Francis Williams (c. 1702 – c. 1770) was a Jamaican polymath, scholar, astronomer and poet who was one of the most notable free black people in Jamaica. His parents were formerly enslaved but had been freed on the death of their "owner". They in turn owned land and had enslaved persons working on their estate. Born in Kingston, Jamaica, Williams subsequently travelled to England where he officially became a British subject. Whilst in England, Francis Williams is believed to have attended Cambridge University. On 8 August 1721, Williams became a member of Lincoln's Inn in London (one of the four Inns of Court for barristers of England and Wales). Williams was allowed to attend scientific Royal Society meetings, but in 1716, when he was proposed as a fellow of the Royal Society at a large meeting (in the presence of Isaac Newton and Edmond Halley) he was denied membership by a subsequent committee "on account of his complection". After returning to Jamaica around 1723, in addition to running his father's plantation in Spanish Town, he established a school for free people of colour in Jamaica. His portrait is considered to be the earliest known example in the canon of western art to have been commissioned by a known Black person to record their own intellectual achievements. The evidence in the portrait indicates that Williams was making a statement about his calculation of the trajectory and return of Halley’s Comment, according to the rules of the third edition of Isaac Newton’s book, Principia. Due to poor archival conditions, most information about Williams comes from a lengthy racist attack on him by his white contemporary Edward Long, and from the portrait itself, which displays some of Williams' library and shows that he had observed the return of Halley's Comet which confirmed Newton's laws of motion. The portrait was purchased by Long after Williams' death and ended up in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London (in the section depicting furniture) but was studied by historian Fara Dabhoiwala of Princeton University and revealed much of the truth about the portait in 2022/23. from: Wikipedia