in 1919 was re-elected to the council as a Labour representative. In 1918 he had been elected as the first president of the African Progress Union, working for "advanced African ideas in liberal education". In 1919 he was a British delegate to the Pan-African Congress in Paris and two years later, chaired the Pan-African Congress in London. In 1922, Archer gave up his council seat to act as Labour Party election agent for Shapurji Saklatvala, a Communist Party activist standing for parliament in North Battersea. He convinced the Labour Party to endorse Saklatvala, who was duly elected - one of the first Indian MPs in Britain. He and Saklatvala continued to work together, winning again in 1924 until the Communist and Labour parties split fully. In the 1929 general election, Archer was agent for the official Labour candidate, who beat Saklatvala. Archer served as a governor of Battersea Polytechnic, president of the Nine Elms Swimming Club, chair of the Whitley Council Staff Committee, and a member of the Wandsworth Board of Guardians. He was again elected in 1931, for the Nine Elms ward. At the time of his death in 1932, he was deputy leader of Battersea Council. He died on 14 July 1932, a few weeks after his 69th birthday. His funeral was held at the Church of Our Lady of Carmel in Battersea Park Road on 19 July. He was buried in the council cemetery at Morden. Jane Roberts, widow of the former president of Liberia Joseph Jenkins Roberts, had travelled to England late in life and met the Archer couple. She lived with Archer and his wife until her death in 1914, aged 95. Archer had been thought to be the first Black man to be elected as a mayor in Britain. But, the American Negro Year Book 1914, in reporting Archer's election, also reported that In 1904, Mr. , a colored man from the West Indies, was elected mayor of the borough of Thetford, Norfolk. Legacy Archer House, part of the Battersea Village estate, was named after Archer upon construction in the 1930s. Wandsworth School was renamed in his honour in 1986 but it closed in 1991. There is a John Archer Way in Wandsworth and in Liverpool, a John Archer Hall. In 2004, John Archer was chosen for the "100 Great Black Britons" list, coming 72nd in a public vote. In 2010, Archer was commemorated