Talk: Life of Ann(e) Sancho

Ann(e) Sancho [née Osborne], the first-known Black female publisher in the Western world, entrepreneur and businesswoman, spent most of her life living, working and socialising in Westminster. Ann(e) grew up with her family in London's East End, in the parish of St. Mary's Whitechapel, before marrying Ignatius Sancho at St. Margaret's Church, Westminster in 1758, where the couple were regular parish attendees. Join us in The Orangery, where Libby Collard, PhD researcher at Northeastern University's Mapping Black London team will tell the incredible and often forgotten story of Ann Sancho, a pioneer who helped to break down racial, social and gender barriers in Georgian England.

Libby Collard is a PhD student at Northeastern University London, working on an interdisciplinary research project titled: “Mapping Black London, 1720-1840.” Libby is interested in using digital technologies such as GIS to explore Britain’s Black past through history and geography. Libby is also a research assistant on the wider MBL project at Northeastern University, which recently worked with the London Metropolitan Archives to help produce their 2023/2024 exhibition, ‘Unforgotten Lives, Rediscovering Londoners of African, Caribbean, Asian and Indigenous Heritage 1560 – 1860'. Libby is currently co-writing a book on the life of William Sancho with Dr. Oliver Ayers, which will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2025.

Host or Publisher The Thorney Island Society