A portrait photograph of S. J. [Samuel Jules] Celestine Edwards, 1894. Catalogue ref: COPY 1/417/500
S.J. Celestine Edwards (c1858-1894) is regarded as the first known Black newspaper editor. He founded ‘Lux’ in 1892, a weekly Christian evidence journal. According to the census he was born in ‘West Indies, St Johns, Antigua’. He later settled in Edinburgh, then London, where his census record reveals that he was a medical student. He also studied theology at King’s College, London. Celestine was the general secretary of the ‘Society for the Recognition of the Brotherhood of Man’, which had a monthly journal that he edited. He was also a preacher and campaigned against racism and imperialism.