Theodore S. Clerk

Theodore Shealtiel Clerk

Theodore S. Clerk
Born 4 September, 1909
Larteh, Gold Coast
Died 1965 (aged 56)
Tema, Ghana
Nationality
Alma mater
Occupation Architect
Spouse(s) Paulina Quist (m. 1948)
Parent(s)
Awards Rutland Prize
Projects City of Tema

Theodore Shealtiel Clerk (4 September 1909 - †1965)[1] was an urban planner in the Gold Coast and the first formally trained, professionally certified Ghanaian architect.[2] Attaining a few firsts in his lifetime, Theodore Clerk became the chief architect, city planner, designer and developer of Tema which is the metropolis of the Tema Harbour, the largest port in Ghana, as well as the first CEO of the Ghanaian parastatal,[3] Tema Development Corporation.[2][4] T. S. Clerk was also a founding member and the first President of the first post-independent, wholly indigenous and self-governing Ghanaian professional body, the Ghana Institute of Architects (GIA), that had its early beginnings in 1963. [5][6]

Early life and family

T. S. Clerk, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1944

Clerk was born in Larteh in the Akuapem Mountains on 4 September 1909, [1][4] where his father, Nicholas Timothy Clerk (1862 -1961) was stationed as a Basel missionary at the time. [7][8] His father, a Basel-trained theologian, was the First Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1918 to 1932. [9] N. T. Clerk was a founding father of the all boys’ boarding high school, Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School established in 1938. [10][11] His mother, Anna Alice Meyer (1873 - 1934) was of Ga-Dangme and Danish descent. [8][9]

His paternal grandfather, Alexander Worthy Clerk (1820-1906), a Jamaican Moravian missionary arrived in the Danish Protectorate of Christiansborg (now the suburb of Osu) in Accra, Gold Coast (Ghana) in 1843, as part of the original group of 24 West Indian missionaries who worked under the auspices of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society of Basel, Switzerland. [9][12] A.W. Clerk was a pioneer of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and a leader in education in colonial Ghana, establishing a middle boarding school, The Salem School in 1843.[13] His paternal grandmother, Pauline Hesse was from the Gold Coast, and was of German and Ga-Dangme descent. [14]

T. S. Clerk had eight other siblings and was a member of the historically important Clerk family of Accra, Ghana.[7] His older brother, Carl Henry Clerk (1895 – 1982) was an editor, agricultural educationist, school administrator, journalist and church minister who served as the Fourth Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1950 to 1954 as well as the Editor of the Christian Messenger newspaper between 1960 and 1963. [15][16][17][18] Matilda Johanna Clerk (1916 - 1984), his younger sister, was the second Ghanaian female medical doctor, the third West African woman to become a physician and the first Ghanaian woman in any field to be awarded an academic merit scholarship for university education abroad. [19][20][21]

Education and training

T. S. Clerk welcoming Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh to the Port City of Tema, 1959

T. S. Clerk attended Basel Mission primary schools in Larteh Akuapem, the boys' boarding middle school, The Salem School at Osu and had his secondary education at Achimota School, as a member of one of the institution's earliest generations of students. [8] At Achimota, Clerk's contemporaries included Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana's first president as well as Charles Odamtten Easmon, the first Ghanaian surgeon. He secured a Gold Coast colonial scholarship for a diploma course in architecture at the Edinburgh College of Art, a constituent college of the University of Edinburgh where he attended from October 1938 to June 1943.[2][4] Records of his nomination papers for admission to the professional associations for architecture and town planning suggest that he also completed a diploma in town planning in 1944. [4]

During the Easter term of 1941, Clerk was in Manchester on a vacation scholarship and later that summer in 1941, he undertook measuring work for the Scottish branch of the National Buildings Record. [4] In the summer of 1942, he carried out a housing survey assignment for the Department of Health for Scotland. [4]

Theodore Clerk passed the intermediate examination in June 1941 and the final examination in June 1943, and was admitted as an associate (ARIBA) by the Royal Institute of British Architects on 1 October 1943, with Frank Charles Mears, Leslie Grahame Thomson and John Ross McKay listed as his proposers.[4] Furthermore, Clerk was also an Associate Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute (AMTPI). [4]

Career

In the summer of 1943, Clerk was awarded the Rutland Prize by the Royal Scottish Academy of Art and Architecture; an award which facilitated a critical study and tour of the Building Research Station in Garston and the Forest Products Research Lab in Princes Risborough, in addition to analyzing the architecture, housing and town planning in London, Leeds, Liverpool and Coventry. [4]

He joined the Town and Country Planning Department in Accra, Gold Coast in 1946 and was later transferred to its Sekondi office from 1948 to 1953. [4][22] He had been appointed the Chief Architect and Town Planner in the parastatal, Tema Development Corporation by 1960. [4] In this role, he led the design, urban planning and development of the post-independent port city of Tema, a project commissioned by Ghana's first president, Kwame Nkrumah. [2][4] T. S. Clerk later became the first chief executive officer (CEO) of the Tema Development Corporation when an Act of Parliament, the Tema Development Corporation Act was passed in 1963, making the institution a publicly-owned corporate entity. [3][23] Theodore Clerk was also an external examiner of the Department of Architecture of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST). [5]

