Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford (September 28, 1866- August 11, 1930), writer, journalist, politician, and lawyer, helped to lay the foundations of a united Gold Coast, and founded the National Congress of British West Africa. The outstanding West African statesman of his day, he was the only political leader in British West Africa who was accepted by the politicians of all the four colonies- the Gambia, the Gold Coast, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. He also worked for more education and for a better social status for Africans during the colonial era.
He was born in Cape Coast to the Rev. and Mrs. Joseph de Graft Hayford, whose family name Kwamina Afua, had been anglicised by missionaries to Casely Hayford. Young Casely Hayford was called Ekra Agyiman.
He was educated at the Wesleyan Boys High School at Cape Coast, and at Fourah Bay College, Sierra Leone. On his return home from Sierra Leone, he became principal of the Wesleyan High School in Accra, and later of the Wesleyan High School at Cape Coast. It was this latter school which, in 1904, merged with the newly-founded Mfantsipim School which was to become a famous institution.
As a young man, Casely Hayford was interested in writing, and took to journalism. He began his career assisting his uncle, James Hutton Brew, also known as “Prince Brew of Dunkwa”, in producing the ‘Western Echo’, a Cape Coast fortnightly which appeared between November 1885 and December 1887. His first independent effort in journalism was, however, the ‘Gold Coast Echo’, which he owned and ran from January 1888 until probably sometime in 1889.
From September 1890 to January 1896, he was associated with the ‘Gold Coast Chronicle’, of which he was a co-owner, together with three other men, J. H. Cheetham, Timothy Laing, and Isaac Vanderpuye. Between 1886 and about 1898, he also collaborated with S. R. B. Attoh-Ahuma in the publication of the ‘Wesleyan Methodist Times’.
He later became interested in law, and was articled to Mr. Eiolart at Cape Coast, from whose chambers he entered the Inner Temple in London as a law student, while also studying economics and law as a non-collegiate student in Cambridge. He was called to the Bar in 1896, and then returned to the Gold Coast, settling first at Cape Coast, and later living at Axim and Sekondi, and in Accra.
While in England he had married a Gold Coast girl, Beatrice Madeline Pinnock, and his wife, who died on the Gold Coast in 1902, was the inspiration for his political novel, ‘Ethiopia Unbound’ (1911). He dedicated his first work, ‘Gold Coast Native Institutions’ (1903), to her memory. Shortly after his return home, he prepared the brief for the protest of the Aborigines’ Rights Protection Society (A. R. P. S) against the Lands Bill of 1897, which if enacted would have jeopardised the African land tenure system.
In 1916 he became a government-nominated member of the Gold Coast Legislative Council, a body on which he continued to serve until 1925, later holding the seat for Sekondi-Takoradi from 1927-1930.
In 1917 he began working to establish the National Congress of British West Africa, to advance the economic, political, and social aspirations of Africans not only of the Gold coast, but also of the Gambia, Nigeria, and Sierra Leone. This body met for the first time in March 1920.
A vice-president of the congress, he headed its delegation, appointed in October 1920, which visited London to present a memorandum, asking for self-government and other constitutional reforms and policy changes, to Lord Milner, Secretary of State for the Colonies from 1918-1921.
Milner was advised not to receive the delegation, because of the opposition of Sir Gordon Guggisberg, governor of the Gold Coast from 1919-1927, and other British West African governors, as well as Nana Sir Ofori Atta I, paramount chief of Akyem Abuakwa, and accepted the advice. But the delegation was received by the League of Nations Union, and put its case before it. Although the delegation failed in its immediate purpose, interest was aroused in concerned circles in Britain, and four years later certain constitutional reforms were granted.
Casely Hayford closely identified himself with every movement which made for the progress of his country. He was greatly inspired by Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948), the leader of the Indian nationalist movement, and his doctrine of non-violence, whose National Congress of India provided the model for the National Congress of British West Africa.
He was also an admirer of Dr. Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832-1912), the talented West Indian from St. Thomas who had a remarkable career as a teacher, scholar, and diplomat in Liberia and Sierra Leone. He also supported Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), the charismatic Jamaican who organised Black Nationalism in the United States, and initiated the concept of the Black Star shipping line, as well as the “Back to Africa” movement. He was an active member of the A. R. P. S., and maintained correspondence with its leading supporters in England, among whom were members of both Houses of Parliament.
With their help, and with the cooperation of Ofori Atta I, he persuaded the British government to permit the Asantehene, Prempeh I, to return from exile in the Seychelles Island in the Indian Ocean to Kumase in 1924. He also corresponded with Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, to whom he presented a copy of his book, ‘Gold Coast Native Institutions’, and was involved in the Pan-African movement.
As a nationalist and leader of the intelligentsia, Casely Hayford was at first bitterly opposed by Ofori Atta I, who wanted to preserve the privileges and powers of the chiefs. But, in 1929, the two parties were reconciled, largely through the efforts of Kobina Arku Korsah, later Sir Arku Korsah, after which Casely Hayford cooperated with the chiefs on the Legislative Council to press for reform and social justice.
Earlier, he had opposed the 1925 (Guggisberg) Constitution, but later cooperated with Governor Guggisberg, serving on the Takoradi Harbour committee of the Legislative Council, which was concerned with building a deep-water harbour for the Gold Coast.
Casely Hayford had for long been a pioneer in the Africanisation of education. In his novel ‘Ethiopia Unbound’, he pressed for a university for West Africa, which was referred to as the Mfantsipim National University, and which incorporated those features which he felt would characterise national university for the Gold Coast and Asante. The concept was taken up by the A. R. P. S., which organised an appeal for a national education fund to be used to found a secondary school in which the teaching would be conducted in the Fante language.
His idea for a West African university was also accepted by the National Congress of British West Africa, but was rejected by the British government. Yet the founding of Achimota College in 1927, of which he eventually approved, was to lead, after his death, to the establishment in 1948 of a University College of the Gold Coast (since 1961 the University of Ghana) in special relationship with London University, as he envisaged.
His interest in the African heritage led him to found an institution called the Gold Coast National Research in Sekondi, with branches in Cape Coast and Accra. One of the organisation’s aims was to eliminate the white man’s standpoint from the black man’s outlook.
In the midst of a busy political life and an active law practice, he also took over the management of the ‘Gold Coast Leader’, which was published from 1902 to 1933-1934, and which was traditionally identified with his name, although the ownership of the paper has been much disputed, and it has been alleged that he was a late-comer.
This journal appeared every two weeks, and championed the cause of African political advancement. From the time of his association with ‘The Leader’, he ran it until his death. In addition to his journalistic work, he was also the author of a number of books and pamphelets.
Casely Hayford was a man of great moral courage, and had a high sense of duty. He was the greatest nationalist personality of the pre-1914 era, both in the Gold Coast, and what was then British West Africa.
ARCHIE CASELY HAYFORD
