Nicholas Timothy Clerk

The Reverend Nicholas Timothy Clerk
Portrait of Nicholas Timothy Clerk
Born	(1862-10-28)28 October 1862 Aburi, Gold Coast
Died	16 August 1961(1961-08-16) (aged 98) Accra, Ghana
Nationality	British subject (1862-1957) Jamaican (jus sanguinis) Ghanaian (1957-1961)
Education	Basel Mission Seminary, Basel, Switzerland
Occupation	Clergyman Theologian Missionary
Spouse(s)	Anna Alice Meyer (m. 1891)
Children	Carl Henry Clerk (son) Theodore S. Clerk (son) Matilda J. Clerk (daughter)
Parent(s)	Alexander Worthy Clerk (father) Pauline Hesse (mother)
Relatives	Clerk family
Church	Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast Basel Evangelical Missionary Society
Ordained	Basel Minster, 1888
Offices held	1st Synod Clerk, Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast (1918 -1932)

Nicholas Timothy Clerk (28 October 1862^[1][2][3] - †16 August 1961^[4]) was a Gold Coast-born theologian, clergyman and pioneering missionary of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society who worked extensively in southeast colonial Ghana (Gold Coast).^[4] His father was the Jamaican Moravian missionary Alexander Worthy Clerk (1820 - 1906),^[4] who worked in the Gold Coast with the Basel Mission and co-founded The Salem School at Osu, a Presbyterian boarding middle school for boys ^[5] in 1843. N. T. Clerk was elected the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, in effect, the chief administrative officer and overall strategy lead of the church organization, a position he held from 1918 to 1932. ^[4][6] A staunch advocate of secondary education, Nicholas Timothy Clerk, became the founding father of the all boys’ Presbyterian boarding school in Ghana, Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School, established in 1938.^[7][8] As Synod Clerk, he pushed vigorously for and turned the “original idea of a church mission high school" into reality.^[7][8]

Early life and education

Clerk was born on 28 October 1862^[1][2][3] at Aburi, about forty-five minutes north-east of the Ghanaian capital, Accra.^[4] His father was Alexander Worthy Clerk, a Jamaican Moravian missionary who was among the first group of West Indians, recruited by the Danish minister, the Reverend Andreas Riis of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society in 1843. Riis lived in the Gold Coast from 1832 to 1845.^{[4][9][10][11]} His mother, Pauline Hesse was from the Gold Coast, and was of German and Ga-Dangme descent.^[12] He studied at Basel Mission primary and middle schools in Aburi, followed by pedagogy and theology training^[7] at the Basel Mission seminary (now Presbyterian Training College of Education) at Akropong, in the state of Akuapem, 32 miles (51 km) north-north-east of Accra, where he showed strong interest in Christian missionary work.^[4][13] The Basel missionaries founded the Akropong seminary in 1848 as the second oldest higher educational institution in West Africa after Fourah Bay College, established in 1827.^[14] With the aid of a bursary awarded by the Basel Mission, Clerk pursued further studies at the Basel Mission Seminary in Basel, Switzerland (Basler Missionsseminar) ^[15] between 1884 and 1888, where he received advanced training in theology, philosophy and linguistics, with special emphasis on philology.^{[4][13][16][17]} The Basel mission also had a holistic and rigorous skills-based approach to educating its students.^[17] This was geared towards teaching them the survival know-how to especially endure harsh terrains during Christian missionary fieldwork. ^[17] In this regard, N. T. Clerk received additional practical training in geography and cartography, botany, as well as basic medicine, anatomy and surgery. ^[17] During this period, he spent a year (1884 -1885) in Schorndorf, about 42 miles (26 km) east of Stuttgart, Germany, living with and studying under the award-winning German ethnolinguist and philologist, Johann Gottlieb Christaller who had earlier been influential in the translation of the Bible into the Twi language with the help of two Akan linguists and missionaries, David Asante and Theophilus Opoku.^{[13][9][13][16][18][19][20][21]} Christaller was a two-time recipeint (1876; 1882) of the most prestigious linguistics prize, The Prix Volney, awarded since 1822, by the Institut de France "to recognize work in general and comparative linguistics."^[19][22] At Basel, Clerk suffered a nervous breakdown halfway through his studies but recovered quickly.^[4] He passed his final examinations, was consecrated in the Basel Minster as a missionary^[4][13] and in July 1888 ordained a minister at Korntal, situated at the northwestern border of Stuttgart of the German state of Baden-Württemberg.^[4][21] He returned to his homeland, Gold Coast in October 1888.^[4][13][3]

