30/11/2023
Robert Hutchison (1828-1863) was an Afro-European wealthy Gold Coast Fante Merchant, first mayor of Cape Coast, third African unofficial member of the Gold Coast Legislative Council and the founder of the first all-African Freemasonry in Gold Coast. Thus, his grandson and historian, Francis Hutchison referred to him in his 1930 book, The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities.[With Portraits.] as “The First Mason and Worshipful Master of the Gold Coast.” He was also credited for the idea of the formation of the Gold Coast Police Service.
Robert Kojo Hutchison was born at Anomabo on 28 June 1828 to an English Diplomat father, William Hutchison and a Euro-African (Fante) woman, Adelina Williams. Robert`s father, William Hutchison was the first white British Resident of Kumasi (this was in 1817). Hutchison was mentioned in company with Bowdich and Tedlie as British ambassadors to Ashantee. As a son of the upper class coastal Gold Coast family, young Kojo Hutchison was sent to England to commence his education. After completion of his education he returned to Gold Coast to reside at Cape Coast where he started his working life as an agent of the English firm F & A Swanzy (now Unilever).
Hutchison decided to stay at Cape Coast, because Anomabo had since the defeat of the Fantes on their land by the Asantes in 1806-7, seen all her great sons and daughters moved to Cape Coast to enjoy safety from Asante attacks. The high presence of the Anomabo intellectual and mercantile class in Cape Coast turned the area to a one of the great commercial and elite societies in Africa. Professor Lawrance H. Ofosu-Appiah further adumbrates that “this was the epoch of the African merchant princes, and Hutchison was reputed to be wealthiest of the African merchants.” In a letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Lord Molesworth, sent through Governor Henry Connor, dated 10 September 1855, Hutchison claimed that he was worth £60,000. Indeed, he was the jack of all trade on the coast.
In spite of his depression of the 1850s and 1860s, Hutchison`s business prospered. In fact, when the oil palm industry slumped and suppliers in the far away Kroboland decided not to sell because they had been heavily fined as a result of a rebellion, Hutchison`s firm undertook to pay the fine and to collect the debt in palm oil from the Krobo people. Hutchison, as the sole African agent of the F & A Swanzy, benefitted immensely.
Apart from his uncanny ability in commerce, Hutchison was also a gentleman of martial fervour, he held a commission as an officer of the Gold Coast Volunteers (Doortmont, 2005, page 256). He fought in the Fante and colonial British army against the Asantes. In 1863, Hutchison with support of his fellow and prosperous Anomabo brothers George Kuntu Blankson, John Sarbah snr., (father of John Mensah Sarbah), Samuel Collins Brew and other resourceful coasta Fantes, established the Gold Coast Volunteer Corps. With this force they were able to help defend the coastal region during the Asante invasion of 1863 (Ofosu-Appiah, page 255).
Following the establishement of the Accra Municipal Council by Governor Sir Benjamin Chilly Campbell Pine, under the provisions of the Municipal Corporations Ordinance of 1858, Hutchison prevailed on the acting governor, Major Henry Bird, to establish a municipal council in Cape Coast in 1859. He stood for the election, and was elected as the first mayor of Cape Coast. Hutchison served from1859 to 1860. During his tenure of his capitalist oriented administration, he introduced a house tax, varying from one shilling to three pounds, which led to discontent, because the Cape Coast people regarded it as a sort of poll tax. His office also established court which could impose fines of up to £50 in civil cases, and up to six months imprisonment in criminal cases. This mayor`s court also created serious discontent in Cape Coast with some of the natives calling on him to return back to Anomabo where he belonged. Indeed, the Ɔmanhen (King) of Cape Coast was the most vocal of Hutchison`s critics because he considered the activity of the mayoral court as ursurpation of his traditional function as an overlord of Oguaaman. Hutchison received support from Governor Bird who felt that Oguaa Ɔmanhen`s opposition was due to the fact that Hutchison`s court gave fair judgement and imposed reasonable fine in tandem with the British common law tradition, whilst the Ɔmanhen`s native customary law court engaged in bribery and imposed heavy fines to fill his treasury.
