Frank Bailey's 95th Birthday

Today’s Doodle, illustrated by West Yorkshire-based guest artist Nicole Miles, celebrates Guyanese-British firefighter and social worker Frank Bailey, who is widely considered the first Black firefighter of post-war London. Among his pioneering accomplishments in the name of diversity and inclusion, Bailey is also credited as one of the first Black social workers specializing in mental health in London’s Kensington and Chelsea borough. 

Frank Arthur Bailey was born on this day in 1925 in British Guiana (now Guyana), South America. He attended local schools and then took a job on a German trade ship, which brought him to New York. There he found work in a hospital where he staged a walkout in protest of the institution’s separate dining rooms for different types of employees. The subsequent integration of the dining facilities proved just one of Bailey’s many successful challenges to an unequal status quo. 

Bailey moved to London in 1953 and caught wind that Black people were not being hired by the city’s fire service. Not one to stand idly by in the face of injustice, Bailey applied to join the West Ham Fire Brigade and made history when he was accepted into service. A lifelong advocate for workers’ rights, Bailey became a union branch representative before the repeated denial of promotions pushed him to leave his post in 1965.

Bailey then transitioned into social work and became the first Black legal advisor for Black youths at Marylebone Magistrates Court. 

Happy Birthday, Frank Bailey. Your actions continue to encourage others to never give up in the fight for equality for all.

Special thanks to the family of Frank Bailey for their partnership on this project. Below, Frank Bailey’s daughter, Alexis, shares her thoughts on her father’s legacy.  

I’m very proud of my dad. He spent his whole life fighting against injustice and he never gave up. He taught me to challenge things I believe are wrong and stand up for myself and others, even when it scares me. 

He loved to quote his hero Thomas Paine, the political activist: “The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion.” I didn’t always appreciate it when I was growing up, but my dad showed me that hard work pays off and you can make a difference if you’re passionate and relentless. The issues he came up against – racism, discrimination, and inequality – are still relevant today and I’m grateful that he inspired me to be brave and fight for what I believe in. 

Years after he left the fire service, right up until he died, he carried on encouraging young, black firefighters to get involved in politics. He was full of stories about using solidarity and determination to bring about change in his many different roles – as a medical assistant at a hospital in New York, and in London as a trade unionist, a firefighter, a psychiatric social worker, a warden at a social club for ex-soldiers, and an advocate for young black men appearing in court. His enthusiasm for equality sometimes got him into trouble. He never shied away from a challenge or a difficult conversation and had many angry showdowns. He put energy and sincerity into everything he did and people respected that.

—Alexis Bailey, daughter of Frank Bailey

Pictured: Frank Bailey

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Bailey Family

Pictured: Frank Bailey

Photo credit: Courtesy of the Bailey Family

Guest Artist Q&A

Today’s Doodle was created in partnership with West Yorkshire-based guest artist Nicole Miles. Below, she shares her thoughts behind the making of this Doodle:

Q: Why was this topic meaningful to you personally? 

A: As a Caribbean person living in the UK, it's inspiring and relatable to see how immigrants (especially from my tiny corner of the world) have given so much of themselves to their various adopted homes. With this project, not only was Frank Bailey a Black person living in Britain, he was from Guyana (which is considered culturally Caribbean), and that link was interesting to me among other little connections I discovered when researching him.

Q: What were your first thoughts when you were approached about the project?

A: I was pretty intimidated! Doing a Google Doodle is such a big deal and I never thought I'd have the chance to do one. It's one of those things where, obviously you want to do a good job to represent yourself on such a wide-reaching project but, more than anything, you want to do justice to and properly honour the person you're depicting.

Q: Did you draw inspiration from anything in particular for this Doodle?

A: I love the retro fire engines I came across in my research, so they were featured in some of my initial sketches, but they ended up taking the focus away from Bailey too much so we opted for really centring him and the hose lettering which let me play more with hand-lettering, which I really enjoy doing.

Q: What do you hope people take away from your Doodle?

A: I hope people take away that Britain is a country of diverse people who all want to do their part and build a great place together.