Kate Bowell

Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh

Oct 192020

Royal College of Surgeons, Nicholson Street, Edinburgh EH8 9DW

In 1937, Hastings Banda, who became the first President of independent Malawi in 1966, travelled to Edinburgh to study medicine. At the time, the Royal College of Surgeons was one of Britain’s only non-university institutions providing a respected medical qualification, the Scottish Triple. Taking his final examinations in 1940, Banda passed all his courses except Surgery and Midwifery. He passed on his fifth attempt, however, and was finally awarded his diploma in July in 1941. In 1977, President Banda donated £350,000 to the College, receiving an honorary fellowship in return. A plaque commemorating Banda was erected outside, but during the campaign for multi-party democracy in the early 1990s, Banda came under widespread criticism. He was an absolute ruler who had outlawed all other political parties and owned 45% of Malawi’s GDP. Despite this, the College refused to take a political stance when asked to return Banda’s donation to Malawi. Dr. Paul Reece noted that no “donations should have been made by the President to a royal college in the UK when there are all the problems in Malawi itself. When I was there we were having adults admitted with starvation.” The College refused, but the plaque has been removed.

Hastings Banda (left) and Julius Nyerere (right).

Teviot Row House

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Oct 192020

Teviot Row House, 13 Bristo Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AL

Opening its doors in 1889, Teviot is the world’s oldest and purpose-built Student Union. Home to Edinburgh University Students’ Association (EUSA), it reflects a long history of student politics in Edinburgh. Amongst those involved in EUSA’s history is Grenadian David Pitt, who graduated in Medicine and Surgery in 1938. In 1936, Pitt became first Junior President of the Students’ Representative Council, the co-founding body of what is now EUSA. Whilst participating in Edinburgh University and UK national politics, Pitt never lost sight of Caribbean politics. The years in which he graduated and returned to the Caribbean islands were fundamental for Trinidadian politics, and saw a sustained campaign for universal adult suffrage, finally awarded by the British Parliament in 1945. David Pitt himself contributed to this campaign, co-founding the West Indian National Party (WINP), a socialist party dedicated to the emergence of political autonomy across the Caribbean. In 1947, Pitt led a group of WINP members to Britain to lobby the Government for Commonwealth status for a Federation of the West Indies. Pitt made history again in 1959, becoming the first parliamentary candidate of African descent in a UK general election as Labour candidate for the north London constituency of Hampstead.

Edinburgh Indian Association

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Oct 192020

11 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9LD

The Edinburgh Indian Association (EIA), founded in 1883, was one of the first Indian Associations in Britain. Between 1911 and the 1950s, the EIA rented rooms at 11 George Square, which “contained a debating hall for 100 people, a dining-hall serving Indian dishes, a library, a billiard room with two full-size tables and one ping pong table.” Containing members from across India and its diaspora, it radicalized students who later became key leaders in the British Guiana East Indian Association, the Non-European Unity Movement in South Africa, and the Indian National Congress itself. Edinburgh alum Kesaveloo Goonam Naidoo recounts that the EIA: “had the unique privilege of listening to the Nobel Laureate, Sir CV Rama. His speech went over my head, but heck, it felt good just being there. Another illustrious visitor was the Right Honourable Srinivasa Sastri, who […] was very unpopular among the Indian students [for his pro-British oratory] and became even more so when he came to Edinburgh to receive the freedom of the city at a time when thousands of Indian freedom fighters languished in British jails.” As the Home Rule movement grew in India, the EIA “became active in this field” and was monitored by Scotland Yard for revolutionary discussions.

Emblem of the Edinburgh Indian Association in January 1920.

