Memory of the World; 2012 - unesdoc - Unesco

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Constantine collection
Inscribed 2011
What is it
The collection is a comprehensive compilation of Learie
Constantine’s correspondence, books, newspaper articles,
manuscripts, photographs and ephemeral material.
Why was it inscribed
The collection documents Lord Constantine's work for
human rights, British race relations and Commonwealth
immigration to Britain, as well his study of the political
history of Trinidad and Tobago and his career as one
of the world's greatest cricketers.
Where is it
Heritage Library Division of the National Library and
Information System Authority, Port of Spain, Trinidad
and Tobago
Learie Constantine (1901–71) was not only one of the best
cricketers of his time, he was a human rights advocate in
his later public life and used the popularity he had gained
as a sportsman to successfully promote the improvement
of race relations. Constantine made his mark in the only
way a poor West Indian male of his time could do, by
playing cricket with ability and character. He went on
to argue the rights of black people with the effect that only
a man who had won public affection through sports could
have done in Britain at that period.
� Learie Constantine at a benefit match for the great
Gloucestershire and England bowler, Tom Goddard.
446 Constantine collection
� Sir Learie Constantine in
1968 at his installation as
Rector of the University
of St Andrews in Scotland.
� Learie Constantine
practising a cricket shot.
Constantine has been described as a legend in his time.
He emerged from the obscurity of a slave ancestry and
a small cocoa plantation to become one of the greatest
cricketers of his generation. By the age of twenty-seven
he had become a valuable member of the Trinidad and
Tobago and West Indies cricket teams and recognized
as a master of the game. After 1928, he lived in England
where he played at the Nelson Cricket Club. It was there
that he launched his professional career, becoming the
highest-paid cricketer in the world at that time and paving
the way for the West Indian cricketers to play in the United
Kingdom after the Second World War. During the Second
World War, Lord Constantine was responsible for the
West Indian Technicians Volunteer Scheme, ensuring the
smooth absorption of people of colour, who had been
invited to rebuild Britain as part of the war effort.
He was a Pan Africanist, Head of the League of Coloured
Peoples, a politician, diplomat, broadcaster, journalist,
lecturer and a respected author. He was the first person
of African descent to become a member of the British
House of Lords, as Baron Constantine of Maraval, in
Trinidad and Tobago, and of Nelson, in the County
Palatine of Lancaster. He was also a member of the UK
Learie Constantine was Britain’s first black life peer in Britain’s
House of Lords. Formally known as Baron Constantine of
Maraval, in Trinidad and Tobago, and of Nelson, in the County
Palatine of Lancaster, he is shown here on 26 March 1969,
the day he took his seat in the Upper Chamber. �