Missionary work

Nicholas Timothy Clerk, Basel, Switzerland, 1888

Clerk’s first station was at Anum, on the banks of the Volta River, about 50 miles (80 km) inland, where he arrived in October 1888.^[4] In August, 1890 he left Anum to start a mission station in the State of Buem in what is now the Volta Region of Ghana.^[4] He chose Worawora, more than 110 miles (176 km) from the coast, as his headquarters. In Worawora, he built a school, a chapel, an administrative office and a house for himself.^[4][13] In August of the 1891 he left Anum to establish a mission station in he worked at Boradaa in the Buem area in what is now part of the Volta Region of Ghana^[4][13] and later became the principal evangelist there. In January 1894, Clerk was a delegate of the Synod of the Basel Mission held on the coast.^[13]

He opposed non-Christian animist practices and paganist rituals including human sacrifice and child labour, tried to encourage parents to send their children to school.^[4][13] He also tried to persuade adults to join the church, but adherence to the practice of polygamy (which was opposed by the Christian Church) made his work difficult.^[4] He had come to Buem at a time when it was still independent of either German or British rule, and when inter-tribal wars were not uncommon. The younger generation wanted him to side with them in community disputes with their elders. However, Clerk remained neutral, infuriating the youth who refused to cooperate with him ^[4] In spite of many challenges, the Worawora mission station was making modest progress by 1898.^[4] When, in 1899, the inhabitants moved from the hill to the valley, Clerk followed them, and established a new mission station.^[4] Buem had then become a part of the German colony of Togoland, conditions of peace prevailed, and Clerk's work had become easier.^[4] Before the forcible German takeover of Buem, the inhabitants had wanted Clerk to persuade the British to annex the area, while the German administration, based in Lomé on the coast, had sent a messenger to him to ask him to persuade the people of Buem to become German subjects, but he had refused to take sides based on his personal conviction and the apolitical code of conduct for a Basel missionary at the time which required that he remain neutral in all issues relating to colonial governance.^[4]

With a family to support, Clerk struggled to live on his meagre £10 monthly stipend, and occasionally felt that he should seek a more lucrative post. Dr. Gruner, the German district commissioner at Misahohé, nearly 50 miles (80 km) to the south in what is now the Republic of Togo, had heard of his plight, and in 1893 had written to him, offering him a permanent post in the civil service of the German administration with a starting monthly salary of 500 Deutsch marks.^[13] Nonetheless, Clerk once again refused to quit his Basel Mission job. Though he disliked the German way of treating Africans, and made them aware of it, he was still highly regarded by the Germans.^[4]

Under German rule, parents were obliged to send their children to school, and cleanliness as well as hygiene were strictly enforced.^[4] Clerk taught his converts to plant cocoa using more mechanized methods and his pioneering work in agriculture bore fruit years later.^[4] The German administration insisted that Ewe should be taught in the mission's schools instead of the Basel-preferred language of Twi. As a result, Clerk could not continue his work in Buem. In the 1904 (the year he left), the Basel Mission station was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Bremen Mission.^[4]

