COVE

Kelso Cochrane was an Antiguan expatriate who moved to the Notting Hill area of London after a failed marriage in the United States. On May 17, 1959, a group of white youths murdered Mr. Cochrane, an event that would become pivotal for race relations in Britain at the time.

Kelso Cochrane was a working-class individual, as most of the residents of the Notting Hill area were. He worked as a carpenter, attempting to save sufficient funds to attend law school. After fracturing his thumb during a work incident, Cochrane went to Paddington General Hospital. As he walked home that night, a gang of white youths attacked Cochrane, killing him by stabbing him in the heart with a stiletto knife. A group of onlookers rushed to his body and took him to the hospital, where he died an hour later.

Eight months before the murder occurred, the Notting Hill race riots took place. Racial tensions persisted after they subsided, and hate groups such as the Union Movement and the White Defence League were still active in the area. The murder was almost certainly racially motivated, but detectives at the time were eager to prevent public outrage over the incident. So, the detective in charge of the investigation, Ian Forbes-Leith, dismissed the attack as a botched robbery. Furthermore, media outlets claimed that Kelso had been drinking the night he died, a claim that pathologists later ruled out.

More than 1200 people attended Kelso's funeral, both white and black. Cochrane's murder resonated with the people of Notting Hill. The police interviewed hundreds of people in the hopes of catching the perpetrators but ultimately made no arrests. To this day, Kelso Cochrane's murder remains unsolved.

Following the murder, activist Claudia Jones advertised an indoor "Caribbean Carnival." This event would later become the present-day Notting Hill Carnival, which attracts hundreds of thousands of patrons every year to this day. In 2009 Kelso Cochrane was commemorated with a blue plaque on the street where he died.

Sources:

History — Notting Hill Carnival. “Notting Hill Carnival.” Notting Hill Carnival, 2014, nhcarnival.org/nhcs-story.

Steve. The Murder of Kelso Cochrane – a Postscript | Steve Silver. stevesilver.org.uk/blog/the-murder-of-kelso-cochrane-a-postscript/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021.

“Who Killed Kelso Cochrane?” News.bbc.co.uk, 7 Apr. 2006, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/4871898.stm. Accessed 15 Nov. 2021.