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Who was the UK’s first black police officer? 

The best answer is John Kent, who put on the uniform of a police constable with the Carlisle Constabulary in Maryport in 1835. Kent was born in Carlisle in 1805. His father was a former enslaved person of the Senhouse family at Calder Abbey, West Cumberland. His mother was a local woman. Kent transferred to Carlisle City Police in 1837, where he worked until 1844. Subsequently, he was employed as a council bailiff and later a parish constable. Kent died in 1886 at the age of 81 and is buried in Carlisle Cemetery. In July of this year, a motion was tabled in Parliament requesting the commissioning of a portrait of Kent to mark the 220th anniversary of his birth in 2025.

There have been many other notable firsts in the long story of the ‘black’ presence in British policing. It is a still evolving narrative, as old photographs, memoirs, and news reports come to light, stretching beyond the shores of the UK to include experiences of migration, policing in the colonies, and changing understandings of racial and ethnic identity.

Adhering to new guidance from the Home Office, the London Metropolitan Police finally relaxed its whites only recruitment policy and in 1967 Norwell Roberts, born in Anguilla in the Caribbean, made headlines as the force’s first ever named black police officer, despite initially having his application rejected due to ‘temperament’. As the only black officer among the 27,000 Met staff, Roberts entered a hostile and overtly racist working environment and was told that he wouldn't make it through probation. He also faced abuse from the public. In his autobiography I Am Norwell Roberts (2022), he says that any first black officer in the Met would have been a target of the same racist aggression and he takes pride in having overcome multiple institutional barriers and paving the way for future recruits. Roberts worked with the Met until retiring in 1997.

A year later in 1968, Sislin Fay Allen became the Met’s first black female officer. Born in Jamaica in 1939, Allen had moved to London in 1961 as part of the Windrush Generation and worked in Croydon as a nurse. Due to her intersectional identity ‘as a woman, as a coloured woman and as a colored policewoman’ she became the focus of significant media and public attention. She recounted how she almost broke her leg running from reporters and received racist hate mail. Allen remained in the police until 1972, when she returned to Jamaica with her family.

Forces in other parts of the UK also began recruiting black officers from the latter half of the 1960s. In 1966, Mohamed Yusuf Daar became, in the language of the day, the UK’s first 'coloured police officer' when he joined West Midlands Police in Coventry. Born in Kenya of Asian heritage, Daar had previously been an inspector with the police force in Tanganyika (now Tanzania). Despite receiving what he regarded as mostly positive treatment from his peers and the public, Daar quickly realised that his religion and race hindered any chances of promotion. His ambition to join the Criminal Investigation Department was blocked and rising to senior ranks like Chief Constable was unthinkable due to his background. After only two years, Daar left the police force due to the lack of career advancement opportunities.

In the same year in neighbouring Birmingham, Ralph Ramadhar, originally from Trinidad in the Caribbean and who identified as Black-Indian, became the first police officer with what was then Birmingham City Police. He rose through the ranks to become one of the first black Sergeants in the UK. Ramadhar has said that during his eleven year career he experienced no hostility from his police colleagues – although a member of the National Front did deface his home with racist graffiti, which led to his family getting police protection. 

The gradual recruitment of black police officers from 1966 was a result of the change in Home Office policy and guidance initiated by Home Secretary Roy Jenkins. However, there are examples of black police officers working in a voluntary capacity prior to 1966.

In 1964, Astley Lloyd Blair was sworn in as a Special Constable in Gloucester. Blair had served as a full-time police officer in Jamaica for 5 years before coming to the UK. In a revealing contemporary interview with Blair and his Chief Superintendent, it is apparent that, despite his considerable experience of policing, Blair’s duties were largely traffic related and he was limited to working during the summer months. Blair left the Gloucestershire force in 1972 to join the Met, where he stayed until his retirement in 1988.

(Interview with Blair: )

Over two decades earlier, Cecil Wilberforce Rodger, born in Devon in 1899 to a Jamaican father and local woman, worked as a Special Constable with Plymouth City Police. Records suggest he joined the force shortly before 1939 and patrolled the city during World War II. Rodgers was a decorated veteran of World War I and his unit of the British West Indies Regiment participated in the ‘Taranto revolt’, a collective action by black soldiers for equal pay and advancement opportunities. Rodger died in 1966. 

Many of the ‘discoveries’ presented in this short article are the result of research and educational initiatives undertaken by dedicated individuals and organisations inspired by Black History Month. It is certain that new firsts will come to light as archives and historical texts are appraised and reappraised with an eye to a more comprehensive, inclusive and, ultimately, decolonised view of the past. 

Join us on Teams for our next Black History Month event ‘Reclaiming Narratives of Policing’, when Mohamed Omar and Tuncay Duma will be sharing their own unique and illuminating policing stories. They will also discuss the significant barriers ethnic minorities still face to pursuing successful careers in the police; the policing of the recent riots; and how emerging technologies can be used in policing without being unfairly discriminatory or violating civil rights.  

Simon Lee-Price is a Senior Lecturer in Student Achievement & Success at Buckinghamshire New University.