Walter Tull
*Walter Tull was born on April 28, 1888. He was a Black British professional soccer player, dentist, and British Army officer.
Walter Daniel John Tull was born in Folkestone, Kent, the son of Afro Caribbean carpenter Daniel Tull and Kent-born Alice Elizabeth Palmer. His paternal grandfather was a slave in Barbados, and his maternal English grandmother was from Kent. He began his education at North Board School, now Mundella Primary School, Folkestone. In 1895, when Tull was seven, his mother died of cancer. A year later, his father married Alice's cousin, Clara Palmer.
She gave birth to a daughter, Miriam, on September 11, 1897. Three months later, Daniel died from heart disease. The stepmother could not raise five children, so the resident minister of Folkestone's Grace Hill Wesleyan Chapel recommended that the two boys of school age, Walter and Edward, be sent to an orphanage. From age nine, Tull was in the Methodist Children's Home and Orphanage (now known as Action for Children) in Bethnal Green, London.
Edward was adopted by the Warnock family of Glasgow, becoming Edward Tull-Warnock. Tull's professional football career began after he signed for Clapton in October 1908, reportedly never playing in a losing side. By the end of the season, Tull had won winners' medals in the F.A. Amateur Cup, London County Amateur Cup, and the London Senior Cup. He played as an inside forward and half-back for Clapton, Tottenham Hotspur, and Northampton Town. He was the third person of mixed heritage to play in the top division of the Football League after Arthur Wharton and Willie Clarke. He was also the first player of African descent to sign for Rangers in 1917 while stationed in Scotland.
Tull was also a dentist, the first mixed-heritage person to practice in the United Kingdom. During the First World War, Tull served in the Middlesex Regiment, including the two Footballers' Battalions. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant and killed in action on March 25, 1918.
