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Ignatius Sancho is the first known person of African descent to vote in a British general election.

Born in 1729 on a slave ship, Ignatius spent his first two years as an enslaved boy on the island of Grenada,  a country of the West Indies.

Ignatius taught himself how to read and write. But teaching slaves to be educated was seen as an unwritten crime, and therefore slave owners and plantation workers were risking their lives to become literate.

Once Sancho became literate, he immediately began speaking out against the Slave Trade, as well as learning how to compose music and write poetry on the subject.

Because of his financially-independent householder status, he had the right to cast his vote for the Westminster Members of Parliament in the 1774 and 1780 elections, and was the first black person of African origin to do so.