Extraordinary Life of Charles Ignatius Sancho with Paterson Joseph

This online event hosted by the British Library will be livestreamed in the Bristol Central Library Café.

Acclaimed British actor Paterson Joseph draws from his highly-anticipated debut novel to tell the extraordinary story of 18th-century writer, abolitionist and composer Charles Ignatius Sancho. Live from the British Library.

Charles’s story began with his birth on board a slave ship in c.1729, before being orphaned and sold into slavery. Transported across the Atlantic to Britain at the age of two, Sancho spent his childhood and teens in the household of three English sisters, before escaping enslavement and developing a career as a businessman, writer and composer who sat at the very heart of Georgian London – becoming the first Black person to vote in Britain and leading the fight to end slavery.

Beginning with a dramatic reading from his new book, Paterson Joseph shares Charles Ignatius Sancho’s incredible life story and explores what it meant to be a Black Briton living at this time, and how historical fiction can help to breathe fresh life into real historical figures.

Part of the British Library’s Black History Month celebrations.

Tickets are free! Please reserve your ticket via Eventbrite.

You can also watch online here on the British Library website.

Event Venue

Bristol Central Library, Deanery Road, Bristol, United Kingdom