Lawrence Henry Yaw Ofosu-Appiah - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Lawrence Henry Yaw Ofosu-Appiah (18 March 1920 – 1 June 1990) was a Ghanaian academic, who taught classics at the University of Ghana

University of Ghana

The University of Ghana is the oldest and largest of the thirteen Ghanaian universities and tertiary institutions. It is one of the best universities in Africa and by far the most prestigious in West Africa...

, and was subsequently Director of the Encyclopaedia Africana.

Background

Ofosu-Appiah was born in a village called Kukua near Adawso in the Eastern Region

Eastern Region (Ghana)

The Eastern Region is one of Ghana's ten administrative regions. It covers an area of 19,323 square kilometres, which is about 8.1% of Ghana's total land area. The region is divided into administrative districts. The total number of districts were increased from 17 districts to 21...

of Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

. His parents were Seth Fianko — a teacher and a descendant of the royal family

Royal family

A royal family is the extended family of a king or queen regnant. The term imperial family appropriately describes the extended family of an emperor or empress, while the terms "ducal family", "grand ducal family" or "princely family" are more appropriate to describe the relatives of a reigning...

of Kubease, Larteh, Ghana — and Agnes Fianko (née Reynolds) — also a teacher and a descendant of the royal family of Akropong

Akropong

Akropong is a town in Ghana. It is the capital of Akwapim North District....

, Akwapim, Ghana.
His education started at Adawso Presbyterian Primary School. In January 1932, he joined Achimota Secondary School for his secondary education. In 1939, he began his career as a Latin and Twi teacher at Achimota School. In January 1942, he joined the Junior Staff Department. He was appointed to work as an Assistant Librarian. He went on to work as an Assistant Museum Curator.

In March 1944, the Achimota Council awarded him an Achimota scholarship to Oxford University, United Kingdom and he was accepted at Hertford College. He was the first black African to come to Oxford

Oxford

The city of Oxford is the county town of Oxfordshire, England. The city, made prominent by its medieval university, has a population of just under 165,000, with 153,900 living within the district boundary. It lies about 50 miles north-west of London. The rivers Cherwell and Thames run through...

to read Classics. He read Honour Moderations

Honour Moderations

Honour Moderations are a first set of examinations at Oxford University in England during the first part of the degree course for some courses ....

and followed it up with Literae Humaniores

Literae Humaniores

Literae Humaniores is the name given to an undergraduate course focused on Classics at Oxford and some other universities.The Latin name means literally "more humane letters", but is perhaps better rendered as "Advanced Studies", since humaniores has the sense of "more refined" or "more learned",...

(Greats).

He went to Jesus College, Cambridge

Jesus College, Cambridge

Jesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...

, United Kingdom, in October 1948 to complete a diploma in Anthropology

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...

. Shortly after that, he was appointed Assistant Lecturer in Classics

Classics

Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...

at the University College Gold Coast, now University of Ghana

University of Ghana

University College, Gold Coast - 1949 to 1964

Ofosu-Appiah was the first African to be appointed to the Classics Department of the University College, Gold Coast University of Ghana

University of Ghana

. He taught the first year Intermediate Arts class Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

. In April 1951, he took his Masters of Arts Degree and ceased to be a Junior Member of Oxford University from that date.

In 1954, he had the honour of composing in Latin

Latin

, the inscription which was to be unveiled at the official opening of Akuafo Hall in 1955. In July 1954, he married Victoria Boohemaa Addo from Akropong

Akropong

Akropong is a town in Ghana. It is the capital of Akwapim North District....

, Akwapim. They had three daughters, Asantewa, Oseiwa and Asabea.

In April 1959, he was promoted to a Senior Lectureship in Classics

Classics

. He was then appointed Senior Tutor in Akuafo Hall and presented his first students for graduation to the Duke of Edinburgh

Duke of Edinburgh

The Duke of Edinburgh is a British royal title, named after the city of Edinburgh, Scotland, which has been conferred upon members of the British royal family only four times times since its creation in 1726...

at the Great Hall

Great Hall

Great Hall may refer to* Great hall, the main room of a royal palace, nobleman's castle or large manor house* Great Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square, Beijing* Great Hall of the University of Sydney, Australia* Cooper_Union#The_Great_Hall, New York...

of the University. He was chosen to represent the University of Ghana

University of Ghana

at the inauguration of the University Institute in Mogadishu in January 1960.

Ofosu-Appiah was elected a Fellow of the Ghana Academy of Learning in 1961. He was subsequently elected to the Standing Committee of the Ghana Academy of Sciences for 1963-64. In October 1961, he was appointed as a government representative to the West African Examination Council

West African Examination Council

rightThe West African Examinations Council is a not-for-profit examination board formed out of the concern for education in Africa...

. In 1962, he was appointed to the Interim Council of the University of Cape Coast

University of Cape Coast

The University of Cape Coast, Ghana, is one of the rare sea-front universities in the world. The university was established in 1962 out of a dire need for highly qualified and skilled manpower in education and was affiliated to the University of Ghana...

to represent the Arts Faculty. He was also elected Chairman of the University Primary School, Legon Board in 1964.

