The famous ‘African prince’ who used to walk through London’s East End and died in bizarre circumstances

London has never been short of eccentric individuals who have made their mark on the city’s history, and few have made their presence felt as much as Ras Prince Monolulu.

Ras Prince Monolulu, real name Peter Carl Mackay, could be easily recognised in the 30s, 40s and 50s walking around London’s East End with his eye-catching feathered headdress, particularly around Mile End market.

He claimed to be a chief of the Falasha tribe of Abyssinia, in present-day Ethiopia, and that he had been kidnapped from the African coast and placed on a British ship, which became shipwrecked in Portugal.

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While on the ship, he says he told his kidnappers that he was an African prince in the hope that he’d get better treatment. Eventually, according to his account, he was taken to New York before making his own way to London in 1902.

However, in reality Ras Prince Monolulu was born in St Croix, Danish West Indies, which is now part of the United States Virgin Islands. He was born to a family of breeders, raisers and racers, which made it very easy for him to get into the business of being a horse tipster.

He began travelling the country and much of Europe in the early 20th century, going as far as St Peterburg, Russia to perform as part of an American ‘negro show’. He was in Prussia when the First World War broke out, and ended up being held in a German prison camp near Berlin until 1919.