Charlie Hutchison

Charles William Duncan Hutchison (10 May 1918 – March 1993) was a Black-British anti-fascist, soldier, and ambulance driver noted for being the only Black-British member of the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War. In Spain he was one of the youngest, one of the longest serving, and one of the first English-speaking volunteers. Citing his experiences as a man of colour and his childhood spent in an orphanage, Hutchison was an ardent anti-fascist and was involved in helping organise anti-fascist activists that took part in the Battle of Cable Street. Following Britain's declaration of war against Nazi Germany, Hutchison served in the British Army between 1940 and 1946. Hutchison spent almost 10 years engaged in battles against various fascist forces throughout Europe, before starting a family in 1947 and living the rest of his life quietly in South England.

The details of his life were not fully revealed to historians until 2019, following a history project started by London school children. In 2022, a campaign began to raise money for a statue of him to be erected in Oxford.

Early life and orphanage Charlie Hutchison was born on 10 May 1918 in Eynsham, west of Oxford. He was the fourth of five children of Lilly Rose (Harper) from Eynsham, and Charles Francis Hutchison from the Gold Coast (now Ghana). His father was the author of The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities

By age 3, Charlie Hutchison was listed as being in foster care.

In December 1936, Hutchison participated in the Battle of Lopera, a two-day skirmish that wiped out most of Charlie's unit. Of the 145 members of Charlie's unit, only 67 survived the Battle of Lopera. During this battle, his fellow communist volunteers Fox and Cornford were killed, and Hutchison was badly wounded.

Charlie became more politically active after his retirement in the mid-1960s. During the 1984–1985 United Kingdom miners' strike, Charlie and his family sheltered miners in their home. Hutchison played a role in the creation of the International Brigade memorial in Jubilee Gardens, Lambeth, London. Attendees included 16 members of Hutchison's family and students from Newham Sixth Form College, who showcased their art and poetry projects to celebrate Hutchison's life and examine his reasons for fighting in Spain. Noah Anthony Enahoro, grandson of Nigerian independence leader Anthony Enahoro, was one of the student researchers who presented their findings to Hutchison's family.

Much of the information about Hutchison's life has only been discovered recently and has been recorded in few histories of the Spanish Civil War, one being a short entry in the Communist Party of Britain's Red Lives (2020).

In October 2022, a campaign was started by local activists and Hutchison's family to raise money for a statue of him to be erected in Oxford city centre. If successful, it would be the first statue of a black person erected in the city.

Oxford University's Wadham College named an outreach program after Charlie Hutchison, called the "Charlie Hutchison Project."

In 2023 the Museum of Oxford financed research into a Charlie Hutchison biography.