GUGGISBERG, FREDERICK GORDON

Frederick Gordon Guggisberg (July 20, 1869-April 21, 1930) was the most famous of the British governors of the Gold Coast (term of office, 1919-27). His energy and foresight resulted in the building of Takoradi Harbor, the first deep-water port on the coast, and in the country’s subsequent economic advance. His belief in the importance of providing higher education for Africans led, with the cooperation of the Rev. A. G. Fraser, and of Dr. J. E. K. Aggrey, to the foundation of Achimota College, 6 mi (10 km) north of Accra, out of which; decades after his death, the University of Ghana was to develop.

PHOTO CAPTION: Frederick Gordon Guggisberg. SOURCE: EA Library

He was born in Toronto, Canada, the son of Frederick Guggisberg, a merchant of Swiss-German origin, and of an American mother. His father died when he was young, and he came to England with his stepfather, Admiral Ramsey Dennis, a paymaster in the British Royal Navy. He was educated at Burney’s School, Portsmouth, and at the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, entering Woolwich in 1887, and qualifying as an army engineer and surveyor in 1889. In 1893 he was posted to Singapore with the Royal Engineers, returning to Woolwich in 1897 as an instructor, having in the meantime married Ethel Emily Hamilton Way in 1895.

The marriage was, however, a failure, his wife leaving him in 1902. In the same year, 1902, he was seconded from the Royal Engineers for special duties with the British Colonial Office, spending the next three years as assistant director of a pioneer survey of the Gold Coast and Asante. His task was to identify the boundaries of mining and timber concessions, which required him to travel on foot. In 1905 he married his second wife, Decima Moore, and in the same year he was appointed Director of Surveys in the Gold Coast. In 1908 he rejoined his regiment in England, having made maps of the Gold Coast which were more advanced than those of any other African country.

In 1910 he was appointed Director of Surveys, Southern Nigeria, on secondment from the British Army. He was responsible for Northern Nigeria as well, and held the post until 1914, when he was offered the post of Director of Public Works in the Gold Coast. He did not take up his duties, however, because of the outbreak of World War I (1914-18), upon which he rejoined his regiment. He served in France and Belgium, rising to the rank of brigadier, being five times mentioned in dispatches, and, in 1918, receiving the Distinguished Service Order. In 1919, through his wife’s influence, Lord Milner, Secretary of State for the Colonies (1918-21), appointed him governor of the Gold Coast, a position which brought him lasting fame.

Among the people of the Gold Coast, his name was held in unusual respect. He saw that the key to Gold Coast prosperity lay in improving communications, so that cocoa, minerals, and timber could reach their overseas markets expeditiously, and that the most urgent need was for a deep-water harbor to replace the old surf vorts, where cargoes were taken on board or landed with difficulty.

He was the first colonial governor to attempt bold economic planning, and his Ten Year Development Plan (1919-29) included the building of Takoradi Harbor, and an improved network of railways and roads, together with the extension of electricity and other public services. His greatest aim, however, was the provision of higher education for Africans, to whom it had been largely denied. He achieved this by founding Achimota College, out of which the University of Ghana was ultimately to develop. He also completed the plans for the first African hospital on the Gold Coast, at Korle Bu in Accra. (A statue of Guggisberg was erected at Korle Bu in 1973.)

He advanced the country constitutionally by accepting the principles of indirect rule and putting them into practice in the Gold Coast Constitution of 1925. This constitution (called the Guggisberg Constitution) was the first to give Africans elected representation in the Gold Coast Legislative Council, partly through provincial councils of chiefs, and partly through large municipalities. Here he was opposed by the intelligentsia, who felt they had a better right to represent to people than did the chiefs.

He believed firmly in the British Empire and in indirect rule through traditional chiefs. He did not aim at independence for the country or at easy mixing between the races. His relations with the National Congress of British West Africa, founded by J. E. Casely Hayford, and with the early nationalists were never easy. The secret of his success lay partly in the experience he gained in his early years as a surveyor, which gave him an intimate understanding of the chiefs and people and their way of life, but much more in his unprejudiced mind, which led him to believe in the potentialities of Africans and in their ability to profit from education.

His sincerity was quickly realised not only by the mass of the people to whom his governorship brought material and educational advance, but also by intellectuals and nationalists who were in many ways opposed to him, but who appreciated his quality. He had great gifts of leadership, being a man of impressive physical presence, with a liking for ceremony, order, and discipline.

Guggisberg suffered increasingly from ill-health, and on returning to England from the Gold Coast in 1927 was inactive for some time. Finally, he became governor of British Guiana from 1928-29 but served for only eight months before severe illness ended his career. He died in 1930, a relatively poor man, and was buried in the public cemetery of the English seaside town where he suffered his last illness. His wife, Lady Guggisberg, survived him: she died on February 18. 1964.

In 1934 a party from the Gold Coast, led by Nana Sir Ofori Atta I, made a pilgrimage to his grave at Bexhill-on-Sea, Sussex, was dismayed to see how humble it was, and raised a public subscription in the Gold Coast for a handsome inscribed tombstone. At independence, in 1957, the Aggrey-Fraser-Guggisberg Memorial Lectures were instituted by the Ghana government at the University of Ghana to honor the men whose vision made the university possible.

R. E. WRAITH