15 Buccleuch Place

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Oct 192020

15 Buccleuch Place, Edinburgh EH8 9LN

Dr. Agnes Yewande Savage was born at 15 Buccleuch Place in 1906. Her father, Richard Akinwande Savage, had been vice president of the Afro-West Indian Society at Edinburgh and, in 1900, attended the first Pan-African Congress in London. Savage was probably the first West African woman to qualify in medicine. She graduated with a first, winning awards in skin disease and forensic medicine. In 1929, she was awarded the prestigious Dorothy Gilfillan Memorial Prize for the best woman graduate. Savage nevertheless faced huge institutional barriers due to her race and gender. When appointed in 1930 as a junior medical officer in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Savage was paid discriminatory wages and lived in servants’ quarters. Andrew Fraser, headmaster at Achimota College, recruited her as a teacher and a medical officer in 1931. Savage also supervised the establishment of the Nurses Training School at Korle Bu, Accra, where a ward is now named after her. Finally, in 1945, Savage was given the same terms of employment, salary, and retirement as her white colleagues. Historian E. Keazor asserts that Savage “left one of the greatest legacies for Nigerian women. […] Her life shows that hard work and self-belief can allow one to break barriers.”

Richard Savage Sr. with the Students Representative Council

15 Melville Terrace

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Oct 192020

15 Melville Terrace, Edinburgh EH9 1LY

Born in 1886, Jung Bahadur Singh was an advocate for marginalized colonial subjects in British Guiana (now Guyana). While his time at Edinburgh is poorly documented, we know that he lived with his wife, Alice Bhagwandy Singh, and their children at 15 Melville Terrace. After the abolition of chattel slavery, Britain began to recruit indentured labourers as a substitute. Indentured labourers were paid to work in the Caribbean but were expected to return to South Asia after a 5 year period. Singh had close and personal experiences with indenture – both of his parents were indentured labourers in British Guiana, and between the ages of 16 and 28, he had worked as a medical dispenser on immigration ships. As a result, he became dedicated to representing the plight of diasporic Indians, and when he enrolled to study medicine at Edinburgh in 1914, he became a prominent member of the Edinburgh Indian Association. When Singh completed his studies and returned to British Guiana, he fought for the rights of the Indo-Guyanese to participate in their own governance, to have their non-Christian rites legally recognized, and to receive better pay.

Jung Bahadur Singh and Alice Bhagwandy Singh

Wong Fun Statue

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Oct 192020

The Confucius Institute for Scotland, 1 Marchhall Crescent, Edinburgh EH16 5HP

Wong Fun Statue at the Confucius Institute for Scotland

The Confucius Institute for Scotland at the University of Edinburgh promotes the “educational, economic, and cultural ties between Scotland and China.” In the 1850s, the University of Edinburgh was one of the first destinations for Chinese students pursuing overseas study. This statue depicts Dr. Wong Fun (Huang Kuan), who was educated as a medical student at the University of Edinburgh between 1850 and 1855. The Edinburgh Medical Missionary Society (EMMS) granted financial support to overseas students studying medicine in Scotland, and aided Dr. Wong financially from 1852. Upon completing his studies, Dr. Wong became the first Chinese student to graduate from any institution across the whole of Europe, as well as the first Western-trained doctor in China. Dr. Wong’s thesis was entitled ‘On Functional Disorders of the Stomach’ and Yung Wing, a former classmate and one of the first Chinese students to graduate in America, remembered him as “one of the ablest surgeons East of the Cape of Good Hope.” After his graduation, Wong was appointed as a clinical clerk to Professor James Miller in the New Surgical Hospital, and later took a position in a missionary hospital in Kum-Lee-Fow.

A Plaque to Wong Fun also stands at 8 Buccleuch Place.

Colonial House

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Oct 152020

2 Palmerston Road, Edinburgh EH9 1TN

2 Palmerston Road, site of Colonial House

In the 1940s, ‘Colonial House’ at 2 Palmerston Road was the residence of “all sorts of colonial persons” and was the location for meetings of both the Afro-Scottish and the Edinburgh African Association. These hostels were cheaper than private accommodation and offered relief from loneliness. “Above all, the hostels eliminated that spectre of colonial student life: ‘the intolerant or grasping landlady.” Julius Nyerere stayed at Colonial House when he arrived to study Economics and History at Edinburgh on a colonial scholarship in 1949. At the time, he was one of only two East African students in Scotland. Nyerere led Tanganyika to independence in 1961 and was President of Tanzania (the name given to the territory after the 1964 union with Zanzibar) until 1985. At Edinburgh, Nyerere took courses in Political Economy, Social Anthropology, Economic and British History, and Moral Philosophy. Margaret Bell, who taught him British History, commented that his writing style was often “the best in her group.” According to historian Tom Molony, “Edinburgh was a place where Nyerere enjoyed new levels of intellectual freedom.” Today, Nyerere is remembered for his elaboration of African Socialism, which informed his plans for the social and economic development of Tanzania.

