Mabel Dove, First Female MP in Ghana
Mabel Ellen Dove wife of Joseph Boakye Danquah, Journalist, political activist and creative writer was born in Accra to Eva Buckman and Francis Dove in Osu in the 1869.
Mabel at age six admitted into Annie Walsh Memorial School in Freetown, Sierra Leone and proceeded to St.Edmunds and Michael’s College where she mastered in Secretariaship
She was sent back to Freetown by his father and set up women’s cricket club participated in the local society .
Mabel return to Gold Coast at age 21.She was employed as typist for eight years.
Mabel used numerous of pseudonyms in her creative writing for newspapers and magazines from 1930s: “Akosua Dzatsui” in the Accra Evening News,”Marjorie Mensah” are some of her creative contents.
she was the second woman ever to edit a newspaper in Ghana. Her appointment ended after five months because of disagreement with CPP leader Kwame Nkrumah over editorial methods.
She remained faithful and loyal to Nkrumah and the party.
In September 1933 Dove married the to the Doyen of Ghana politics J. B. Danquah and they had a son, Vladimir. However, the marriage did not last when she was in England as secretary of the Gold Coast delegation” and the couple divorced in the mid-1940s.
Her involvement in politics started after Kwame Nkrumah founded his Convention People’s Party (CPP), in 1949 at Saltpond and she became a member of staff of the nationalist.
Joining the campaign to end the British rule and immediate self-government as proposed by Nkrumah for the Gold Coast.
In the general election of 1954, she was actively organised women for the CPP, and she was put up as a CPP candidate for Ga Rural constituency, which she won. Her election made her the first female member of the Legislative Assembly of the Gold Coast.