Biography of J E Casley Hayford

Joseph Ephraim Casley Hayford one of the earliest nationalist was born 29 September 1866 in the Cape Coast into a spatacular African family. After completing his schooling at the Wesleyan Boys High School the first senior high school in Ghana he furthered onto Fourah Bay College in Freetown, Sierra Leone, which was the first university of its kind to be established in West Africa. While at Fourah Bay College, he became a follower of Edward Wilmot Blydon, editor of The Negro, the first explicitly pan African journal in West Africa.

Hayford returned to Cape Coast to become a high school teacher at Wesleyan Senior High School. He was promoted to principal, but this role didn’t last long, he was dismissed on account of his political engagement and writing.

He started writing for The Western Echo, a weekly newspaper owned by his uncle at the time. After three years writing, he was promoted to editor in chief where he changed the name to the Gold Coast Chronicle.

In 1893 Casley Hayford left for England to study in Peterhouse Cambridge and The Inner Temple. He was called to the Bar in 1896. Hayford returned once again to Cape Coast where he practiced in private law firms while also editing and writing in the Gold Coast Chronicle.

He strongly opposed British property laws implemented by the colonial government in the Gold Coast. The laws disregarded with traditional customs and he believed they negatively impacted African social welfare and culture was therefore strongly favoured maintaining existing land conventions. In 1898 he had written a book on the topic called, The Truth About The West African Land Question.

In 1910 he was elected president of the Aborigines Rights Protection Society (ARPS) the first nationalist movement founded in the Gold Coast in 1911 he then travelled to London to protest land management act issued by the British administration

That same year Casley Hayford published, Ethiopia Unbound, autobiographical, it was his first novel and the first novel to be written in English by an Africa. The novel explored subjects that highlighted on pan-African unity. It was the first novel written in English by an African person.

In 1916 he was elected to the legislative council of the Gold Coast and received an MBE in 1919 Birthday Honours for services in aid of the Prince of Wales’ Patriotic Fund. That year, immediately following the war, he founded the National Congress of British West Africa (NCBWA), the first inter territorial national movement in Africa .The congress aimed to promote economic development, education, and democratic institutions, while remaining under British rule.

J.E Casley died in 1930, leaving behind a son and daughter. After his death the National Congress for British West Africa (NCBWA) collapsed. In addition to his writing and books, he was in partnership with many prominent pan African thinkers of his time , including W.E Dubois, Booker T Washington, Duse Muhammed Ali and was an inspiration for Ghana’s independence journey.