(A Piece by Daniel Adu Gyamfi and Nana Dadzie Ghansah)
Mfantsipim has many unsung men who worked hard and gave their all to guide the school through dark patches in its growth. One of these men is the Rev. A.T. R. Bartrop. He arrived in the then Gold Coast on Oct 4th 1903, as the Superintendent of the Methodist Mission. At that time, the school was known as “the Collegiate School,” and it was housed in the Mission House. It was struggling with Mr. Albert Morgan, the Ghanaian headmaster, assisted by Mr. Graves, doing the most with the little they had.
Unlike his predecessor, Rev. Dennis Kemp, Rev. Bartrop believed in the inherent ability of the African and in the idea of a secondary school for students in the Gold Coast. He started work immediately to improve things. However, it was not long before another challenge crept up. The Fante Public School Ltd, led by John Mensah Sarbah, W.E. Sam among other Fante nationalists, also opened its own secondary school in Cape Coast in April 1905. Suddenly, the future of the Methodists’ Collegiate School looked more precarious than ever. Moreover, Bartrop feared that education outside the Church’s influence would be too secular. He reached out to Mensah Sarbah and suggested that the two schools be amalgamated. The latter agreed, and in July 1905, the two schools merged into one and took the name “Mfantsipim”.
Mfantsipim struggled in the first two years. One reason was that it lacked an European headmaster, an issue Rev. Bartrop worked hard to address. The other reason was financial. Even as the school struggled along, two of its biggest benefactors would die within 6 months of each other in 1906. So by the time Rev. Bartrop finally got the Methodist Missionary Organization to send Rev. Balmer as the headmaster in Nov 1907, there were only 8 students left with no teachers.
Bartrop, Balmer, and Mensah Sarbah would subsequently work really hard to rescue the school and set it on a growth trajectory. One move was to bring Mfantsipim under the administrative umbrella of the Methodist Church in February 1908. He also worked to help get Mfantsipim a permanent location.
After 25 years in West Africa and nearly 6 years in Ghana, Rev. Bartrop retired and returned to the UK on May 9th, 1909, to great fanfare. He was seen off by Mfantsipim students, members of the Methodist Church, chiefs, and a singing band.
Balmer had also been called by the Missionary Society to serve on an inspection mission to other West African countries.
However, back in the UK, Bartrop thought longingly of the people of the Gold Coast, the work he still had to do at Mfantsipim, and the task of solidifying other mission schools and spreading the church into the Asante areas, as well as the northern territories. He also pushed the Methodist Mission to send Rev. Balmer back to Mfantsipim. The Mission finally agreed, and Balmer returned to Cape Coast on October 3, 1909. Bartrop returned a week later.
For a while, it looked like the school would have the support of the triumvirate of Bartrop, Balmer, and Mensah Sarbah forever. However, it was not to be because on May 23, 1910, Rev. Bartrop died after contracting yellow fever from visiting an ill priest of the Church in Sekondi.
Mensah Sarbah died 6 months later on November 27, 1910. A dejected Rev. Balmer had nervous and physical breakdowns shortly after Mensah Sarbah’s death and retired to the UK in December 1910.
Thus, Mfantsipim really owes Rev. Bartrop a great deal. Like Balmer said after Bartrop’s death, “…if Mfantsipim can claim a martyr, it should be Rev. Bartrop.”
In his memory, the hymn “For All the Saints” was sung on the 2nd Founders Day on November 9th, 1910, and also adopted as the School Hymn. However, there is nothing on the school’s campus named after this very important founder. Nothing that brings his name to mind immediately….a fact that needs to be rectified.
There is, however, an Old Boy who, in his own way, honored Rev. Bartrop. His name is Rev. Ebenezer Amos Sackey. Born in Winneba in 1865, he entered the Wesleyan High School under Rev. Cannell in 1883. He became the school organist. He graduated in 1885 and became a tutor. He headed the Winneba Elementary School till 1890, and a school in Saltpond till 1893, when he entered the ministry. Starting with his post in Chama in 1894, he became known as the Head of Mission who renovated Methodist mission buildings and schools. He built the mission house in Chama and renovated those in Axim, Winneba, Elmina, and finally the Wesley Chapel in Cape Coast in 1918.
Now it was not only Mfantsipim that treasured Bartrop’s leadership; the Methodist Church in the Gold Coast also flourished under his guidance, and this was a fact all the priests cherished and respected….including Rev. Sackey. He struck up a friendship with Rev. Bartrop, his boss, that lasted till the latter’s death in May 1910.
Per the family’s account, when Bartrop died in 1910, Sackey gave his son, who had been born the previous year and was called Alfred, the middle name “Bartrop”. He also named the Sackey family house in Winneba, the “Bartrop” House.
Alfred Bartrop Sackey would enter Mfantsipim in 1925 with classmates such as Busia, F.L. Bartels, and Armattoe. He went on to study at Wesley College and later received his first teaching appointment at Mfantsipim in 1932, teaching Latin and History.
Alfred had 4 boys who all attended Mfantsipim, and all carried the middle name “Bartrop”.
Mfantsipim may not have adequately honored Rev. A.T.R. Bartrop, but an Old Boy, Rev. E. A. Sackey, has honored him on his own in a way that has stood the test of time.
References:
– Bartels: History of Ghanaian Methodism, 1965
– Adu Boahen: Mfantsipim and the Making of Ghana, 1996
– The Gold Coast Nation, Nov 17, 1917
– Hutchinson: Pen-Pictures of Modern African Celebrities, 1929
– The Gold Coast Nation, Nov 10, 1917
– Accounts from the Bartrop-Sackey family