Allan Glaisyer Minns
MRCS, LRCP
Mayor of Thetford
In office
1904–1906
Personal details
Born
Allan Glaisyer Minns

(1858-10-19)19 October 1858
Inagua, The Bahamas
Died16 September 1930(1930-09-16) (aged 71)
Dorking, Surrey, England
Alma materGuy's Hospital London

Allan Glaisyer Minns (1858 – 16 September 1930) was a medical doctor, and the first black man to become a mayor in Britain.[1]

Early life

Born in the island of Inagua in the Bahamas, Minns was one of the nine children and the youngest son of John Minns (1811–1863) and Ophelia (née Bunch) Minns (1817–1902).

His grandfather, also called John Minns, had emigrated about 1801 from England to the Bahamas,[2] where he married Rosette, a former African slave.[3]

Education and medical career

Minns was educated at Nassau Grammar School and Guy's Hospital in London.[4] He was registered with the British Medical Association on 14 February 1884; his qualifications were MRCS (1881), and LRCP (1884).

He was based in Thetford from 1885 until 1923, when he moved to Dorking.[5] His eldest brother, Pembroke Minns (1840–1912), was already in medical practice in Thetford when he moved there.[6]

Political career

In 1903, Minns was elected to the town council of Thetford, Norfolk, and the next year was elected as mayor, serving two one-year terms as mayor, the first known black mayor in England.[7] John Archer, who was elected mayor of Battersea in 1913, had initially been thought to be the first black British mayor. However, in reporting Archer's election, the American Negro Year Book 1914 noted that "[i]n 1904, Mr. Allen Glaser Minns [sic], a colored man from the West Indies, was elected mayor of the borough of Thetford, Norfolk."[8]

Personal life

Minns was twice married, first in 1888 to Emily Pearson (1859–1892) and then to Gertrude Ann Morton in 1896. He had two daughters and one son with his first wife, and two daughters with his second.

His son Allan Noel Minns (1891–1921), also a doctor, was one of the few black officers to serve in the British Army during the First World War.[9]

Death

Allan Glaisyer Minns died in Dorking on 16 September 1930, leaving a legacy as a trailblazer in both medicine and local government.

References

  1. ^ Dr. Allan Glaisyer Minns (1858–1930) Archived 12 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Norfolk Black History Month
  2. ^ The Bahamas DNA Project Archived 22 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine. comcast.net
  3. ^ "Wilson Armistead, 1819?-1868 A Tribute for the Negro: Being a Vindication of the Moral, Intellectual, and Religious Capabilities of the Colored Portion of Mankind; with Particular Reference to the African Race". docsouth.unc.edu. Retrieved 21 February 2023.
  4. ^ Extract from Norfolk & Suffolk In East Anglia, Contemporary Biographies, W. T. Pike (1911): "Minns – Allan Glaisyer Minns, Alexandra House, Thetford; youngest son of the late John Minns; born at Inagua, Bahamas, October 19th 1858. Educated at Nassau Grammar School and Guy's Hospital London. M.R.C.S. Eng; Lond. Medical Officer Thetford Workhouse Archived 5 June 2011 at the Wayback Machine & Thetford District of Thetford Union, Hon. Medical Officer Thetford Cottage Hospital. Member of the British M.A. & Norwich Medico Chirurgical Society; President of Horticultural Society; Mayor of Thetford 1904-05-06."
  5. ^ John Archer. Labour Heritage
  6. ^ "Dr. Pembroke Minns". British Medical Journal. 1 (2677): 930. 1912. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.2677.930-a. PMC 2344850.
  7. ^ Maguire, Richard Charles (2016), "Minns, Allan Glaisyer (1858–1930)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, retrieved 5 November 2023
  8. ^ Work, Monroe N., ed. (1914). Negro Year Book: An Annual Encyclopedia of the Negro - 1914-1915. Tuskegee, AL: The Negro Year Book Publishing Company, Tuskegee Institute Press. p. 49. Retrieved 15 August 2020.
  9. ^ Green, Jeffrey. "122: African-descent soldiers in British regiments in 1916". Jeffrey Green. Retrieved 20 September 2014.

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