International Students’ Hostel

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Oct 132020

5 Grosvenor Crescent, Edinburgh EH12 5EP

5 Grange Road, site of the old International Students’ Hostel

The YMCA Indian Students’ Hostel was established at Grosvenor Crescent in 1920. In 1933, it became the International Students’ Hostel, accommodating “men from India, Sudan, South and East Africa, Christians, Muslims, Sikhs and Parsis.” By 1939, residents included Ghanaian doctor and artist Edward Oku Ampofo. Ampofo studied in Edinburgh from 1933 as the first Ghanaian to receive a government scholarship to study medicine. At the same time, he attended night classes for art. According to Emmanuel Evans-Anfom, Ampofo was on the University hockey team, and played matches against Aberdeen and Glasgow. After returning to Ghana from further studies in China, Ampofo founded the Centre for Scientific Research into Plant Medicine in 1975. His ground-breaking studies led to the identification of over 300 plant-based remedies for diseases such as sickle-cell anaemia, diabetes, arthritis and even some forms of cancer. As an artist, Ampofo was instrumental in the formation of the Akwapim Six, a group of diverse artists in Ghana. His own sculptures featured traditional African materials, including ebony. Ampofo insisted that art was intertwined with the politics of decolonization, saying: “art had a function in the political struggle, because our artistic achievements showed that we are ready for political independence.”

Old Medical School

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Oct 082020

Old Medical School, The University of Edinburgh, Teviot Place, Edinburgh EH8 9AG

Edinburgh’s medical school has attracted many international students throughout its history, including Dominican-born Clara Christian, the first black woman student enrolled at the University in 1915. When her mother passed away when she was 11, Christian moved to Edinburgh and attended a convent school. In 1915, she began her medical degree, but left University after falling pregnant with the child of fellow Caribbean medical student, Edgar Gordon. The couple emigrated back to the Caribbean in 1921. Living in the British Empire, they faced institutional barriers within Bermuda’s employment sector, frequently being overlooked for roles that were handed to white colonials. Their marriage deteriorated, resulting in divorce. Despite not graduating, Christian was capable, intelligent, and hard-working. Nevertheless, as a single mother, she had to turn down roles that required her to relocate permanently while promising little opportunity for promotion. Esme Allman captures the importance of remembering Christian, whose experience, “embodies the simultaneous invisibility and hyper-visibility of being the first black woman enrolled at Edinburgh, at odds with the possibility of falling by the wayside whilst navigating a predominantly white institution during the colonial period.”

7 Grange Road

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Oct 082020

7 Grange Road, Edinburgh EH9 1UH

South African Kesaveloo Goonam Naidoo lived with the Dewar family at 7 Grange Road in the early 1930s. In her autobiography, Goonam fondly remembered “the cold wintry evenings spent cuddled up with Aunt Mary near the glowing fire, listening to her tales of Scotland.” When Goonam graduated from Edinburgh’s Medical School, she became the first Indian female doctor in South Africa. Reflecting on her time at the University, Goonam remembered Edinburgh’s Indian students as “intensely patriotic, highly critical of the British, and passionately supportive of Gandhi.” When she returned to South Africa in 1936, Goonam galvanized women’s involvement in Indian nationalist activities. She was the first woman to attain the vice-presidency of the Natal Indian Congress, and became a leading political force in the Passive Resistance Campaign, launched in 1946 by fellow Edinburgh alum Dr. Monty Naicker against the Asiatic Land Tenure and Representation Bill. This Bill, enacted by the South African Parliament, “declared war on (South African) Indians” by segregating them into ghettos, and thereby earning the nickname “the Ghetto Act.” When Goonam passed away at 92, Nelson Mandela offered his condolences, saying that South Africa had lost a great freedom fighter and an outstanding champion of democracy.

Kesaveloo Goonam graduated from Edinburgh in 1936.

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