A Bermudian slave who became the first published black woman in Britain is to be honoured in the UK with a plaque and a musical about her life.

Mary Prince was born into a family of slaves in Devonshire in 1788. In 1828 she was taken to England by her owner, John Wood.

The Wood family took up residence in Bloomsbury in London, where Mary continued in their employ despite the fact that slavery was illegal in England.

Three months later she was thrown out by Wood but found refuge with the Anti-Slavery Society and taken in as a servant by its secretary, Thomas Pringle.

The former slave dictated her story to Pringle and in 1831, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, became the first account of the life of a black woman published in England.

The opera Bridgetower: A Fable of 1807, was written by jazz supremo Julian Joseph and author Mike Philips to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the Slave Trade Act in Britain. Having opened this summer to sold out productions at the City of London Festival, it is now showing throughout the UK, performed by the English Touring Opera.

As explained by the ETO, the musical tells the "remarkable story of George Bridgewater, the Polish son of a former slave and a local domestic servant who was taken to London as a child, settled (t)here, and became one of the leading violinists of his time and befriended Beethoven, with whom he gave his the first performance in Vienna of his 'Kreutzer' Sonata (which was originally dedicated to him)." Mary is fictionalised in the opera as the 18th century musician's love interest.

And tomorrow, a plaque will be unveiled on the site of her former house, at Malet Street in Bloomsbury reading: "Mary Prince, 1788-1833 ¿ the first African woman to publish her memoirs of slavery lived in a house on this site in 1829."