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Kelso Cochrane

Age: 32

Sex: male

Date: 17 May 1959

Place: Golbourne Road, North Kensington, West London

Kelso Cochrane was stabbed in Golbourne Road, North Kensington on Sunday 17 May 1959, a Whit Sunday. He was taken to hospital by taxi but died shortly after.

He was attacked by about six white youths at the corner of Golborne Road and Southam Street in North Kensington by the 'Big Wash' laundry just after midnight.

He had been stabbed above the heart. The doctor that saw Kelso Cochrane when he arrived at the hospital said that he had a stab wound in the chest exactly above the heart. The pathologist gave his cause of death as haemorrhage from a stab wound in the chest, noting that the wound had penetrated two inches and that he thought that considerable force had been used.

The police said that they had come up against a wall of silence in their investigation. They said that they knew that a large number of people actually saw the murder, but that in the suspicion-ridden area, no one was talking.

The key police witness was a woman who was married to a coloured man from Ghana and it was said that the police had placed a continuous police guard outside her house to protect her. She was 21-years-old and her husband came from Ghana and was a boxer. She said that she had looked out of her window at about 12.30am on the Whit Sunday and saw Kelso Cochrane as he was attacked by half-a-dozen youths.

In another statement she said, 'The coloured man was walking alone. Suddenly five white boys came up behind him. There was a quick scuffle. It was all over in a few seconds. The youths ran off and the coloured man picked himself up and began to walk away'.

The woman had been sitting doing needlework by her bedroom window at the time.

In another statement that she had made she had said 'Five or six white youths, I should think they were between 15 and 18, came up behind the coloured man. Someone called out, 'Hi Jim Crow'. Suddenly they all appeared to attack the coloured man. He fell'.

The woman's mother said 'Before the fight started I saw one of the youths try to rip away an iron railing as a weapon, but neither myself nor my daughter saw any knife used'.

After she gave evidence she said that she had been frightened by strange 'Teddy Boy' types who had hung around her house and made uncomplimentary remarks to her about being a 'coppers nark' and being a 'grass to the law'. It was reported that when Scotland Yard heard that the Yard's 'big five ‘reacted immediately and ordered a police guard for at least the period of the week-end.

He had been going home at the time just after having been to the hospital to have his broken thumb, which was in plaster at the time he was stabbed, treated. His fiancee said that she had been sharing rooms with Kelso Cochrane for about five weeks and that on the night he was murdered that he had got up after going to bed earlier and gone off to Paddington Hospital to get treatment for his injured thumb.

The doctor at Paddington Hospital said that he had given Kelso Cochrane some pain-killing tablets for his hand injury and that he thought that because of his injury that he would have been unlikely to have used his injured hand to defend himself.

He was attacked between 12.30am and 1am and then taken to hospital where he died shortly after.

Another witness that arrived on the scene soon after was a man that had lived in Tavistock Crescent who said that he saw a scuffle going on in Golborne Road between a coloured man and some white men. He said, 'I kept running towards them. I shouted and they ran off'. He said that he and another man then helped Kelso Cochrane up.

A taxi-driver that had lived in Dollis Hill Lane that saw the murder said that he had seen the shadowy fight in which Kelso Cochrane was murdered, saying that he saw Kelso Cochrane fall against the background of lighted Golborne Road. He said that he had been leaving Southam Street early on 17 May 1959 when he saw a 'scrimmage' outside a laundry. He said, 'I saw a cluster of men on the corner and a melee going on. I could see they were men but I could not see their features. It took perhaps a minute, it was all very short. I drove to where three coloured men were now standing on the corner. They said Cochrane had just been attacked by a group of white men. I said I would take him home. Then he collapsed completely and I took him to St Charles Hospital'.

When the taxi-driver described the fight he said, 'At first it seemed to be a flurry of arms and then I saw a man standing closer to the coloured man. The coloured man leaned backwards staggering and fell. Afterwards I saw three white men going down Southam Street. One was hurrying. They were youngish. One aged about 19 and two about 16'.

The night after the murder, Monday 18 May 1959 the police called at an address in Notting Hill where it was said that they collected a pair of bloodstained grey flannel trousers as well as a shirt which were sent off to Scotland Yard for tests.

