Carl Henry Clerk

Carl Henry Clerk (4 January 1895 – 28 May 1982) was a Ghanaian agricultural educationist, administrator, journalist, editor and church minister. He was elected the fourth Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, assuming the role of chief ecclesial officer of the national church from 1950 to 1954. Between 1960 and 1963, he was also the Editor of the Christian Messenger, established by the Basel Mission in 1883, as the newspaper of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana. He was born in the home of his paternal grandfather, Alexander Worthy Clerk (1820–1906). His father was Nicholas Timothy Clerk (1862–1961), a Basel-trained theologian and missionary, who was the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1918 to 1932 and a founding father of the boys’ boarding high school, the Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School, established in 1938. His mother, Anna Alice Meyer (1873–1934) was of Ga-Danish descent. A.W. Clerk was a pioneer of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and a leader in education in colonial Ghana, establishing a boarding middle school, the Salem School in 1843. His paternal grandmother, Pauline Hesse (1831–1909), was from the Gold Coast, and was of Danish, German and Ga heritage. His grandaunt was Regina Hesse (1832─1898), a pioneer educator and school principal. His younger sisters were Jane E. Clerk (1904–1999), a pioneer woman education administrator, and Matilda J. Clerk (1916–1984), the second Ghanaian woman to become a physician and the first Ghanaian woman in any field to win an academic merit scholarship for university education abroad. His maternal uncle was Emmanuel Charles Quist (1880–1959), a barrister and judge who became the first African President of the Legislative Council from 1949 to 1951, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Gold Coast from 1951 to 1957, and Speaker of the National Assembly of Ghana from March 1957 to November 1957.

Education and training Clerk was educated at Basel mission primary schools in Worawora and Berekum, where his father was working as a Basel missionary at the time. Clerk then attended the Basel Mission Seminary at Akropong (now known as the Presbyterian College of Education, Akropong) from 1912 to 1916, and there he received training in pedagogy and theology. He studied for his bachelor's degree in agricultural science at Tuskegee University (then known as Tuskegee Institute) in Tuskegee, Alabama, on a scholarship from the Phelps Stokes Fund, before being awarded a year-long postgraduate fellowship to study education at the Teachers College, Columbia University in the City of New York in the 1920s. In his college yearbook, Clerk was nicknamed "The Prof" by his classmates, an allusion to his studiousness and erudite nature. After completing his graduate studies at Columbia, Clerk sailed to his homeland from the Port of New York, aboard the steamship, the TSS Tuscania anchor line, and via the port of Glasgow in Scotland, according to a 1926 passenger manifest. He arrived in Glasgow on 26 March 1926.

Career

Teaching and education management Clerk dedicated his entire life to public service. From 1935 to 1944, he was appointed the general manager of Presbyterian Schools in the Ga-Adangme District, covering modern-day Greater Accra and Eastern Regions. Within this period, he stayed at various stations: Kpong (1935–1936); Odumase-Krobo (1937); Somanya (1938–1939); and Osu (1940–1944). He later taught agricultural science at the O’Reilly Secondary School (1955–1959) and Accra Training College (1964–1969). He remarried on 6 June 1929 to a Ga woman from Ga-Mashie and La, Martha Ayorkor Quao (1911–1989), whose father Daniel Quao was a general commodities merchant based at Adawso. She was also the maternal aunt of the economist and diplomat, Amon Nikoi (1930–2002), the Governor of the Bank of Ghana from 1973 to 1977 and Finance minister from 1979 to 1981, whose mother, Betty Oboshie Quao, was Quao's older biological sister. In addition, Martha Quao's cousin was the Ghanaian barrister and judge Nii Amaa Ollennu (1906–1986), who was elected the Speaker of the Parliament of Ghana during the Second Republic as well as serving as the Chairman of the Presidential Commission and acting President of Ghana from 7 August 1970 to 31 August 1970.

Carl Clerk had six children with Martha Quao: Nicholas, George, Arnold, Anna (Mrs. Sai), Alexander Worthy (died in infancy) and Henry

Clerk was a poet and an accomplished organist. An artisan, Carl Clerk was also adept at many crafts, including carpentry, masonry, tailoring and painting. He was also engaged in backyard gardening and animal husbandry, especially poultry farming.

Death and legacy Clerk died of pneumonia on 28 May 1982 at his home in Osu, Accra. After his funeral service at the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu, his body was interred in the "Presbyterian clergy quarter (section)" of the Osu Cemetery (formerly known as Christiansborg Civil Cemetery) in Accra. The Presbyterian Girls' School at Osu named its assembly hall in his honour, in recognition of his sacrifice and fundraising efforts during his tenure as the general manager of Presbyterian Schools, as "the sole driving force in getting permanent buildings put up" for the institution.