John Mensah Sarbah was one of the pioneers of Ghanaian politics and a distinguished African politician in the Gold Coast in the late 1800s and early 1900s.
He was Born into a wealthy family, and studied law in England.
At the age of 23, he returned to the Gold Coast to set up a legal practice.
He became known for defending the rights of Africans against British colonial authorities. He founded two newspapers, The Gold Coast People and Gold Coast Weekly, and became an authority on the traditions of the Fante people.
In 1892 Sarbah led the fight against a bill that proposed to transfer administration of public lands from African chiefs to British officials.
In 1901 he was appointed to the Legislative Council.
There he fought the Native Jurisdiction Bill, which gave Fante chiefs exclusive powers to administer local laws.
To Sarbah this went against the democratic traditions of the Fante. In addition to his political achievements, Sarbah wrote two books about the Fante and played an important role in establishing public schools in the colony.
The great Ghanaian nationalist John Mensah Sarbah, born on June 3 1864, died November 6 1910.
In 1963, the Great Hall at University of Ghana Legon is named after him in his memory for his educational works including the founding of the Fanti Public Schools Limited which eventually became the present Mfantsipim School in Cape Coast – designing the school’s crest and motto “Dwen hwe kwan – think ahead of time”
He was responsible for various initiatives, including the founding of a Dutton scholarship at Taunton School in memory of his younger brother, Joseph Dutton Sarbah, who had died there in 1892.
In 1903, Sarbah and William Edward Sam promoted an enterprise called the Fanti Public Schools Limited and Sarbah also helped establish the Fanti National Education Fund, which aimed to improve educational facilities in the country and awarded scholarships.
In 1904 he married Marion Wood from Accra and they had three children.
Source:.
S. Tenkorang, “John Mensah Sarbah, 1864–1910”, in Transactions of the HYistorical Society of Ghana, Vol. XIV, No. 1, Legon, June 1973 (pp. 65–78), pp. 65, 76. Some other sources (including Magnus Sampson, 1969) give 6 November 1910 as the date of Mensah Sarbah’s death.
