This is just the book I should have liked to have read on the way to my first posting
in the Gold Coast: it would have spared me several solecisms. Its appearance some 50
years after the author left Africa for Mauritius is puzzling. Did he compose most of it
earlier and feel there was material that should not be imparted for decades to 'young
men', as non-chiefs were called, or was it a stunning feat of memory by a ninety-year
old whose records had been lost in a fire? In either event it makes excellent reading for
retired colonial officers and, for Ghanaians, an insight into the establishment of
Achimota College and a balanced assessment of the arguments for and against
colonial rule. The latter, doubtless, explains its publication in Ghana where the highest
quality paper and typesetting have not been used.
The author went to the Gold Coast in 1924, one of the first party of staff for the, as
yet unbuilt, Achimota College. This was to be the first stage of the realisation of
Guggisberg's plan for a complex of institutions to provide the country with
educational excellence. The first Principal, A. G. Fraser, wanted his staff to have a
proper appreciation of the college's problems before they took up their intended posts.
So, while the buildings were going up, Ward's first seven years were spent on a
miscellany of teaching tasks and even educational administration in the North. But,
intended eventually to teach history, he made the time not only to acquire a good
knowledge of Twi but more importantly to pioneer the recording of oral annals of
many Akan groups. This last was a task of patiently winning the confidence of chiefs
and elders to whom the tribal traditions had been entrusted. The benefits from this
must have been felt when Achimota had grown to the point where he could become its
full-time History and English master: they are certainly to be found in Ward's history
of the country which, updated to cover the early years of Ghana, remains the standard
work. Ward's career took him to be Education Adviser in the Colonial Office.
Now he has produced a delightful book that combines two elements. First there are
his recollections of both serious achievements and amusing incidents, reminding us
how good the relations between Europeans and Africans could be. Secondly there is a
critique of colonial administration as it applied to the Gold Coast in the inter-war
years, which one feels is the view he formed at the time, unembellished with the benefit
of hindsight. I would argue that he underestimated the difficulties of developing
moderately effective local government, which many of us thought to be a prerequisite
to independence. Our views were brushed aside by African opinion just as it required
Fraser to develop Achimota at a faster pace than he favoured.
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