Una Marson

Nunhead and Peckham Rye

Una Marson was the first black woman programme maker at the BBC where she worked from 1939 to 1946. As the compere of Calling the West Indies on the BBC Overseas Service she helped many Caribbean service men and women stay in touch with their families during the war.

She was born in Jamaica in 1905, where, as a young woman, she set up the Jamaican Save the Children Fund, pleaded the cause of Rastafarian children and assisted Norman Manley in the anti-colonial struggle.

Una Marson came to England in 1932 intending to stay for a few weeks - instead she stayed for many years. At first, while living in Queen’s Road, Peckham, with Harold Moody’s family, she worked as secretary to the League of Coloured Peoples, but before long she became well known in London as a feminist activist who would campaign on black women’s issues such as discrimination in the nursing profession.

She also lived for a while at Brunswick Square, Camberwell, but often journeyed abroad. As secretary to Haile Selassie she travelled with him to the League of Nations to plead for on behalf of the people of Abyssinia. And on the invitation of Isreal’s prime minister Golda Meir she worked in Haifa, Israel, during the early 1960s.

Widely respected, she counted George Orwell and TS Eliot among her BBC colleagues and her international circle included African-American writers Langston Hughes and James Weldon Johnson.

Support for Una Marson

Delia Jarrett-Macauley, author of 'The Life of Una Marson 1905-65' and 'Moses, Citizen and Me', is a passionate supporter of this nomination: "2005 is the centenary of the birth of Una Marson, the talented Jamaican pioneer who made her mark as the BBC's first black programme maker. Southwark has an opportunity to celebrate this bright and creative woman, poet, playwright and one-time secretary to Haile Selassie. For her mighty contribution to war-time broadcasting alone, Una deserves to be remembered and honoured.”