You wouldn't have to live in Bath very long before you discovered that one of the many figures from political history to have lived in the city for some years was Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia.

Though his time was very much of the 20th century, many of his views and ideas are equally at home in the 21st century.

His views on women's rights were modern for their day and at least some of his views about the world may be summed up in the following quotation: "Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted, the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most that has made it possible for evil to triumph."

Interesting light is shed on the man who spent some five years in exile here in Bath during the Second World War and who some people believe was the Messiah in an old document from Bath In Time which is in fact a note to news editors issued in the 1950s when Haile Selassie returned for a post-war visit to the city.

Almost exactly 55 years ago Haile Selassie arrived back in England going first to Buckingham Palace and then three days later on Sunday, October 17, 1954 arriving at his old home in Bath for the first time in 14 years.

Haile Selassi, who was thought by some people to actually be God, was born at the end of the 19th century. At 24 he became Regent and heir apparent to his aunt and immediately began internal reforms which were only interrupted during the Italian occupation from 1936 to 1941. In 1923 he got Ethiopia into the League of Nations having abolished slavery in his country.

When his country was invaded by Mussolini in 1935, he was given asylum in Britain when he bought for £3,500 the house called Fairfield at Newbridge Hill in Bath.

Christianity had dominated Ethiopia for more than 1,600 years leaving Haile Selassie as titular head of the coptic Church and a devout Christian. One of his first acts in exile was to covert an old cottage at his new Bath home into a Coptic chapel where daily prayers could be said.

For his post-war visit to Bath he was given dispensation from fasting in order to accept all hospitality. However, the Emperor apparently ate frugally and seldom had alcoholic drinks. His usual course was to work a 14-hour day on affairs of state.

Although for centuries Ethiopia had been considered one of the backward countries of Africa the status of women there had always been better than in most other countries within that continent.

After marriage women continued to own property and conduct their own affairs and provided they had not been married at a full religious ceremony they could even initiate divorce. On divorce, women took half her husband's goods.

When Haile Selassie arrived in Bath 55 years ago he drove through the then green painted iron gates up to the 16-room country house that was Fairfield where he had stayed between 1936 and 1940.

When he left in 1940 he left the house in care of Rosaline Sawyer, one of his original members of staff.

Apparently for the post-war visit she had been busy supervising the restoration of the gardens and redecoration of the interior.

She also supervised arrangement of the emperor's furniture and personal possessions putting them into the places in which he had left them 14 years previously.

Haile Selassie I was the titular head of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and, until his visit to Jamaica in 1966, had never confirmed nor denied that he was divine.

But during that visit he specifically declined to contradict the Rastafari belief that he was God or the reincarnation of Jesus.

Interestingly Rita Marley, musician Bob Marley's wife, who converted to the Rastafari faith after seeing Haile Selassie on his Jamaican trip, claimed, in interviews and in her book No Woman, No Cry that she saw a stigmata print on the palm of Haile Selassie's hand as he waved to the crowd, that resembled the envisioned markings on Christ's hands from being nailed to the cross.

It was a claim that was not supported by other sources, but was used as evidence for her and other Rastafarians that Haile Selassie was indeed their Messiah.