Thaddeus Barleycorn-Barber (1865–1948) was born on 1 July 1865 in Santa Isabel, capital of the Spanish colony on the island of Fernando Po in West Africa.
He was one of the first black African students in York and is presumably linked with William N Barleycorn, the first native Primitive Methodist minister in Fernando Po.
Records from the University of Edinburgh[2] show that he was educated for 5 years at the C. M. (Church Missionary) Grammar school in Sierra Leone, West Africa.
He would have been sent to Sierra Leone to study since Fernando Po only offered minimal education in Spanish and being from the English speaking Creole tribe.
In October 1887 while at Elmfield, his "interesting recitation" at the Victoria Bar Primitive Methodist Chapel in York, "for which he was enthusiastically applauded", was reported in the local newspaper.