Extraordinary Life of Charles Ignatius Sancho
with Paterson Joseph
Watch event again now
This event took place on 14 October 2022
Watch the video
Extraordinary Life of Charles Ignatius Sancho
with Paterson Joseph
Watch event again now
This event took place on 14 October 2022
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, in partnership with HistFest.
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. Watch online here or you can watch along in our partner libraries in Bristol and Reading.
'The Secret Diaries of Charles Ignatius Sancho' by Paterson Joseph is available to buy from the British Library Bookshop, or borrow from your local library.
