QUIST, EMMANUEL CHARLES

Emmanuel Charles Quist (May 21, 1880 – February 28, 1959) was president of the Gold Coast Legislative Council from 1949-50, and Speaker of the Ghana National Assembly from 1951-57. He was the first African president of a legislature in British colonial Africa and Speaker of the first all-African legislature in a British territory south of the Sahara.

He was born at Christiansborg in 1880. His father was the Rev. Carl Quist, who was himself the son of one of three Dutch Quist brothers, who landed in the Gold Coast in 1840, and who subsequently founded the Quist families of Cape Coast, Christiansborg, and Keta. His mother’s maiden name was Paulina Ritchter, and she was a great-granddaughter of a king of Anomabu.

Quist had his early education at the Basel Mission primary school and grammar school at Christiansborg. From there he entered the Basel Mission Theological Seminary at Akuropon in Akuapem, northeast of Accra, where he trained as a teacher and catechist.

He worked for some time as a teacher, but resigned and went into commerce as the produce-buying factor at the Basel Mission factory. He left the Gold Coast in 1910 for England, where he entered the Middle Temple to read law. He was called to the Bar in 1913, in the same group as Sir Stafford Cripps (1889-1952), who was later to become the British Chancellor of the Exchequer from 1947-50.

Returning to the Gold Coast, Quist went into private practice in Accra. Kind-hearted and conscientious in his work, he soon impressed government officials and ordinary citizens alike. He was appointed Crown counsel, the first Gold Coast African to hold this post, but resigned after a year and returned to private practice.

Political and other positions followed. He served on the Accra Town Council from 1919-29, and as legal advisor to the Eastern Provincial Council of Chiefs. He was a member of the Council of Achimota College, and became an extraordinary member of the Legislative Council in 1925, and again in 1934. He acted as a puisne judge in 1948.

In 1949 Governor Sir Charles Arden-Clarke (term of office 1949-57) relinquished his post as president of the Legislative Council, and appointed Quist in his place. Quist was therefore both the first unofficial member and the first African to occupy this position, previously reserved for governors. With fairness and dignity, he played this delicate role to the satisfaction of all.

In 1950 he visited England, and his status was acknowledged by his appearing in the Speaker’s Procession of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) in 1942, and was knighted in 1952. When the Gold Coast Legislative Assembly came into being in 1951, he was unanimously elected Speaker, and served in that position till he retired in 1957. He died on February 28, 1959.

NII AMON KOTEI