Clerk then moved to Berekum, near Sunyani, about 80 miles (128 km) northwest of Kumasi, in what is now the Brong -Ahafo Region of Ghana, and here he had intended to settle.^[4] The paramount chief however refused to grant him accommodation, and the inhabitants would not help him build a house.^[4] After three fruitless years and in the face of hostility, intimidation and poor health, he was transferred to Larteh, just south of Akropong, where he found the work more pleasant. In an entrepreneurial drive and a practical approach to sustain their work, Clerk and several African Christian missionaries set up cocoa farms.^[4] With financial proceeds he received from his personal farm enterprise at Adawso, a few miles to the west, he was able to give his children high quality education^[4][23] and raise them to become responsible professionals in society: a Protestant minister, an architect, teachers, a nurse, a medical doctor and fashion designers.^[13]

Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church

The European members of the Basel Mission, however, did not to treat their African colleagues as adults, and kept them out of the church and mission administration with central decisions concerning the local church made in Basel, Switzerland. ^[4][24] Clerk resented this paternalism, and felt that the Basel Mission should become Africanized and tailored more to the local context, a view which he communicated strongly to the European missionaries.^[4][13] The coming of the First World War (1914-1918) gave the African missionaries a chance to undertake heavier responsibilities, even though they had not been trained for them.^[4] When the Basel Mission was expelled from the Gold Coast in 1917 during World War I, the Free Church of Scotland took over their work.^[4]

A Synod (a Presbyterian judicatory or polity, composed of members from all presbyteries within its geographic jurisdiction) and a Synod Committee were established.^[4] Clerk was elected the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast on 14 August 1918; his tenure of office, as effectively the chief administrative officer and de facto organizational leader of the wholly indigenous and self-governing African church was from 1918 to 1932.^[4][24] Peter Hall, the son of John Hall, another Jamaican missionary was also elected the First Moderator of Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast in 1918.^[25] At the 1918 Synod held at the Christ Church, Akropong, Hall and Clerk authored the first constitution of the Ghanaian Presbyterian Church.^[16] At the Synod, the church retained its eleven districts: Christiansborg (Osu), Abokobi, Odumase-Krobo, Aburi, Akropong, Anum, Kyebi, Begoro, Nsaba, Abetifi and Kumasi. ^[24] At the 1922 Synod, the first five Presbyteries were created: Ga and Adangme; Akuapem and Anum; Agona and Kotoku; Akyem and Okwawu; Asante and Asante Akyem. ^[24] Mission stations were opened at Aburi, Larteh, Odumase, Abokobi, Kyebi, Gyadam, Kwahu, Asante, Anum as well as the Northern territories including Yendi and Salaga. ^[24]

Determined to succeed as an administrator, Clerk preached self-reliance and self-sufficiency, refusing to ask Missionary Societies abroad for funds ^[4] This attitude was unpopular at home; while teachers could then earn good government salaries, Presbyterian pastors had to live on very modest stipends that the church could afford. ^[4] He cooperated with the Scottish missionaries after he had got over his initial suspicion of them.^[4] As Synod Clerk of the church, he emphasised the continued use of indigenous languages in church and school, and insisted on an unassuming and austere lifestyle.^[4][13]

In the 1926 Synod meeting opened by N. T. Clerk, at Abetifi, the church polity voted to adopt the name ‘The Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast’ later to become ‘The Presbyterian Church of Ghana’ after the country gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. ^[24] The change in name from the Basel Mission Church to the Presbyterian Church was in recognition to the complex history between the Scottish Presbyterian polity and the pivotal role the City of Basel in Switzerland played during the Protestant Reformation. ^[24] After the Basel Missionaries were permitted to return to the Gold Coast in 1926, they cooperated with their Scottish colleagues, working together in the renamed and independent Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast. ^[4] In that same year, 1926, Clerk returned to Basel as the church's delegate, and was able to dispel any notions in missionary circles that the Presbyterian Church had forgotten its roots and its debt to the Basel Mission.^[4]

The Synod took place biennially between 1918 and 1950, after which it was organised on a yearly basis. ^[24] Furthermore, from 1918 to 2000, the Ghanaian Presbyterian Church operated the Synod system. ^[24] At the 2000 Abetifi Synod, the Church switched to the General Assembly system, with the first General Assembly held in Navrongo in 2001. ^[24]

