Google is celebrating composer Ignatius Sancho today - here's why

Today's Google Doodle celebrates Ignatius Sancho, a British composer, actor and writer who became a symbol of hope in the battle against the immorality of the slave trade through his celebrated letters.

As October begins, so too does the UK’s Black History Month.

Google's Doodle aims to honour Sancho - who was of African heritage - and draw attention to his work in the abolition of slavery, a "courageous fight in the name of freedom and equality."

Here's everything you need to know.

Who was Ignatius Sancho?

Sancho's was fraught with extraordinary hardship from the get-go.

Born on a slave ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean around 1729, his mother died not long after childbirth, and his father reportedly took his own life rather than live as a slave.

But an early glimmer of hope came when Sancho was just two years old - his owner took the young orphan to England where he was given to three unmarried sisters in Greenwich.

His intelligence, warmth and sincerity meant he was encouraged to read, something which gave the young Sancho a somewhat informal education.

With learning came a frustration at his lack of freedom, and Sancho escaped and fled, finding employment as a butler for an aristocratic family.

There, his horizons were broadened even further, as Sancho immersed himself in music, poetry, reading, and writing. By the late 1760s, Sancho was considered by many to be a man of refinement.

What music did he compose?

During his life, Sancho published four books of songs and lively dance music, his most well known being a collection titled. Minuets, Cotillons & Country Dances.