Gerald Creasy

Sir Gerald Hallen Creasy (1 November 1897 – 9 June 1983) was a British colonial administrator. He served as governor of the Gold Coast and of Malta.

The "Christiansborg cross-roads shooting incident" that led to the 1948 Accra Riots occurred while Creasy was governor in the Gold Coast.

Personal life Gerald Hallen Creasy was born on 1 November 1897 in Windsor, Berkshire in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the second youngest of 5. His father, Leonard Creasy, was 42 at the time of his birth, and his mother Ellen Maud Elvey, was 37. In 1925 he married Helen Duff Jacomb and the pair lived in Haywards Heath, Sussex with their 4 children, Anthony, John, Juliet, and Joanna. He died and was buried in Eastbourne, Sussex at the age of 85 on 9 June 1983. Lady Creasy would outlive him by 17 years, dying in 2000.

Two of his brothers were Admiral of the Fleet Sir George Elvey Creasy and Major Robert Leonard Creasy, who died in the Battle of Courtrai.

Gold Coast Creasy was appointed governor on 12 January 1948. He succeeded Sir Alan Burns. He is however most remembered in Ghana for the "Christiansborg cross-roads shooting incident" on 28 February 1948, about six weeks into his job. Three unarmed former World War II veterans were killed and 60 wounded that day while demonstrating about end of service benefits. The protests had followed the Association of West African Merchants (AWAM) boycotts in Accra. This played into the hands of the local political leadership, the United Gold Coast Convention (UGCC).

Led by the Big Six, they sent a cable on the same day to the Secretary of State in London: The Riot Act was read the next day, 1 March 1948 and the Big Six were arrested and detained. The Watson commission of enquiry chaired by Aiken Watson was set up to look into the riots.