Later years

After Clerk’s retirement in 1933, he split his time between Adawso and Christiansborg (Osu) and continued to be active in church work.^[4] He often gave sermons at the local chapel, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church near his home in Osu, even at the age of 90.^[4]

The Government of the Gold Coast, on behalf of King George V and The Crown, awarded him a Certificate and a Badge of Honour, in June 1934 in recognition of his dedicated and distinguished service to his country and selfless contributions to education, Christian religious life and nation building.^[4][13] The people of Buem invited him to visit them in 1937 which he considered as his “happiest and greatest moment”.^[4]

Personal life

Nicholas Timothy Clerk married Anna Alice Meyer (born on 13 March 1873),^[4][13][26] a homemaker and teacher from Christiansborg (Osu) on 26 February 1891.^[4][27] Meyer was described as a "mulatress" and the daughter of the Reverend Carl Meyer,^[27] a minister of the Basel Mission from the Meyer family that had origins in Denmark and was associated with a trading company in the Gold Coast. Her mother was a member of the Ga-Dangme people of Accra and hailed from Agbajajoohe, a hamlet near the Christiansborg Castle in Osu.^[4][13] A descendant of the Euro-African mercantile class, Anna Meyer's probable ancestors included Hartvig Meyer, the Danish Governor of the Gold Coast from 11 September 1703 to 23 April 1704, and Peder Meyer, the Danish colonial merchant who settled in the Gold Coast and flourished between the last decade of the eighteenth century and the first decade of the nineteenth century.^[28][29][30]

She was educated at the now defunct all-girls boarding school, Basel Mission Girls’ School, established in 1857, at Abokobi near Accra.^[12][13] Anna Meyer had spent half-a-year in Odumase with her uncle, Carl Quist (Karl Kvist) who had previously been a catechist and a housmaster at the pastor's seminary.^{[4][9][12][13][31]} Carl Quist's son (Meyer's cousin) was Emmanuel Charles Quist (1880 -1959), a barrister and judge who became the first African President of the Legislative Council from 1949 to 1951, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Gold Coast from 1951 to 1957, and Speaker of the National Assembly of Ghana from 1957 to 1959.^[32]

Anna Meyer also stayed with the German missionary Kopps family.^[13] Several of the Abokobi school's enrolled pupils came from the mulatto Euro-African Christian families of Christiansborg in Osu though the school was open to all.^[12] In this regard, the Abokobi school was quite similar to the Christiansborg Castle School as well as the Cape Coast Castle School, established in the eighteenth century by the Reverend Thompson of the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) associated with the Church of England.^[33] The castle schools were approved by the European Governors to educate the Euro-African children of European men and Gold Coast African women.^[33]

Nicholas and Anna Clerk had nine children: Paulina Ruth (Mrs. Tagoe), Alexander Worthy (died in infancy), Carl Henry, Kate Hedwig (Mrs. Odonkor), Caroline (Mrs. Quartey), Theodora (Mrs. Hall), Jane, Theodore and Matilda Johanna Clerk.^[34][27]

Within a year of his retirement, Clerk’s wife, Anna Alice died suddenly in 1934 from a heart attack at their home in Christiansborg.^[4][10][13] Like his father (A. W. Clerk), N. T. Clerk was a polyglot minister; he spoke English, German, Ga and Twi fluently.^{[4][8][10][13][35]}

Selected writings

• Clerk, N. T. and Christaller, J. G. (1890), "Neue Reise in den Hinterländen von Togo, nach Nkonya, Buem, Obooso, Salaga, Krakye, 2. Dezember 1889 bis 5. Februar 1890," Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft für Thüringen, vol. IX, pp. 77 - 98 [An account of the northern Volta, written entirely in German in the "Missionsgeorgraphischer Teil" of the periodical, Journal of the Geographical Society of Thuringia] ^{[2][3][4][9][10][13][35]}
• Clerk, N. T. (1943), "The Settlement of West Indian Emigrants in the Gold Coast 1843-1943 - A Centenary Sketch," Accra ^[34]

