Dr Colin Franklin was one of Hackney’s pioneering black GPs, who built an extraordinary relationship with patients from his small practice in Lauriston Road and became a much-loved figure in the local community. Born in Barbados, he practised in Hackney for around 40 years, retiring in 1990 with a patient list of roughly 2,000 people and a reputation for extraordinary dedication to those who relied on him.
A Black Doctor in Post-War Hackney
Dr Franklin belonged to a generation of black doctors whose presence in British medicine was still relatively unusual. Sources describe him as being born in Barbados and as one of the first black GPs in Hackney. A later account by a GP associated with the surgery dates his Hackney practice to roughly 1950-1990.
Dr Franklin’s career also formed part of a longer black medical history in the neighbourhood as Lauriston Road had already been associated with black doctors for decades. Historian Jeffrey Green records that Jamaican-born Dr James Jackson Brown established a practice there in the early 20th century.
Over the following decades, the Franklin and Brown families were among the black medical families living and working in the area. This makes Franklin’s career part of a much older and largely overlooked black presence in Hackney’s medical history.
The Lauriston Road Surgery
Franklin practised as a single-handed GP, meaning that for much of his career he effectively ran the practice himself rather than working within the larger multi-doctor surgeries that we are familiar with today. The practice that eventually became Elsdale Street Surgery began in a tiny surgery building in Lauriston Road, close to Victoria Park.
The setting was unusually personal. According to his daughter Paula Franklin, the surgery stood at the bottom of the family’s garden and family life and medical life were closely intertwined. If the surgery was closed, patients would sometimes knock on the door of the Franklin family home seeking advice. His daughter recalled that everyone in the household, including her medically trained mother, would help out with the practice.
A GP Who Stayed Until the Last Patient
Franklin’s reputation was built not simply on the number of years he practised but on the extraordinary amount of time he gave to individual patients. Former patients remembered queues outside the surgery that could stretch late into the evening, with the GP continuing to see people until everyone waiting had been seen.
Franklin also treated patients during the night, at a time when there were no appointment-booking systems or locum doctors available to provide the kind of cover expected in modern general practice. His commitment became part of local folklore.
Paula Franklin recalled that even after locum GPs were introduced, some of her father’s patients refused to see them because they specifically wanted to be treated by Dr Franklin. His reputation was so strong that people in the neighbourhood knew Paula simply as ‘Mr Franklin’s daughter’, a small but revealing indication of how closely the family had become identified with the practice.
A Practice That Outlived its Founder
Dr Franklin retired in June 1990, bringing to an end approximately four decades as a Hackney GP. At retirement his patient list contained around 2,000 people and responsibility for those patients passed to Dr Heather Charles, who took over the list in November 1990.
The practice itself continued, eventually becoming Elsdale Street Surgery. The present surgery therefore has a direct institutional link with the tiny Lauriston Road practice where Franklin worked. The NHS’s own recruitment information for Elsdale Street Surgery still records this history, describing Franklin as the single-handed GP who practised there for many years and noting the transfer of his patient list when he retired.
The Dr Colin Franklin Mural
For decades Franklin’s contribution was remembered principally through the people he had treated rather than through a permanent public memorial. That changed in 2022 when a mural was created on the outside wall of Elsdale Street Surgery as part of Hackney’s Black History Season.
The eight-foot artwork depicts Franklin’s portrait surrounded by flowers and twelve flags representing African and Caribbean countries that have contributed to Hackney’s population and culture. The project was initiated by Volunteer Centre Hackney, with patients and local volunteers working alongside Hackney artist Andrew Wright, who led the design and painting.
Children and members of the public helped complete the flags, turning the mural into a genuinely communal memorial rather than simply an artwork commissioned about the community. One particularly telling moment came when an elderly woman passing the mural recognised Franklin’s face and immediately remembered him as her doctor, describing him as “the best”.
The mural also carries the words ‘Know the past, shape the future‘, which give the memorial a purpose beyond commemorating one doctor. Its creators hoped that young people, particularly young black people, would see Franklin’s image, discover his story and be inspired by it.
The fact that the memorial stands outside the surgery that grew from Franklin’s original practice makes the location especially fitting. The building preserves the institutional legacy while the mural restores the human story.
Remembering a Doctor Through his Patients
There is something particularly revealing about the way Franklin has been remembered. The surviving accounts describe a form of general practice that was intensely local and personal, rooted in relationships between one doctor, one family and thousands of people in the surrounding streets.
Franklin’s story is therefore significant on two levels. He was part of the relatively small generation of black doctors who established themselves in Britain during the 20th century, but he was also a very specifically Hackney figure whose working life became woven into the everyday history of Lauriston Road, Victoria Park and the surrounding community.
More than three decades after his retirement, the mural outside Elsdale Street Surgery ensures that his name is once again visible to the people passing through the neighbourhood.
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