The stowaway from Lagos was hounded to death by police (Keith Pattison, The Hounding Of David Oluwale at West Yorkshire Playhouse)
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It was a moment that had been 15 years in the making. As Leeds unveiled its latest blue plaque, the mood at the ceremony was festive. The 200-strong crowd heard music and poetry in memory of David Oluwale. “A British citizen, he came to Leeds from Nigeria in 1949 in search of a better life,” read the text on the plaque. “Hounded to his death near Leeds Bridge, two policemen were imprisoned for their crimes.”
That same evening, less than five hours after the ceremony, someone levered the plaque off the wall with a crowbar and stole it. West Yorkshire Police immediately classed the incident a hate crime and opened an investigation. Hilary Benn, MP for Leeds Central, spoke for many when he declared: “It is not who we are as a city.”
In recent years, attempting to do justice to the memory of David Oluwale has been central to Leeds’s hopes of presenting itself as a more inclusive and tolerant city. Just weeks before the Leeds Civic Trust blue plaque was fixed in place last month, a bridge bearing Oluwale’s name was completed, spanning the river where he was found drowned in May 1969. More than half a century later, Leeds now finds itself contending with uncomfortable memories the city thought it had overcome.
When David Oluwale arrived in Britain as a stowaway on board a cargo ship carrying groundnuts from Lagos to Hull, he hoped to find a “New Jerusalem”. Within a few years, those hopes had been firmly dashed: in 1953, he was committed to a mental asylum following a violent altercation with Leeds police officers. Oluwale didn’t surface for another eight years. The effervescent dancer known to fellow Nigerians in Leeds as “Yankee” emerged a broken man. Now homeless, he picked up the kinds of criminal convictions born of living on the streets.
In the late Sixties, the climate across Britain was becoming more hostile for black people. Nowhere was this more pronounced than in Leeds. In April 1968, the same month Enoch Powell delivered his notorious “Rivers of Blood” speech, Inspector Geoffrey Ellerker was assigned to Millgarth police station in Leeds city centre, teaming up with Sergeant Kenneth Kitching in a pairing that would make Oluwale’s grim life even more hellish. The two officers made it their mission to clear vagrants off their patch, but Oluwale came in for special attention. Calling him their “playmate”, they urinated on him while he slept, forced him to bang his head on the pavement as “penance”, and drove him to the city limits where they would dump him in the dead of night. When Oluwale was arrested for disorderly conduct, the police entered “WOG” as his nationality on his charge sheet.
On 4 May 1969, a group of boys found his body when they were out walking by the River Aire close to Knostrop sewerage works, a few miles downstream from the city centre. The only mourners at his pauper’s funeral were the undertakers. But 18 months later, after a police cadet reported rumours he’d heard about Ellerker and Kitching, Oluwale’s body was exhumed. A Scotland Yard investigation concluded that the officers had pushed or caused Oluwale to fall in the river in the early hours of 18 April 1969, and the two were eventually tried for manslaughter and several assaults.
“Such honour was bestowed on celebrated scientists and writers, the great brewers and tailors of Leeds, sporting heroes or social reformers”
Er, well yes. The purpose of these kind of monuments is generally to celebrate something positive about the human condition. If we are to erect memorials to every human being who’s only claim to fame is to have been killed by thugs with no right to be in police uniform, we’re going to need a lot of bronze. These policemen should go to jail. Investing the money in a cold case review would be rather more practical.
“It took the death of George Floyd at the hands of police in the United States to change hearts and minds in Leeds.”
Or to be more accurate: the activists committed to importing America’s racial grievances were able to piggy back on the media storm to push this one through.
“The recent Black Lives Matter assaults on monuments to white power and dominance seem to have provoked a kneejerk response: you tear down our history; I’ll tear down yours.”
Again, er, well yes. What did you expect? People who are too busy dealing with life to attend grievance studies courses, tend to react badly to being attacked or insulted.
Did you attend any Leeds matches during the 80s, or are you just repeating stories which could be attributed to any football club to push your divisive narrative?
It’s well worth reading a much longer and very well-written piece on this subject, on what happened to David Oluwale, from The Critic website from October 2020, thereabouts. From the same author here.
Is it possible some idiot just wanted the plaque as a souvenir?
Anyone attending Leeds matches in the 80s will confirm that the comments made about the said club on this page are mild and understated. Or maybe ask the residents of Bournemouth, Birmingham or Bradford for their feedback about the experience of Leeds fans coming to town for a match.
It would seem to me that the judge was quite right, two men in uniform chasing another unidentified man at night is not exactly a very good identification of any of the three, unless you’ve already made your mind up of course.
I have to say though that I only started to read the article to find out who this guy, who seemed to be famous, actually was – I’d never heard of him and still don’t see why he was worthy of anything special.
I have lived and worked in Leeds for 30 years. It is not a city wrestling with its past nor one battling with its racist demons, rather a vibrant multicultural city. Like anywhere else it has its problems but sensational generalisations from isolated events are not helpful.
I have lived and worked in Leeds for 30 years. It is not a city wrestling with its past nor one battling with its racist demons, rather a vibrant multicultural city. Like anywhere else it has its problems but sensational generalisations from isolated events are not helpful.