Death and funeral

He died of natural causes at his home in Osu, a suburb of Accra in his ninety-ninth year, on 16 August 1961.^[4][13] A large crowd was present to mourn him at his funeral service held at the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church close to his private residence in Osu.^[13] His remains were interred in the Basel Mission quarter (section) of the Osu Cemetery (formerly known as Christiansborg Civil Cemetery) in Accra.^[13]

Memorials and legacy

In appreciation of his contributions to education, the Government of the Gold Coast honoured him by naming two streets in Ghana after him: The Reverend Nicholas Timothy Clerk Road in Worawora, Volta Region and the Clerk Street in Osu, Accra adjacent to the his family estate, Anna Lodge. ^[13] A boarding house, Clerk House at the Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School (Presec, Legon) was named in his honour, in recognition of his selfless service to the church and the founding of a school that became synonymous with academic excellence and highly regarded alumni.^[7] The Presbyterian Church of Ghana today has instituted "Ebenezer Day", a special Sunday designated in the church almanac to honour the memories, selfless work and toil of the missionaries in the early years.^[36]

Over the years, several of his children and grandchildren have made significant contributions to the development of Ghana in areas relating to architecture, church development, civil service, education, health services, journalism, medicine, natural sciences, public administration, public health, public policy and urban planning.^{[4][5][7][8][9][37][38][39][40][41]} Below are snapshot bios of a selection of his notable descendants:

• Clerk’s, oldest son, Carl H. Clerk (1895–1982), an educationist, agriculturalist, journalist, editor and church minister^[42] served as the Fourth Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1950 to 1954.^[9][43] He was also the Editor of the Christian Messenger, the news publication of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana from 1960 to 1963^[44]
• His other son, Theodore S. Clerk (1909 -1965), the first African architect of the Gold Coast^[45][46] and was awarded the Rutland Prize by the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture.^[47] The government appointed him the chief architect, town planner and developer of Tema as well as first chief executive officer (CEO) of the Tema Development Corporation to plan and develop the post-independence port city of Tema.^[47][46]
• His youngest daughter, Matilda J. Clerk (1916–1984) was the second Ghanaian woman and third West African woman to become a physician.^[40][41] She was also the first Ghanaian woman in any field to win an academic merit scholarship for university education abroad.^[48] She was the principal medical officer at the Princess Marie Louise Hospital (now Accra Children’s Hospital) and collaborated with Susan de Graft-Johnson (née Ofori-Atta) - Ghana's first woman physician.^[41][49] She was an early advocate of maternal health and paediatric care in Ghana.^[41]
• His grandson, Nicholas T. Clerk (1930–2012)^[7] was an academic, public administrator and Presbyterian minister who taught public policy courses and served as a Rector of Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA),^[8] the country's premier graduate school of public policy, public administration and governance.^[7] He was the Vice-Chairman of the Public Services Commission of Ghana and the Chairman of the Public Services Commission of Uganda from 1989 to 1990. ^[8][50] He later lectured students on church administration at the Trinity Theological Seminary, Legon. ^[7]
• Another grandson, George C. Clerk (born 1931)^[37] is a botanist^[8] and Professor Emeritus at the University of Ghana, whose research focused on the ecology and the pathology of plant diseases (phytopathology), indigenous to Ghana and West Africa.^{[51][52][53][54][55][37][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63][64][65][66]} He is a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected in 1973.^[38][39]
• His great-grandson, Nicholas T. Clerk Jr. (born 1963) is a consultant obstetrician gynaecologist with special interest in ambulatory gynaecology.^[67][68]
• His great-granddaughter, Christine A. Clerk, (born 1967) is an epidemiologist and a malaria specialist.^{[69][70][71][72][73]}

References