Murder of Kelso Cochrane

Kelso Cochrane (26 September 1926 – 17 May 1959) was an Antiguan immigrant to Britain whose unsolved murder sparked tensions in London.

Life

Cochrane was born in Antigua and after a failed marriage in the United States in 1954 had moved to London, where he settled in Notting Hill and worked as a carpenter. He aimed to save sufficient money to study law.

Death

After fracturing his thumb in a work accident, he attended Paddington General Hospital. While walking home, shortly after midnight on 17 May 1959, the 32-year-old Cochrane was set upon by a group of white youths, who stabbed him with a stiletto knife. Three other men arrived on the scene, and the youths ran off. The three men took Cochrane to hospital, where he died an hour later.

His funeral procession on 6 June 1959, from St Michael and All Angels Church along Ladbroke Grove to Kensal Green Cemetery, was attended by more than 1,200 people.

Context

Notting Hill was at the time a stronghold for Oswald Mosley's Union Movement and Colin Jordan's White Defence League. The previous year, race riots had broken out in the area. The detective investigating the cases was initially convinced that the youths' motive was robbery, but Cochrane's lack of money was explained by his fiancée, as Cochrane himself had emptied his wallet that morning. Searchlight magazine claimed in 2006 that the police's public denial of any racist motive "was almost certainly a misguided attempt to ensure calm in the area".