of the Court of Aldermen.

There was also a fourth category, Honoris Causa (Honorary Freedom). Honorary Freedom is the highest honour the City can bestow and is rarely granted.

The reason for the Lord Mayor’s Proclamation

On the 7^th September 1731, a week before the proclamation was issued, John Satia had applied for his Freedom. As he had completed his apprenticeship in 1725 this was duly granted. It was recorded in the minutes that:

‘This Court doth declare their opinion that Mr. Chamberlain may admit the said John Satia to his Freedom by Service.’

However, a week later, when the Court of Aldermen next met on 14^th September and read over the proceedings of the previous week, ‘some Debates arose relating to an order therein entered touching the admittance of John Satia a Nigro born in Barbadoes into the Freedom of this City by Service.’  As a result of these debates it was agreed that:

‘This Court doth now order that the same be not for the future drawn into precedent & that no Nigros or other Blacks be at any time hereafter admitted into the Freedom of this City. And it is ordered that for the future no order of this Court be delivered out until the same has been read at the next Court…’

John Satia’s Story

John Satia gave details of his origins in the affidavit he swore in connection with his admission to the Freedom, stating that ‘he had often heard Mr. Gerrard a Merchant since deceased say that he brought him from Barbadoes when he was about two years old and that he was born there’. Gerrard had apprenticed John to a joiner by the name of William Attey on 11^th March 1717.

Intrigued, I searched further and discovered that John Satia, ‘a black Mr. Gerrards servant’ was baptised on 3^rd March 1716/17 at the Church of St. Edward the King and Martyr in Lombard Street, eight days before he was apprenticed.

During his apprenticeship Mr. Gerrard (or Garrard) died and he left John an annuity of £10.

John completed his apprenticeship with William Attey and was admitted to the Worshipful Company of Joiners on 6^th April 1725. Later that year, on 21^stAugust, he married Elizabeth Mumford at the church of St. Martin Orgar and St. Clement Eastcheap.

Elizabeth gave birth to a daughter on 25^th July 1729. Named Elizabeth after her mother, she was baptised at the Church of St. Sepulchre without Newgate on 5^th August. Sadly, like many infants at the time, she only survived for a few weeks and she was buried at St. Sepulchre on 4^th September. The Satias appear to have had no more children.

John Satia died on 11^th September 1753 aged 64, and was buried at St. James, Clerkenwell. His wife Elizabeth survived him. She made her will on 13^th March 1760, leaving a shilling each to Elizabeth Wyatt, Ann Coulston and Charles Coulston and the residue of her estate to her sister, Mary Hollis. Her will, which was proved on 28^th May 1766, can be seen at the London Metropolitan Archives.

John Moore

John Satia was not the first Black Freeman of a British city. Forty-four years earlier John Moore had become a Freeman of the City of York. On 29^th September 1687 he obtained his Freedom by purchase, so he must have been quite a wealthy man. Rita Freedman, former archivist at York City Archives, told me that he paid less than the usual rate for his admission. She reckoned this may have been because he had performed some service that was beneficial to the city. Today, the website of the Gild of Freemen of York states that ‘oral history says that he paid for certain milestones to be quarried’ and that research is continuing to find out more about him ^[1]https://freemenofyork.co.uk/historyfreemen/

There are two records of the money John Moore paid.

The first reads:

‘Ordered. that John Moore the Blackmoore be Admitted to the Freedom of this Citty – paying twenty Nobles to the Common Chamber of this Citty And it is left to my Lord Mayors discretion to retorne him back what he pleases.’

Twenty nobles equalled £6.13s.4d. This is because each noble was worth six shillings and eight pence (£0.6s 8d).

The second, dated 1^st October 1687, reads:

‘John Moore was Admitted to the freedome of this Citty and pay’d  £4.0s.0d.’

Does this mean that the Lord Mayor had refunded John £2.13s.4d from his previous payment?

