Dr. Harold Moody 1882-1947
Doctor, Congregational minister, community leader and civil rights activist, President of the Kings College Christian Union, Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine, Chairman and Director of the Colonial Missionary Society, President of London Christian Endeavour Federation, Founder of the League of Coloured Peoples.
Harold Moody came to Britain in 1904 to study medicine at Kings College London.
On arrival he had gone to the central YMCA in Tottenham Court Road where he obtained a list of addresses where he might find accommodation.
Every address he went to turned him away. He ended up in a small and dingy attic room in St Paul’s Road, Canonbury.
However he did not allow these feelings of being unwelcome to deter him from becoming a doctor, and making a new life for himself in a new country.
While in London, Moody began to realise that he knew little of the history or the geography his native island of Jamaica. Having been educated in the British tradition where the white bias was predominant. This realisation disturbed him, and was a major factor in his later political activism. Along with the racism he experienced from some of his fellow students while studying at Kings College Hospital, who would offer the black students tickets to leave and study elsewhere.
Harold Moody became a popular speaker at student and Congregational Church meetings, and was honoured, with election to the Presidency of the Kings College Christian Union.
He qualified in 1910, having won several academic awards during his spectacular academic career training to be a doctor. These were the Warneford Prize and Medal, the Barry Prize in 1906, and the Leather Prize in 1907. He again won the Warneford prize and Medal, the Barry Prize in Obstetrics, and the Todd Medal in Clinical Medicine in 1910.
He finished his training in 1912.
Denied the post of Medical Officer to the Camberwell Board of Guardians and other posts in hospitals because of open racism, he went on to run GP practices in south east London; Queens Road Peckham, Kings Grove Peckham, Pepys Hill and New Cross Gate. His surgery in Queens Road today bears a 'Blue Plaque' for his contribution to London's history and his work to improve the conditions of the non-white minorities living in Britain at the time.
Moody’s religious belief was of the utmost importance to him, and he went on to become a Congregational Church minister. His ministerial work and that of his GP practice, caring for the working class people of south east London aroused a deep affection and love among many of the locals.
In 1919, Moody and his growing family a wife and four children undertook a holiday to Jamaica. During the voyage, the ship called at an American port. Passengers were allowed to visit the local beach with their children.
When Dr Moody attempted to do so, he was told that the beach was reserved for whites only.
This and other episodes of discrimination he had suffered in the past strengthened his resolve to combat racial discrimination in Britain and abroad. In later years he would set up the League of Coloured Peoples, and campaign to achieve his goals of unity and equality among the races.
Dr Harold Moody died in 1947. Hundreds of people attended his funeral.