George John Scipio Africanus

By: Errol I. Mars

Company: Africanus' Register of Servants

Position: Founder

Industry: Services

Country: United kingdom

Africanus was the first black entrepreneur in Nottingham England. He was born in 1763 in Sierra Leone in West Africa before eventurally ending up in England as a slave. He was given as a present to wealthy businessman Benjamin Molineux, who lived in

Wolverhampton. Molineux's family where the ones to give him the name Africanus. They ensured he grew up able to read and write, and he served his apprenticeship

as a brass founder in one of the Molineux family's foundries. Africanus who had won his freedom long before the Abolition of the Slave Trade Laws in 1807. Africanus moved to Nottingham to work as a brass founder in 1784 and was married in 1788 to Esther Shaw a local woman.George and Esther founded the Africanus' Register of Servants, an employment

agency which remained a family business for more than 70 years. He became a freeholder, owning his own family home as well as business

premises and accommodation he rented out. This also allowed him the right to vote. Africanus died in 1834 aged 71.

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