Black History Month: who was Oxford’s first black graduate?

Cole would go on to be the first black African barrister to practice law in English courts, overcoming the racist attitudes of the time to help pave the way for other black scholars and lawyers.

Cole was born in 1852 in Waterloo in Sierra Leone, a British Colony at the time.

Little is known about his early life before he travelled to Oxford. However, it is known that he was the adoptive son of a Church of England minister and was educated at Fourah Bay College in Freetown.

He enrolled at Oxford as a non-collegiate student in 1873 to read classics.

Univ’s Register of Admissions. Picture: Admissions register, University College Archives, University College Oxford

As a non-collegiate student it meant he was not attached to a college, something at the time which helped poorer students study who may not have been able to afford fees.

He received an allowance from his uncle to support him, which he supplemented by tutoring and giving music lessons.

His fellow students at the time included the author Oscar Wilde and the imperialist Cecil Rhodes, whose ideas and attitudes have since caused controversy and calls for his statute at Oriel College to be removed.

Cole was considered quite popular at the College and when his uncle died, putting more strain on his finances, students raised money to help him.

Despite the financial difficulties he faced, he graduated in 1876 with a fourth-class honours degree in classics and was accepted as a member of University College in the November of that year.

Following his graduation Cole trained as a barrister and was accepted by the Inner Temple in 1883, making him the first black African practising in English courts.

Cole died of smallpox in 1885, at the age of 33.

In October 2017 a plaque was unveiled at University College Oxford to recognise Christian Cole. The plaque is visible in Logic Lane.