Later in 1962, he was elected master of Akuafo Hall, University of Ghana

University of Ghana

, Legon. He was the first African master of the hall and the installation was done by Professor Adu Boahen, the Senior Tutor at the time.

United States of America – 1964–1966

He was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and the post of Visiting Professor of Classics at Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College

Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...

, Hanover

Hanover

Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

, New Hampshire

New Hampshire

New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. The state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west, Maine and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, and the Canadian...

, USA for the academic year 1964-65. He was the first black person to get onto the faculty. He taught Latin

Latin

and Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

and also helped the English Department by teaching English Literature

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

.

He was also offered the distinguished scholar’s chair for 1965-66: “The Edgar B. Stern University Professor”, at Dillard University

Dillard University

Dillard University is a private, historically black liberal arts college in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded in 1930 incorporating earlier institutions that went back to 1869, it is affiliated with the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church....

, New Orleans, Louisiana

Louisiana

Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...

. He accepted the post and was assigned to the Division of Humanities and taught Philosophy and Literature including Greek Literature in Translation.

Encyclopaedia Africana Secretariat

Ofosu-Appiah accepted the position of Director of the Encyclopaedia Africana Project in Accra

Accra

Accra is the capital and largest city of Ghana, with an urban population of 1,658,937 according to the 2000 census. Accra is also the capital of the Greater Accra Region and of the Accra Metropolitan District, with which it is coterminous...

in August 1966. This was a project inspired by W. E. B. Du Bois. He met with the then Director of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Sir William Hailley, who advised that the biographies would make sense only if they had a historical introduction and to have several volumes of country to country biographies.

The first volume of the “Encyclopaedia Africana Dictionary of Biographies, “Ethiopia-Ghana” was published in June 1977. This was followed by the second volume, “Sierra Leone-Zaire” in December 1979.

Public Service for the Republic of Ghana

He was appointed the Chairman of the Ghana Library Board in March 1967. In 1969, he opened the Bolgatanga

Bolgatanga

Bolgatanga, colloquially known as Bolga, is the capital of both the Bolgatanga Municipal District and the Upper East Region of Ghana, and has a population of about 72,000...

Library. In 1970, when asked by the government of the Second Republic to continue as the Chairman, he created a new Ghana Library Board Act; which was implemented in June 1970.

He was appointed a member of the National Advisory Committee of the National Liberation Council

National Liberation Council

The National Liberation Council was the name of the Ghanaian government after the elected government of the Convention Peoples' Party led by Dr. Kwame Nkrumah was overthrown on February 24, 1966. This government was in place till they handed over to a democratically elected government on October...

from 1967 to 1968. He was also appointed a member of the Committee on Imprisoned Political Offenders. These two roles he did voluntarily. In September 1967, he was appointed a member of the Board of Directors of the Ghana Airways Corporation until April 1969.

After the inauguration of the Second Republic took place in 1969, he was offered the Chairmanship of the Ghana State Housing Corporation. He was also elected to the National Executive of the Progress Party

Progress Party (Ghana)

The Progress Party was the ruling party in Ghana during the Second Republic . In the 29 August 1969 elections, the PP won 105 of the National Assembly's 140 seats....

in 1970 and subsequently appointed the Chairman of a Committee on the Winneba Training College and his terms of reference included suggestions for the improvement of higher education.

A committee was set up in 1967 to establish lectures in memory of J.B. Danquah and Ofosu-Appiah chaired it. The lectures began in February 1968 and he delivered the anniversary lectures in 1969, as well as the eighth series of lectures in 1975 on the subject: ‘Joseph Ephraim Casely Hayford: The Man of Vision and Faith.’ This lecture was published in 1976.

In October 1968, he won a seat on the board of the Ghanaian Council for Scientific and Industrial Research(CSIR). He then went on to be elected the Honorary Secretary of the Ghana Academy of Sciences(GAS).

Ofosu-Appiah as a writer

In 1962, he translated Homer’s Odyssey into Twi

Twi

Asante, or Ashanti, is one of three literary dialects of the Akan language of southern Ghana, and the prestige dialect of that language. It is spoken in and around Kumasi, the capital of the former Ashanti Empire and current subnational Asante Kingdom within Ghana.Along with the Akuapem dialect,...

and it was used as a set book by the Ministry of Education of Ghana. He wrote ‘People in Bondage’ which was published in the USA by Lerner Publishing Corporation; and ‘Slavery: A Brief Survey’ which was published in Ghana by Waterville.

In 1969, he completed ‘The Life and Times of J. B. Danquah’, ensuring that the part Danquah played in Gold Coast politics would not be forgotten. This was eventually published in August 1974. 1970 saw the start of yet another book: ‘The Life of Lt. General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka

Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka

Lieutenant General Emmanuel Kwasi Kotoka was a member of the ruling National Liberation Council which came to power in Ghana in a military coup d'état on February 24, 1966. This overthrew the government of Dr...