Sometime in 1963, a group of about fifteen mostly British and American-trained Ghanaian architects came together to streamline the architectural practice and education through a professional body, the Ghana Institute of Architects (GIA) as the successor of the pre-independence Gold Coast Society of Architects, a colonial social club for Gold Coast-based architects founded in August 1954. [5][6] These architects were T. S. Clerk, D.K. Dawson, J.S.K. Frimpong, P.N.K., Turkson, J. Owusu-Addo, O.T. Agyeman, A. K. Amartey, E.K. Asuako, W.S. Asamoah, M. Adu-Donkor, K.G. Kyei, C. Togobo, V. Adegbite, M. Adu Bedu and E. Kingsley Osei. [5][6] On Friday 11 December 1964 at 8:30 p.m., the inauguration of the body took place at the University of Ghana, Legon, where T. S. Clerk was elected the first President of the Ghana Institute of Architects, after which he gave his inaugural speech. [5][6] T. S. Clerk had previously served as the President of the erstwhile Gold Coast Society of Architects during the British colonial era. [6]

Personal life

On 20 March 1948, Theodore Clerk married Paulina Quist, a midwife from Christiansborg, Accra. [22] Quist was the daughter of 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. [24]

Death and legacy

Clerk died in 1965 of complications relating to stomach cancer. [7] The Ghanaian government named a street in Tema, T.S. Clerk Street, in his honour, in appreciation of his pioneering services to the development of Ghana. [3]

References

  1. 1 2 "Profile of THEODORE SHEALTIEL CLERK". MyHeritage.com. Archived from the original on 7 April 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Ofori-Mensah. "22 Successful Ghanaians Who Went To Achimota School". OMGVoice. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  3. 1 2 3 Administrator. "Background of TDC". tdctema.org. Archived from the original on 7 April 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Goold, David. "Dictionary of Scottish Architects - DSA Architect Biography Report (April 6, 2017, 9:52 pm)". www.scottisharchitects.org.uk. Archived from the original on 7 April 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 Intsiful, Prof George W. K. "Ghana news: In praise of pioneer architects - Graphic Online". Graphic Online. Archived from the original on 13 August 2016. Retrieved 27 July 2017.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "History". gia.org.gh. Retrieved 2017-07-27.
  7. 1 2 3 Clerk, N. T. (1943). The Settlement of West Indian Emigrants in the Gold Coast 1843-1943 - A Centenary Sketch. Accra.
  8. 1 2 3 Debrunner, Hans W. (1965). Owura Nico, the Rev. Nicholas Timothy Clerk, 1862-1961: Pioneer and Church Leader. Accra: Waterville Publishing House.
  9. 1 2 3 "Clerk, Nicholas Timothy, Ghana, Basel Mission". www.dacb.org. Archived from the original on 28 March 2016. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  10. ↑ "PRESEC | ALUMINI PORTAL". www.odadee.net (in Russian). Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  11. ↑ "70 Years of excellent secondary education" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 July 2011. Retrieved 2017-04-10.
  12. ↑ Antwi, Daniel J (October 7, 2003). "Ghanaian church built by Jamaicans". Jamaican Gleaner.
  13. ↑ "Osu Salem". osusalem.org. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  14. ↑ Sill, Ulrike (2010-01-01). Encounters in Quest of Christian Womanhood: The Basel Mission in Pre- and Early Colonial Ghana. BRILL. ISBN 9004188886.
  15. ↑ Company, Johnson Publishing (1954-08-26). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company.
  16. ↑ "Carl Clerk - Historical records and family trees - MyHeritage". www.myheritage.com. Archived from the original on 6 April 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  17. ↑ "The Christian Messenger, Basel, 1883-1917.".
  18. ↑ Debrunner, Hans W. (1967-01-01). A history of Christianity in Ghana,. Waterville Pub. House. Archived from the original on 3 July 2013.
  19. ↑ Clerk, Nicholas, T. (5 January 1985). Obituary: Dr. Matilda Johanna Clerk. Accra: Presbyterian Church of Ghana Funeral Bulletin.
  20. ↑ Jr, Adell Patton (1996-04-13). Physicians, Colonial Racism, and Diaspora in West Africa (1st edition ed.). University Press of Florida. p. 29. ISBN 9780813014326. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017.
  21. ↑ Joeden-Forgey, Elisa von (1997-08-01). "Review of Patton, Adell Jr.., Physicians, Colonial Racism and Diaspora in West Africa". www.h-net.org. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 2017-04-06.
  22. 1 2 "FamilySearch.org". familysearch.org. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
  23. ↑ Justice, Ghana Ministry of (1964). Memoranda on Acts of the Republic of Ghana. Ministry of Justice. p. 155.
  24. ↑ "Janus: Progress in the Colonies, 1940s-1950s". janus.lib.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2017-06-06.
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