Kathleen Mary Easmon Simango

Kathleen Mary Easmon Simango (9 August 1891 – 20 July 1924) was a Sierra Leonean missionary and artist who was the first West African to earn a diploma from the Royal College of Art. She was the niece of Adelaide Casely-Hayford and was a personal friend of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Simango was also a member of the prominent Sierra Leone Creole Easmon family.

Early years and education

Kathleen Mary Easmon was born on 9 August 1891 as the younger of two children in Accra, Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), to Dr John Farrell Easmon and Annette Kathleen Easmon, née Smith. Kathleen was educated at Slaford House School, then Notting Hill High School from 1903 to 1907, then the Girls' Modern School, Bedford, from 1907 to 1908, and finally studied at the Royal College of Art in London.

She began writing poetry at a young age, and when she was still a teenager some of her poems were set to music by composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who was a family friend. Her obituary in The Times described her as "ne of the most cultured women that West Africa has yet given the world".