’. This book was published in 1972. At the suggestion of James Moxon, he wrote the book “The life of Dr. J.E.K. Aggrey”. This was published by Waterville just in time for the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the birth of Aggrey in 1975.

In 1975, he tried unsuccessfully to get a Twi Language and Literature Research Unit established. He however succeeded in getting the Ghana Languages Development Committee to pay for the publication of his Twi translation of Plato’s Apology. He also translated Sophocles Antigone for Waterville to publish. He was helped by Rev. E.K. Kwabbi, D.O. Kwapong and E.T. Koramoa to achieve this goal.

Again in 1975, he began writing an English-Twi dictionary with the help of Mr. E.O. Koranteng who was at the time on the staff of the University of Ghana

University of Ghana

Language Centre. This he attempted to get published in 1985 but could not find any publishers interested at the time. This work however, will be published in the near future. He also wrote an article for the “Conspectus of the World Encyclopaedia of Black Peoples of the World” which was published by Scholarly Press in September 1975.

Ofosu-Appiah died on June 1, 1990, at the Luton & Dunstable Hospital, Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire

Bedfordshire is a ceremonial county of historic origin in England that forms part of the East of England region.It borders Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Northamptonshire to the north, Buckinghamshire to the west and Hertfordshire to the south-east....

, United Kingdom. He was buried at the Vale Cemetery, Butterfield Green

Butterfield Green

Butterfield Green is an area on the edge of Luton, England. It is the location for the new Butterfield Business and Technology Park.The site will have up to one million square feet of office space in a low density development in a parkland setting....

, Luton

Luton

Luton is a large town and unitary authority of Bedfordshire, England, 30 miles north of London. Luton and its near neighbours, Dunstable and Houghton Regis, form the Luton/Dunstable Urban Area with a population of about 250,000....

, on 11 June 1990. He was survived by his wife and two daughters.

Tributes

As a close friend of his, Dr. Yaw Twumasi (formerly of Political Science Dept, University of Ghana) wrote on his passing in the Obituary Section of The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

on June 20, 1990:

‘Pioneering Austerity in Ghana’s Academia’

‘With the death of Professor L.H. Ofosu-Appiah at the biblical age of 70, there remains the memory of an articulate and a remarkable member of the tiny Ghanaian academic elite who were associated with the development of the University College of the Gold Coast, now the University of Ghana. Ofosu-Appiah was a serious minded academic. His former students, now in various positions of authority in Ghana and other parts of Africa, remember him as an inspiring teacher and a caring and an assiduous ‘moral tutor’ (for Oxbridge

Oxbridge

Oxbridge is a portmanteau of the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge in England, and the term is now used to refer to them collectively, often with implications of perceived superior social status...

terminology migrated with the gowns and the entire atmosphere) at Akuafo Hall.

He is also remembered as a fearless defender of the academic standards and independence of the University at a time when Dr. Kwame Nkrumah

Kwame Nkrumah

Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...

, then President of Ghana

President of Ghana

The President of Ghana is the elected head of state and head of government of Ghana. Officially styled President of the Republic of Ghana and Commander-in-Chief of the Ghanaian Armed Forces. The current President of Ghana is Prof. John Atta Mills, who took office in January...

, was taking the first steps aimed at bringing the University under some form of governmental control. Ofosu-Appiah brought high standards of efficiency, objectivity and strength of character to everything he did. He believed that it was only through such standards and qualities that lasting institutions could be built in a developing African country.

For this reason, he tended to take up principled positions on a variety of issues, local and national, glimpses of which are provided in his two main publications; ‘The Life and Times of J.B. Danquah and his biography of E.K. Kotoka.’ He also took up public causes and this endeared him to a number of Ghanaian professionals. A less welcome result was that his motives were apt to be misunderstood, so he encountered a few powerful enemies who created problems for him in his last years as Director of the Encyclopaedia Africana Project, problems which, however, he handled with dignity and admirable aplomb.”

Prof. S.O. Biobaku, (Chairman of the Encyclopaedia Africana Project in 1990) wrote:

‘Prof. Ofosu-Appiah came to the Project after distinguished service in academia, notably at the University of Ghana, Legon and his energy and devotion were manifested in the production of the first two volumes of the Encyclopaedia Africana Biographical Dictionaries.’

In the book ‘Margaret Laurence

Margaret Laurence

Jean Margaret Laurence, CC was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, one of the major figures in Canadian literature.- Early years :...

: The Making of a Writer’ by Donez Xiques(2005); Margaret Laurence, the famous Canadian literary giant wrote about him, underscoring the important role he played in her developing sense of the complex situation in the Gold Coast in the 1950s. He was the subject of her article ‘The Very Best Intentions,’ which appeared in Holiday (November 1964). She mentioned him again in ‘Heart of a Stranger’ (1976) and ‘Dance on the Earth’, where she noted the way in which their friendship helped to provide her with a more nuanced understanding of the situation in West Africa.’

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