THE MAN ON THE ₦1 NOTE WAS THE GRANDSON OF A FORMER SLA#VE WHO BECAME AFRICA’S FIRST ANGLICAN BISHOP!

THE MAN ON THE ₦1 NOTE WAS THE GRANDSON OF A FORMER SLA#VE WHO BECAME AFRICA’S FIRST ANGLICAN BISHOP!

THE MAN ON THE ₦1 NOTE WAS THE GRANDSON OF A FORMER SLA#VE WHO BECAME AFRICA’S FIRST ANGLICAN BISHOP! 🇳🇬

The man in this photograph is Olayinka Herbert Samuel Heelas Badmus Macaulay, born on 14 November 1864.

But here is the part many people may not know…

Herbert Macaulay was the grandson of the legendary Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther.

And if you don’t know who Ajayi Crowther was, his story is remarkable.

Born around 1809 in what is now southwestern Nigeria, he was captured as a child and sold into the transatlantic sl@ve trade.

His life changed after he was rescued by a Bri3tish @nti-sl@ve-trade patrol and taken to Freetown, Sierra Leone, where he was educated and converted to Christianity.

He went on to become a scholar, linguist, teacher, and Anglican missionary.

In 1864, he was consecr@ted in Canterbury as the first African bishop of the Church of England.

His mother, Abigail Crowther, was one of Bishop Crowther’s daughters. His father, Thomas Babington Macaulay, was also a prominent educator and became the first principal of CMS Grammar School, Lagos, founded in 1859—the first secondary school in Nigeria.

So Herbert Macaulay was born into a family deeply connected with the early development of education and Christianity in colonial Nigeria.

But he would eventually carve out a legacy of his own.

In 1922, Macaulay founded the Nigerian National Democratic Party (NNDP), one of the earliest organized nationalist political parties in Nigeria. The party went on to dominate Lagos politics for years and became an important force in the early struggle for greater Nigerian participation in government.

Macaulay was not simply a politician. He was an engineer, surveyor, journal!st, nationalist and fierce criti¢ of coloni@l rule.

His politic@l activities earned him a reputation as one of the earliest prominent voices of Nigerian nationalism.

He d1£d in 1946, but his name remained deeply embedded in Nigeria’s political history.

And if you have ever held an old ₦1 note, you may have seen his face without knowing the extraordinary story behind it.

From the grandson of Samuel Ajayi Crowther… to one of the founding figures of Nigerian nationalism.

Herbert Macaulay’s story is a reminder that some of the people whose faces we saw on Nigerian currency were not just portraits—they were people who helped shape the country.

Did you know Herbert Macaulay was the grandson of Bishop Samuel Ajayi Crowther? 🇳🇬