John Moore thus became a member of the elite of the City and was able to enjoy all the privileges that being a Freeman of York bestowed. As in the City of London, this included the right to trade, to exercise a craft and join a craft guild. He could own property and bear arms, he had the right to fish in the city’s rivers and to graze his animals on the city’s meadows, he was exempt from tolls and fees and he could vote in local and national elections and stand as an MP.

Early Black voters

If John Satia exercised his right to vote in parliamentary elections after he obtained his Freedom, which one expects he would have done, he may have been the first Black voter in Britain. He was eligible to vote in general elections in 1734, 1741 and 1747. If he did, this would predate John London’s vote in the Westminster byelection of 1749 and Ignatius Sancho’s vote in the 1774 general election, recorded in a Guardian article about ‘Britain’s first Black Voter’. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/24/britains-first-black-voter-was-in-1749-25-years-earlier-than-thought-and-ran-a-pub

Because there were a number of men named John Moore in York in the late 17^th/early 18^th centuries, nothing more has been discovered about him. Presuming that he lived in York for a number of years after he became a Freeman, he too may have exercised his right to vote in one or more of the four general elections that were held between 1689 and 1698. If he did, John Moore may have been the first Black voter in Britain.

However, claiming that someone is the first to have done a particular thing is dangerous. Quite often when such a claim is made, an earlier example promptly comes to light. This is especially true in the field of British Black History where so much more research is still waiting to be done.

Prosperous Black Britons

The stories of John Moore and John Satia, along with that of John London, the publican mentioned in the Guardian article, indicate that there may have been a larger number of prosperous Black residents in British towns and cities than we are generally aware of, and that they may have been present from a far earlier date than is usually imagined.

For instance, it was recorded that ‘the first fine Spanish needles in England were made in the reign of Queen Mary, in Cheapside [in the City of London], by a negro; ‘but such his envy, that he would teach his art to none; so that it died with him’.^[2]Thomas Fuller, The Histories of the Worthies of England (1662, new edition, London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1811), p.50. Queen Mary was on the throne from 1553-1558. The presence and impact of this skilled African is discussed at some length by Dr. Onyeka Nubia in his book Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, Their Presence, Status and Origins.^[3]Onyeka, Blackamoores: Africans in Tudor England, Their Presence, Status and Origins, Narrative Eye, 2013, pp.235-239.

Another early London businessman was William Phipps who owned a cookshop in Milford Lane, a narrow street in the City of Westminster that runs south from the Strand to Temple Place. On 4^th September 1701, he married Lucy Bromley (or Brumley), a black woman who had been baptised on 6^th March 1691/2 at the church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Bromley, Kent. According to the register, William was living in St. James’s street at the time and Lucy in the parish of St. Clement’s.

William and Lucy had a number of children including William born 1702, Anthony born 1704 (who died in early 1706), Lucy born 1706, Susanna born 1708, John born 1710, Rachel born 1712, and another William born in 1715 (which indicates that William born in 1702 must also have died).

William Phipps must have been held in esteem by a good number of his customers and neighbours because, when he died, it was reported in the Weekly Journal that:

‘six Blacks held up the Pall, and the Corpse was follow’d in good Order by 60 or 70 others of the same Complexion, and about the same Number of English People brought up the Reer.’

The London Journal estimated the number of White mourners to be 150.^[4] Weekly Journal or Saturday’s Post, 20 January 1722; London Journal, also 20 January 1722 (as reported in the Newcastle Courant, 27 January, 1722). William was buried in the churchyard of St. Clement Danes on 14^th January 1721/22.

When William died, he left Lucy to raise their surviving children aged between six and 14. Her eldest son, John, was only 11 years old. If she carried on running the cookshop, she would have needed help, so she did what most people did at that time when they lost their spouse – she remarried quickly. The register of St. Clement Danes records that Lucy Phipps, widow, married Thomas Taylour, bachelor, two months later on 22^nd March.

Was William Phipps another Black man who was eligible to vote?

Let us hope that much further research is carried out, and that more stories of early Black voters and businessmen come to light in the not-too-distant future.