Military and Labour Policies in the Gold Coast During the First World War

1987 ◽  
pp. 152-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Killingray
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

The International Institute of African Languages and Cultures: A memory of its Beginnings

Africa ◽  
1990 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-133 ◽  
Author(s):  
W. E. F. Ward
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Leone ◽  
First World War ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
International Institute ◽  
World War ◽  
African Languages ◽  
Inaugural Meeting ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World ◽  
The Church

I went out to the Gold Coast as a teacher on the staff of the newly established Achimota College in October 1924, and a few weeks before I came back for my first leave, in April 1926, there came to the college a distinguished visitor, Major Hanns Vischer (later Sir Harms), the educational adviser to the Colonial Office in London. It was Major Vischer who told me about the project to establish an International African Institute.Vischer was a remarkable and delightful character. I was told that he was of Swedish descent, which was why he spelt his name Harms instead of in the German form Hans. He had served in the British army through the First World War, but before the war he had served in Nigeria as a missionary for the Church Missionary Society. He spoke fluent Hausa, and (I was told) some other languages. He was certainly a skilled linguist, for he seemed equally at home in English, French and German. He spoke English with a slight foreign accent, which made it easy to believe in his Scandinavian origin; it was not a German accent. He stayed at Achimota for a week or so, and went on from the Gold Coast to visit Sierra Leone. He joined my homeward-bound steamer at Freetown; he remembered having met me at Accra, and told me about the projected institute. Whoever may have been responsible for starting the scheme, it was Vischer who was the driving force in organising its inaugural meeting.

scholarly journals Exhuming and highlighting the nearly forgotten Gold Coast intelligentsia: The life and times of Prince Kwamin Atta Amonoo V

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
James Gibbs
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
First World War ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
World War ◽  
Close Analysis ◽  
The First World War ◽  
British Colonial ◽  
Class And Status ◽  
First World

The name K. A. Amonoo sits in the Roll of Honour in the entrance hall of Queen’s College, Taunton, Somerset, England together with the names of other former pupils who served in the First World War. In recent times, focus on K. A. Amonoo has been on his palatial residence, which he built in Anomabo, a coastal town in Ghana, in colonial Gold Coast, as Micots (2015 and 2017) have sought to emphasize in terms of the architectural design of his residence. Therefore, what this paper seeks to do is to bring to light a historically significant narrative of who Amonoo was, as a case study to examine and foreground the contributions of some of the nearly forgotten African intelligentsia of coastal Ghana. Through close analysis, the paper also places a central gaze on his activism within colonial Gold Coast and Calabar in colonial Nigeria as subtle moves to counter the growing authority of the British administration. Utilizing a set of key biographical prompts, the paper reflects on thematic issues such as class and status, modernity, and resistance to British colonial hegemony.

Dying German in Ghana: The Basel Mission Wrestles with Grief, 1830–1918

2014 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-18
Author(s):  
Paul Grant
Keyword(s):  
First World War ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
World War ◽  
Home Office ◽  
The Road ◽  
Mission Work ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Basel Mission ◽  
Mission Field ◽  
First World

Throughout the eighty years preceding the First World War, the Basel Mission's activities in the Gold Coast were overshadowed by endless reports of missionary death and disease. Lengthy bouts of sickness and grief described the very context of mission work. With each turn in the road, the missionaries and the home office alike turned to writing and rewriting their history, and in the process incorporated death into the message of the mission: sacrifice with an assurance of ultimate accomplishment gave way to notions of sacrifice as service in itself. This conversation was profoundly emotional and frequently expressed itself in song and poetry – the field hymnal, for example, included several songs for death and sickness. At the centre of Basel Mission grief lay a particularly German notion of home and spatial belonging called Heimat. To these German missionaries, including their supporters in Europe, the tragedy of dying in the mission field was above all dying far away from home.

An Introduction to the Writings of J. G. Mullen, An African Clerk, in the Gold Coast Leader, 1916–19

Africa ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 78 (3) ◽  
pp. 384-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie Newell
Keyword(s):  
West Africa ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Popular Literature ◽  
First World War ◽  
Gold Coast ◽  
Online Version ◽  
World War ◽  
The First World War ◽  
First World

J. G. Mullen was a Gold Coast clerk who published his memoirs, in instalments, in the Gold Coast Leader from 1916 to 1919. In this unusual narrative, he describes his adventures in Cameroon before and during the First World War. His account combines real-life geographical and social details with flamboyant tropes probably derived from imperial popular literature. Mullen's biography and even identity have so far been otherwise untraceable. His text offers glimpses, always enigmatic, of the experience and outlook of a member of the new clerkly class of colonial West Africa. This contribution presents an edited extract from Mullen's text together with a contextualizing and interpretative essay. The full Mullen text is available in the online version of this issue of Africa.

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