Twenty fascinating facts about Black and Asian History collated by Dan Lyndon

1)    Walter Tull, the first Black Infantry Officer in the British Army during WW1 was also a professional footballer and was paid £4 a week when he signed for Spurs in 1909 making him one of the highest paid professionals of that time

2)    The main street in Mumbai is Dadabhai Naoroji Road named after the first British Asian member of parliament in 1892

3)    Olaudah Equiano, the campaigner against the slave trade in the 1790s, wrote his autobiography 'The Interesting Narrative of Gustavus Vassa or Olaudah Equiano, the African', and was sponsored by the Prince of Wales to help him publish it

4)    Chicken Tikka Masala may be Britain’s favourite meal, but the first Indian Restaurant was opened up in 1809 and called the Hindoostanee Coffee Shop

5)     Robert Wedderburn, one of the Cato St conspirators who attempted to assassinate PM Lord Liverpool in 1820, was the last Black man to be decapitated in public after his execution at Newgate

6)    Brighton Pavilion, designed to look like an Indian palace was used as a hospital for injured Indian soldiers during the First World War

7)     If you look closely at the bottom of Nelson's Column you will see a figure of a Black sailor who fought at Trafalgar. There were at least 9 Black sailors on the Victory alone

8)    Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, daughter of the Maharajah of Punjab, was a leading Suffragette who led a delegation on the ‘Black Friday’ demonstration

9)     Jimi Hendrix lived in the house next door to the home of the composer Handel, on Brook St in London. There is now an exhibition to celebrate both of their musical contributions

10) Sayeeda Warsee may be the first Asian woman Conservative cabinet minister, but the first Asian Conservative MP was Mancherjee Bhownagree in 1895

11)  Andrew Watson was the first known Black footballer in Britain. He was an amateur who captained Scotland against England in 1881

12) ‘Dr Brighton’ whose real name was Sake Dean Mohammed was the ‘shampoo surgeon’ to Kings George IV and William IV. He had previously opened the Hindoostanee Coffee Shop

13)  On an amendment to the Domesday Book in 1216 there is a recently discovered Black figure drawn as part of the illustrations around the text

14) The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor, which Equiano was involved in, and proposed resettling British Africans in Sierra Leone, also included Asian Lascars (sailors) in their plans

15)  Queen Victoria had a Black god daughter called Sarah Forbes Bonetta

16) Noor Inayat Khan, great great great grand-daughter of Tipu Sultan who led a rebellion against the British in India, was a secret agent for the British Army in WW2

17)  After WW1 the Black soldiers that fought in the British West Indies Regiment were told that they were not going to receive a pay rise so they led a Mutiny against the British Officers in charge of them

18) Shapurji Saklatvala became the first Asian Communist member of Parliament in 1922. Britons fighting in the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War were sometimes known as the Saklatvala Battalion

19)  After Walter Tull became an Officer in 1916,the next Black Officer in the army was not promoted until the Second World War - Arundel Moody, was the son of Dr Harold Moody who had established the League of Coloured Peoples in 1931

20) Not everything about Black and Asian British history is about the slave trade or the Mutiny