As a result of the discontent that flowed from the Municipal Corporation Ordinance, it was repealed in 1863 after the death of Hutchison. Despite the discontent, Governor Bird commended the Cape Coast Town Council for its performance, and granted the mayor and his councillors permission to to wear insignia of office- partly in order to stimulate competition at the next elections. The amended ordinance re-emerged in 1924, and was forced to be withdrawn by lawyers Kobina Sekyi and Augustus William Kojo Thompson of the Aborigines Right Protection Society (ARPS) and Ga Mambii Party respectively. The ordinance was re-amended as part of Guggisberg Constitution of 1927 and it was passed into law creating opportunity for Municipal Council elections into the Legislative Council.
In 1861, Hutchison well-known for his impeccable dressing and eloquence in the Queen`s tongue and his native Fante language was appointed to the Legislative Council as the third unofficial African member until his death in 1863. He participated actively in the council`s proceedings, was highly respected by the European members and used his position to help safeguard the interest of the Africans.
In civic affairs, Hutchison, as an Euro-African of Fante extraction, unapologetically encouraged the educated Gold Coasters to wear European clothes and to imitate the European way of life. However, when he was disallowed from joining the all-white English freemasonry, Hutchison joined forces with Charles Bartels brothers, Bannerman brothers (Edmund aka “Boss of Tarque” and Charles, the pioneer newspaper man) to introduce freemasonry to Gold Coast elite African society, establishing the Gold Coast Lodge No. 733 in April 1859. The fraternity was introduced in Gold Coast in 1737 following the appointment of Dr David Creighton as the Provincial Grand Master of the Cape Coast Castle by the Earl of Loudoun. The first Lodge in the Castle, followed by the Torridzonian Lodge No. 621 founded in 1810 in the Castle and Cape Coast Lodge No. 599 founded in 1833 were exclusively for whites. Hutchison`s Lodge in 1859 was the first for the Africans. The Gold Coast Lodge No. 773 is the mother lodge in West Africa. He was also a philanthropist who assisted in the building of the the beautiful Anglican Chapel at Cape Coast. There is a tablet in this church in commemoration of his good name.
In 1863, whilst in the Fante war camp at Assin Manso with his Gold Coast Volunteer Corps to stop the Ashantis from invading the coast, Hutchison contracted malaria/dysentery and was brought home (cape Coast) and died on 13 June 1863. His tomb is in the old cemetery in Royal Lane, Cape Coast. He was cited as one of the great Gold Coasters whose idea of the formation of Gold Coast Volunteer Corps paved the way for the British to introduce Police service. He is still remembered in the Lodges of Ghana, and in the coming months as the freemasons celebrate their 300 years anniversary, Robert Kojo Hutchison shall be celebrated by the legacy he left behind.
Source
Ephson, Isaac S. Gallery of Gold Coast Celebrities, 1632-1958. Vol. 1. Ilen Publications, 1971.
Hayford, Augustus Casely and Rathbone, Richard. ‘Politics, Families and Freemasonry in the Colonial Gold Coast’, in: J. F. Ade Ajayi and J. D. Y. Peel (eds.) People and Empires in African History: Essays in Memory of Michael Crowder. London: Longman, 1992.
Hutchison, Charles Francis. The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities.[With Portraits.]. African Library Press, 1930.
Kimble, David. A political history of Ghana: the rise of Gold Coast nationalism, 1850-1928. Clarendon Press, 1963.
Michel Doortmont. The Pen-Pictures of Modern Africans and African Celebrities by Charles Francis Hutchison: A Collective Biography of Elite Society in the Gold Coast Colony. Vol. 7. Brill Academic Pub, 2005.
Ofosu-Appiah, L. H. Dictionary of African Biography: Ethiopia, Ghana. Vol. 1. Reference Pubns, 1977.
Reynolds, Edward. Trade and Economic Change on the Gold Coast, 1807-1874. Longman, 1974.