A number of people were interviewed, but no one was ever charged with his murder.

It was reported that all through the night, following the murder, that hundreds of people, coloured and white, in the teeming tenements in the area were questioned.

One man, 19-year-old fruiterer that lived in Blenheim Crescent in Notting Hill said, 'I was one of four youths questioned at Harrow Road police station tonight. Three of my friends are still helping the police in their inquiries. Apparently one of my friends saw the murder. That is why police attach so much importance to his evidence'.

Two youths remained at the police station for 36 hours assisting the police with their enquiries with one of them said to have been there almost 48 hours.

The police carried out door-to-door inquiries in the area and it was said that they had been ordered to interview everybody living in the Goldborne Road area in the hope that by personal contact they would break down  the barrier of fear and silence that was hampering the police inquiries. It was reported that the police were certain that if confidence in the police could be created that people with valuable information would come forward.

On Monday 18 May 1959 the police said, 'The stabbing has absolutely nothing to do with racial conflict. The motive could have been robbery'.

On Tuesday 19 May 1959 the police said that robbery was the motive and not race hatred. They were also quoted as having said 'We are satisfied that it was the work of a group of about six anti-law white teenagers who had only one motive in view, robbery or attempted robbery of a man who was walking the streets in the Notting Hill district alone in the early hours of the morning. The fact that he happened to be coloured does not, in our view, come into the question'.

It was reported that before Kelso Cochrane died in hospital that he told detectives, 'They asked for money, but I had nothing'. It was noted that when he was searched his wallet was found to be empty and there was not a penny piece in any of his other pockets. However, it was also reported that it was known that he earned £15 a week and that he was known to carry his wages on him and was last paid the previous Friday, a little over 24 hours before he was murdered.

It was reported that the police were certain of four points:

  1. Whether Kelso Cochrane had been black or white the murder could still probably have happened.
  2. The teenage gang police are now searching for came from an area outside the North Kensington and Notting Hill districts.
  3. The gang set upon Cochrane because they had spent out during a night of pub crawling in the Notting Hill district and wanted to rob anyone they could find for the price of a taxi fare back to where they lived. Their last bus had gone.
  4. The gang chose tall, bespectacled Cochrane because he was easy prey, his left hand was encased in plaster, the result of an injury at work.

The police made what was described as a dramatic appeal on Tuesday 19 May 1959 for two youths that were seen to offer assistance to Kelso Cochrane as he lay on the street. It was said that they had spoken to two coloured men that were attending to Kelso Cochrane and had offered their help but had then walked away when they realised that there was nothing further that they could do. It was noted that they didn't give their names or addresses and the police appealed for them to come forward, stating that they may well have been in the vicinity during the fight and that their evidence could be of the utmost importance.

On Friday 22 May 1959 the police questioned six wedding guests that had been at a wedding party on the Whit Saturday night, two miles away in Notting Hill. It was said that their party broke up about two hours before Kelso Cochrane's body was found.

It was then reported that the police were working on the theory that there had been two groups of teenagers in the area on the night and that it was one of the groups that had stopped Kelso Cochrane in the street and asked him for money whilst the other group had come along soon after and stumbled into an affray and that when seeing that Kelso Cochrane had been stabbed that everybody ran off.

It was also reported on Friday 22 May 1959 that coloured men would be able to apply to become special constables to protect their community if the tense race relations in Notting Hill did not improve. Scotland Yard said, 'The application will be dealt with in the same way as those from white people. the forms are obtainable at any police station'. However, the Nigerian born chairman of the Committee of African Organisation in Britain said, 'We have completely lost faith in the power of the British police force to protect us adequately. All we ask for is adequate and unbiased protection by the British police. Surely the Home Secretary will give us the power to protect ourselves'. The Home Office later said that whether coloured volunteers would be accepted for the special constabulary was a matter for individual chief constables and watch committees.

On Saturday 23 May 1959 it was reported that the detectives investigating the case had turned themselves into a 'ghost squad‘ in the hope of finding new clues into the murder. It was said that they were dressed in casual clothes in order to merge into the background of the Notting Hill area and had gone into coffee bars, clubs and public houses to listen in for careless words from Teddy boys chatting round juke boxes or snatching some gossip that might provide the key piece of the jigsaw that would bring the murderer to justice.

