James Pinson Labulo (JPL) Davies, school teacher, naval officer, mariner, merchant and pioneering farmer and industrialist was one of the most successful West Africans of the nineteenth century. From his political activism in the face of imperial opposition and success in international trade to his celebritiy wedding and model marriage to Aina-Sarah Forbes Bonetta, who today would aptly be described as Victorian era ‘It Girl’, there was so much to distinguish the life of JPL Davies.