On 28 January 1927, Governor Sir Gordon Guggisberg formally opened a school on the northern edge of Accra that would educate some of the most powerful people in West Africa.
It was called the Prince of Wales College and School, Achimota. Ghanaians now know it as Achimota School, or simply “Motown”. It was the first co-educational school in the Gold Coast, and its alumni include heads of state from several countries.
The three founders
Achimota was the creation of three men. Guggisberg, the governor, wanted a first-class institution that would train Africans for leadership. Rev. Alec Garden Fraser, a Scottish missionary educator, became its first principal. Dr James Emman Kwegyir Aggrey, a Ghanaian scholar who had studied and taught in the United States, became its first vice-principal and one of its most influential figures.
Between 1924, when the school was founded, and its formal opening in 1927, the three worked to realise Guggisberg’s plan for a school that combined academic excellence with pride in African culture.
Aggrey and the piano keys
Aggrey is remembered for a famous image. He compared racial cooperation to the keys of a piano: you can play a tune on the white keys alone, or the black keys alone, but for true harmony you need both. The black and white keys became part of Achimota’s emblem, and the idea became part of the school’s identity.
Aggrey died suddenly in New York in July 1927, just months after the school opened, but his influence on Achimota lasted long after him.
Co-education
Achimota admitted both boys and girls, a bold choice in colonial West Africa. It also aimed to teach African languages, arts and music alongside the British-style academic curriculum, so that students would be proud of their heritage as they gained a modern education.
The alumni
Achimota’s former students include Ghanaian presidents Edward Akufo-Addo, Jerry John Rawlings and John Evans Atta Mills, as well as a long list of Ghanaian ministers, judges, academics, writers and business leaders. Kwame Nkrumah trained there as a teacher in the 1920s. Leaders from other African countries also studied there, including Sir Dawda Jawara, the first president of the Gambia.
University roots
Achimota’s campus also played a part in Ghanaian higher education. The University College of the Gold Coast began in 1948 in Achimota’s western compound before moving to Legon.
Motown today
Achimota remains one of Ghana’s most prestigious senior high schools. Its large campus, including the neighbouring Achimota Forest, sits in the middle of a city that has grown up around it. Old Achimotans are known for their loyalty to the school and their networks across public life.
The piano keys still sit on the school crest. Almost a century after Aggrey used them to make his point, they remain the first thing every student learns about the school’s founding.