It was said that the new tactics were put into operation after six days of intensive routine inquiries had failed to break down the barrier of silence that police believed was due to fear of reprisals.

The murder weapon was never found, but it was thought to have been a stiletto-type knife and the police searched nearby ponds and lakes for it as well as bomb sites, drains and the banks of the nearby Grand Union Canal. The Thames river police also later used magnetic drags over a section of the canal for the murder weapon.

The police also searched all the street drains in the area with a corporation suction tanker in an effort to find the knife.

The police also visited dyers and cleaners in the area and asked them to be on the lookout for bloodstained clothing.

Kelso Cochrane had been a carpenter and was West Indian from Antigua. His father was a boatbuilder and had lived in Port of Spain in Trinidad. It was reported at the time that he had called on the West Indian Government 'to see that justice is done'.

Kelso Cochrane had first travelled to the United States where he married a woman and had a child, but he was later deported in 1954 and eventually came to the United Kingdom. His wife in the United States had lived in Harlem and was 32-years-old and their child had been six years old. When his wife heard of his murder, she said, 'It is such a shock. Even though I have not seen him for such a long time, nobody wants to hear somebody died like this. I read in the papers and heard on the radio that someone died in those troubles in England, but I never thought for a moment that it was Kelso'.

At the time of his murder he was due to marry a 21-year-old West Indian nurse in three weeks’ time. They were said to have been a quiet couple who were living in lodgings and saving hard.

He had lived with her in Bevington Road, North Kensington. One of his neighbours said, 'He was a quiet, pleasant, hard-working man. Not the sort you would connect with any sort of violence'.

His murder followed race riots the year before and large numbers of police were called in to prevent any further violence.

It was reported that before the police went on duty in the streets of Notting Hill to maintain order they were told, 'The terror of the white teenage gangs in Notting Hill must be smashed. Not only do these gangs vent their hooliganism on coloured people, but on whites, and particularly on police officers'.

It was also noted that fourteen hours before Kelso Cochrane was murdered that there had been a minor riot and a policeman told a West London magistrate, 'Fighting happens night after night in this area'. The observations were made at a magistrates hearing at which a man was refused bail after being accused of assaulting police with intent to avoid arrest after which the policeman said, 'Some of the streets are not safe'.

It was claimed that his murder had been 'arranged' in order to smear white people by the White Defence League whose aim was to 'Keep Britain White' and who had distributed leaflets around the area detailing their claim. The leaflet was headed, 'Who killed Kelso Cochrane' and went on to say, 'The people behind the coloured invasion are getting desperate because of growing white resistance in Notting Hill. Now they are using the killing of a coloured man to smear the white folk of Notting Hill. Was Cochrane's killing arranged for this foul purpose?'.

However, MP's and leaders of coloured organisations said that the leaflet was 'pernicious and designed to stir up racial hatred'.

Charles Royle, Labour MP for Salford said, 'This reaches a new low in viciousness. I have read several of the leaflets issued by the White Defence League, but this is the worst. I am sending a copy to the Home Secretary. He is determined to do something about this hate and inflammatory propaganda'.

Nigel Fisher, Conservative MP for Surbiton said, 'While most people are trying to reduce tension in the area, this leaflet is deliberately aimed at causing trouble'.

However, the national organiser of the White Defence League was quoted as saying with a laugh, 'I did expect some sort of opposition when we published this leaflet. But I stick to every word in it and we have no intention of withdrawing it. It is all true. We are distributing thousands'.

On Monday 1 June 1959 it was reported that a small band of coloured men and women held a demonstration in Whitehall, London, carrying posters that included a drawing of Kelso Cochrane. The demonstration was planned to last twelve hours and was made up of members of the Coloured People's Progressive Association who walked from one side of Downing Street to the other.

