Xiaohongshu
In 1920s London, Nigerian lawyer and activist, Ladipo Solanke, built vital spaces where West African students and future leaders could gather, resist and imagine new futures.
When Ladipo Solanke (1886–1958) arrived in London in 1922, he experienced a city divided: marred by structural racism but also full of opportunity. Here, in this international city, he found the connections that would allow him to challenge the system and push for lasting change.
Born in Abeokuta, Nigeria, Solanke enrolled at UCL to study law after obtaining a degree from Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Finding himself living in poverty, he made some extra money by teaching Yoruba at the nearby School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). He was a passionate advocate for the language and culture of Nigeria, making the first London public radio broadcast in Yoruba.
In 1924, disturbed by the racist and derogatory reports of African people in British media, he wrote to West Africa magazine to complain about an article in the Evening News, which claimed that cannibalism and black magic had been common in Nigeria. His protest received the support of prominent activist Amy Ashwood Garvey, who became a close friend.
Around that same time, he co-founded the West African Students’ Union (WASU) with Dr Herbert Bankole-Bright. After completing his UCL barrister training, Solanke undertook a three-year tour of West Africa on behalf of WASU, raising funds for a student hostel in Camden, which opened in 1933.
While on tour, Solanke met his wife, Chief Opeolu Solanke-Ogunbiyi (‘Mama WASU’). After marriage, they became wardens of ‘Africa House’ as the hostel was known. It became an important hub of pan-African and anti-colonial activism, host to some renowned future African leaders – including fellow UCL alumni Jomo Kenyatta (first president of Kenya) and Kwame Nkrumah (first prime minister and then the president of Ghana), and H.O. Davies (trade unionist and key figure in Nigerian independence), who were all WASU members. Here, they could also enjoy a taste of home in the hostel’s popular restaurant.
Solanke died in London in 1958, two years before Nigeria gained independence, but his contributions will never be forgotten. He created a movement and safe spaces for African people to gather, organise, mobilise and dream, where freedom was not just an ideal but a necessity and possibility.
Sources and explore further
- Hakim Adi, West Africans in Britain 1900–1960: Nationalism, pan-Africanism and communism (Lawrence Wishart, 1998)
- Georgina Brewis and Sam Blaxland, Student London: A new history of higher education in the capital (UCL Press, 2026)