As essay by Daniel Adu Gyamfi, David Cornelius, Mawuena Agbenoto, and Nana Dadzie Ghansah of the MOBA Historical Subcommitee
“Though most of you have come to strange new buildings, you have come to the same old traditions.”
– Rev. R.A. Lockhart, 1935
In the late 1800s, the Fante elites, merchants, and chiefs, along with the Wesleyan Mission, shared a dream that gave rise to a school in 1876. Even as the school went through four names before finally settling on Mfantsipim in 1905, finding a home for it took longer and was more challenging. This is an account of all the places the school occupied before settling on Kwabotwe Hill.
The Wesleyan High School opened on April 3, 1876, at the Mission House. A year earlier, Rev. Thomas Picot, the Superintendent of the Wesleyan Mission, had been getting the place ready. He had put up additional structures for himself, and the old house would be the school.
The school stayed there until about 1889, when Rev. Kemp shut it down that January. Through the efforts of DeGraft Johnson, Mensah Sarbah, Pieterson, and others, the school reopened that August with Casley Hayford as the headmaster.
It seemed they were initially in the Mission House after reopening but had to move out since Rev. Kemp would not let them stay there.
So the school, now called “the High School”, since Kemp would not let them keep “Wesleyan” either, moved to Minnaux House at Chapel Square sometime towards the end of 1899 or early 1890.
They stayed at Minnaux House till 1891, when the nationalists moved the school to Coussey House at the foot of McCarthy Hill, and renamed it “Collegiate School”, with Rev. Egyir Asaam as headmaster.
In March 1893, Rev. Kemp got his hands on the school again, and on March 10 he transferred the then headmaster, Rev. F. Egyir Asaam, to Accra and moved the school back to the Mission House. When he tried to amalgamate the Collegiate School with the elementary school he had opened, the Collegiate students and teachers staged a walkout, so he relented.
On March 20, 1893, he allowed the Collegiate School to move to the old Colonial School on Saltpond Rd with Mayne as the headmaster. In 1894, Egyir Assam returned as the principal.
However, Kemp was not done yet. He suspended Egyir Assam in 1896, leading him to resign from the Methodist Church. Rev. Somer replaced him for a year. As the school continued to deteriorate, it was moved back to the Mission House on March 30, 1897.
The school stayed in the Mission House till April 1900 when it was moved to allow an expansion of Wesley Girls High School, which had been restarted by Mrs. Ellis. It shows how low the school had sunk then.
Whereas Adu Boahen states in his seminal text that the school was moved to “…a large house belonging to one Acquah now known as Acquah’s Hotel at the junction of Coronation Street and Korokoraba Road…”, Bartels says that the school was moved to “Amonoo’s house in town”.
The Gold Coast leader from April 6, 1901, has the school at “Amonoo’s House”. This lends more credence to Bartels’ claim that they were moved to Amonoo’s House.
In 1901, with the arrival of Rev. Barton as headmaster, the Collegiate School was moved back to the Mission House. It stayed there even after Barton left in 1902, and was there until July 1905.
Meanwhile, in 1903, John Mensah Sarbah and the other Fante Nationalists of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society, tired of how the Methodist Church had run the Collegiate School down, formed the Fanti Public School Ltd to raise funds to found their own school. That school, named“Mfantsipim”, opened its doors on April 3, 1905. It started in Coussey House, a place donated by W.E. Sam.
In July that same year, the Collegiate School was absorbed into Mfantsipim School, and the amalgamated institution moved to the Government Building near the Isolation Hospital.
In 1907, seeking a place closer to town so day students would not have to walk so far, and to attract more students, Rev. Balmer moved the school to Sea View House. At this point, beside Mfantsipim, the Methodist Mission also ran a training institution for catechists and ministers, and both shared Sea View House.
As the school grew, the Sea View House became too small. Mensah Sarbah had Kwabotwe Hill that had been bequeathed by Wilson Sey, but that was mired in litigation. So as Balmer, Bartrop, and Sarbah kept looking, Mount Hope came up. In March 1910, Balmer rented two houses on Mount Hope. They kept Mfantsipim at Sea View and moved Balmer’s residence and the training institution to Mount Hope in April 1910. They also renegotiated a 4-year extension of the Sea View rent. Later that year, both Bartrop and Sarbah passed, and Balmer went back to England.
When Rev. Sneath arrived in 1911, the Sea View House was bursting at the seams, and the wait for admission was 2 years long. Kwabotwe Hill was still not an option, and a piece of land Balmer and Bartrop had discovered in 1910 was found to be “unhealthy” because it was too close to the lagoon. So in January 1916, Rev. Sneath moved the school to Mount Hope.
That was Mfantsipim’s home until Rev. Lockhart built the initial structures at the present academic site on Kwabotwe Hill and moved the school there in January 1931. And we’ve been on Kwabotwe Hill till today.
After twelve location changes, the thirteenth was the charm.
Sources:
Mfantsipim and the Making of Ghana by A. Adu Boahen, 1996
The Roots of Ghana Methodism by F.L. Bartels, 1965
The Gold Coast Leader, April 6, 1901