About the same time it was reported that a message, an open letter, from the coloured people living in Britain had been published stating that they had lost confidence in the police and that they might 'hit back' to protect themselves. The warning was given in an open letter from the leaders of more than 20 coloured people's organisations following an emergency meeting to discuss Kelso Cochrane's murder. Their letter said, 'This crime rivals anything we have seen or read about at Little Rock or the recent lynching of Mack Parker of Poplarville, Mississippi'. The Little Rock reference took place two years earlier after the American Supreme Court ruled that coloured pupils could attend white schools. Mack Parker's lynching referred to the murder of a man that had been in prison on a charge of rape in Poplarville prison a fortnight earlier in which a hooded gang had dragged him from the prison and killed him. The open letter stated that it was 'Now or never' and that the government had to do something to stamp out fascism.  The letter read, 'The coloured peoples feel they have no confidence in the ability of the police to keep law and order in the areas where coloured populations are concentrated'.

The open letter referred to Sir Oswald who at the time was a prospective Parliamentary candidate for North Kensington who had accused the Conservatives of indicting his party in 'a new low in a smear campaign'. He was quoted to have gone on to say, 'The only cure for these troubles is to send the Jamaicans back to a fair deal in their own country by restoring the prosperity of their sugar industry'.

The open letter to the Prime Minister claimed that there was evidence of collusion between the police and racialist, noting in particularly that Sir Oswald Mosley, Empire Loyalists and the White Defence League were 'openly and brazenly active' in the Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill, Paddington and North Kensington areas.

It was also stated that when Kelso Cochrane was murdered, 'a police sergeant was authoritatively reputed to have said, 'a nigger has been stabbed by a white man'.

The open letter went on to say, 'Today in Notting Hill, Ladbroke Grove, Paddington, North Kensington and elsewhere, feeling runs high and Africans and West Indians are bitter over the murder of one who, but for the grace of God, might have been one of us'.

The letter went on to allege that coloured citizens in the United Kingdom and possibly throughout the commonwealth had lost confidence in he ability of the law-enforcing agencies to protect them stating that as law-abiding citizens they hated violence and that they were doing all they could to keep them calm and resist provocation but that unless the government acted promptly they would be fully responsible for any consequences.

The Deputy Premier of the West Indies was quoted as saying that the Negro-haters of Notting Hill Gate 'should be crushed as mercilessly as Mau Mau was in Kenya'. He had gone on to say that 'if necessary the Army, Navy and Air Force should be turned out. It is the full responsibility of the British Government to stamp out terrorism'. However, it was noted that he didn't agree with Negro immigrants setting up special Negro police or vigilante patrols.

Kelso Cochrane's murder took place the year after the 1958 Notting Hill race riots in which a mob of 300 to 400 white people spent every night between 29 August 1958 and 5 September 1958 rioting, and attacking the houses of West Indian residents. The violence first started on the night of 24 August 1958 when a group of ten white youths attacked six West Indian men in four separate incidents. The group were later spotted by the place who chased them into White City where nine of the gang were arrested the following day.

On 29 August 1958 it was heard that a Swedish woman had been arguing with her Jamaican husband at Latimer Road Underground Station and that some white people had attempted to intervene and a fight started. The following day some of the white men saw the Swedish woman again and were reported to have thrown a milk bottle at her, possibly hit her with an iron bar, and called her racial slurs, including 'Black man's trollop'. It was said then, that the following day, the riots exploded.

It was reported that when the nine men were later sentenced that they were given 'exemplary sentencing' of five years imprisonment each and £500 fines.

It was noted that following the riots a carnival was held on 30 January 1959 called the 'Caribbean Carnival' which was the precursor to the Notting Hill Carnival.

Kelso Cochrane's funeral took place on Saturday 6 June 1959 at Kensal Green Cemetery in West London. It was reported that scores of people climbed on to gravestones and memorials to see the funeral ceremony. It was also said that some of them clung on to stones and crosses and stood on tip-toe on raised graves, with others trying to use a hearse as a 'grandstand'. It was said that more than 1,000 people, most of them coloured, were at the graveside and that when the ceremony was over that many of them stayed on to sing hymns. It was said that men wept and one woman fainted.

It was noted that the ceremony was observed by the police, some of whom mingled with the crowd.

It was reported that a young West Indian that had been wearing white robes and a fez had been handing out leaflets urging people to march the following day from Hyde Park to Trafalgar Square. It was noted that he was spoken to by the police.

On Monday 8 June 1959 it was reported that consideration was being given to having Kelso Cochrane's body exhumed and flown back to Antigua for a ceremonial funeral and a statue of him being erected near his home. It was also heard that his mother had asked for Kelso Cochrane's body to be sent to her.

