Allan Glaisyer Minns

Allan Glaisyer Minns (1858 – 16 September 1930) was a medical doctor, and the first black man to become a mayor in Britain.[1] Born in The Bahamas, he was elected mayor of Thetford, Norfolk, in 1904. He was elected to the town council of Thetford in 1903 and served two one-year terms as mayor from 1904.

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

John Archer, elected mayor of Battersea in 1913, had been thought to be the first black British mayor. However, in reporting Archer's election, the American Negro Year Book 1914 (founded by Monroe Work) recorded that:

In 1904, Mr. Allen Glaser Minns [sic], a colored man from the West Indies, was elected mayor of the borough of Thetford, Norfolk.[2]

Minns was educated at Nassau Grammar School and Guy's Hospital in London.[3] 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[4] where he died. His eldest brother, Dr Pembroke Minns (1840–1912), was already in medical practice in Thetford when he moved there.[5]

He was one of nine children of John Minns (1811–1863) and Ophelia (née Bunch, 1817 – 1902). His paternal grandfather, also John Minns, had emigrated circa 1801 from England to the Bahamas[6] where he married Rosette, a former African slave.[7]

He was twice married; first to Emily Pearson (1859–1892) in 1888 and secondly to Gertrude Ann Morton in 1896. He had children by both wives.

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.[8]

References
  • "Minns, Allan Glaisyer (1858–1930)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/109662. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
  1. Dr. Allan Glaisyer Minns (1858–1930) Archived 12 October 2010 at the Wayback Machine. Norfolk Black History Month
  2. 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.
  3. 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."
  4. John Archer. Labour Heritage
  5. "Dr. Pembroke Minns". British Medical Journal. 1 (2677): 930. 1912. doi:10.1136/bmj.1.2677.930-a. PMC 2344850.
  6. The Bahamas DNA Project Archived 22 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine. comcast.net
  7. Armistead, Wilson (1848) A Tribute to the Negro: Being a Vindication of the Moral, Intellectual, and Religious Capabilities of the Coloured Portion of Mankind: with Particular Reference to the African Race
  8. Green, Jeffrey. "122: African-descent soldiers in British regiments in 1916". Jeffrey Green. Retrieved 20 September 2014.
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