On Monday 1 June 1959 it was reported that MP's were discussing a plan to get coloured people to move out of the 'black ghettoes' in which they lived in overcrowded houses to escape race hatred. It was said that MP's were to appeal to 100 mayors of Britain’s biggest towns to try to find jobs and homes for 20,000 coloured people from areas such as Notting Hill, Battersea, Stepney and Brixton, stating that they believed that if they could each take 200 coloured people they would adapt themselves quicker to the British way of life and arouse less anti-colour feeling among local people.

It was earlier noted that a large number of West Indians and their families lived in the terraced houses of the area and that in Notting Hill and Paddington it was estimated that there were about 10,000 West Indian residents.

On Wednesday 10 June 1959 it was reported that new laws aimed at stamping out racial tension in Britain might shortly be put before parliament in which colour discrimination in public places and incitement to colour hatred might be made illegal. It was additionally stated that schools were likely to be urged to teach 'colour tolerance'. Other initiatives were also addressed, including the proposal that provincial towns might be asked to accept a few coloured people and to offer them housing accommodation and work, thus breaking up the 'conurbation' of coloured people in a particular area.

Kelso Cochrane's inquest, which concluded on Wednesday 05 August 1959 returned a verdict of murder by a person or persons unknown.

The Coroner said that there was no evidence to suggest 'racial connotation' in the murder and then said, 'This was a wanton, aimless and cowardly crime but there is nothing to suggest any evidence of a racial nature'. He then said, 'The only real indication of a possible motive is the fact that Cochrane said the youths asked him for money'.

It was later reported in September 2011 that a book by Mark Olden identified the murderer as a youth that had been attending a party in Notting Hill. It was said that he and another youth had been at the party and they were both arrested shortly after but that they had claimed that they had left the party to fight with each other. It was reported that the book states that the killer's identity was an open secret in the area and that the murder weapon was hidden under the floorboards of the house that the youth had been living in at the time with his parents and that it was still there to this day. The report states that the man died in 2007, aged 69, from a heart attack.

There is a blue plaque on the building on the corner of Golborne Road and Southam Street in North Kensington marking the scene of the crime which reads, 'Nubian Jak Community Trust. Kelso Cochrane, 1927-1959. Antiguan carpenter was fatally wounded on this site. His death outraged and unified the community, leading to the lasting cosmopolitan tradition in North Kensington. History talk in association with 1958 remembered. Sponsored by Kensington Housing Trust'.


*map pointers are rough estimates based on known location details as per Place field above.

see www.telegraph.co.uk

see National Archives - MEPO 2/9894, MEPO 2/9883

see Waking The Dead

see Wikipedia

see Wikipedia

see Black Past

see Daily Mail

see BBC

see Mark Olden, Murder in Notting Hill, ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1846945364

see Daily Herald - Friday 12 June 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Wednesday 05 August 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Wednesday 20 May 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Monday 01 June 1959

see Birmingham Daily Post - Thursday 21 May 1959

see Daily Herald - Tuesday 19 May 1959

see Daily Mirror - Friday 22 May 1959

see Daily Mirror - Monday 08 June 1959

see Shields Daily News - Monday 18 May 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Saturday 30 May 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Saturday 30 May 1959

see Shields Daily News - Saturday 06 June 1959

see Daily Mirror - Tuesday 19 May 1959

see Marylebone Mercury - Friday 29 May 1959

see Daily Mirror - Monday 18 May 1959

see Daily Herald - Monday 18 May 1959

see Daily Herald - Monday 25 May 1959

see Birmingham Daily Post - Thursday 21 May 1959

see Birmingham Daily Post - Wednesday 20 May 1959

see Liverpool Echo - Monday 18 May 1959

see Kensington Post - Friday 07 August 1959

see Daily Herald - Monday 01 June 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Monday 18 May 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Thursday 21 May 1959

see Western Mail - Wednesday 10 June 1959

see Western Mail - Saturday 23 May 1959

see Daily Mirror - Monday 08 June 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Monday 25 May 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Saturday 06 June 1959

see Aberdeen Evening Express - Tuesday 19 May 1959

see Shields Daily News - Saturday 23 May 1959