Frederick Nanka-Bruce
Frederick Victor Nanka-Bruce | |
|---|---|
| Born | Frederick Victor Nanka-Bruce 9 October 1878 Medical Doctor Politician |
| Nationality | British Subject, |
| Education | University of Edinburgh |
| Spouse | Elizabeth Aku Bruce |
Frederick Victor Nanka-Bruce (9 October 1878[1] – 13 July 1953) was a physician, journalist and politician in the Gold Coast. He was the third African to practise orthodox medicine in the colony, after Benjamin Quartey-Papafio and Ernest James Hayford.[2]
Early life and family
Frederick Victor Bruce was the scion of two prominent
James Town or British Accra, while the Reindorfs were from Danish Accra or Osu. His father was a descendant of a prominent Ga trader named Robert William Wallace Bruce, while his mother was a relative of the Basel Mission catechist, later pastor and historian, Carl Christian Reindorf
. Bruce appended "Nanka" in honour of his ancestor, Robert William Wallace Bruce, who was also known as Nii Nanka.
Nanka-Bruce was educated at the Government School in Accra and at the Wesleyan Boys' High School in
London Hospital
before returning to Accra in 1907.
Political career
Nanka-Bruce built up a private medical practice in Accra, and was a government adviser on
O.B.E. in 1935.[5] In 1933 he was a co-founder and the first President of the Gold Coast Medical Practitioners Union, and in 1951 a co-founder and first President of the Ghana branch of the British Medical Association; after Nanka-Bruce's death the two organisations would merge to form the Ghana Medical Association.[6] From 1952 to 1953, he served as chairman of the Board of Governors of the Accra Academy
.
His sister Florence, and after her early death another sister Emma, married
His descendants still live in Accra and include the Ghanaian disc jockey William Nanka-Bruce and CEO of Ga Mantse Foundation NeeLante Bruce.References
- ^ Magnus Sampson, Makers of Modern Ghana, Vol. One, Accra: Anowuo Publications, 1969, p. 179.
- ^ Jeffrey P. Green, Black Edwardians: Black people in Britain, 1901-1914, Taylor & Francis, 1998, p. 147. Nanka-Bruce's BMJ obituarist reported him as the second African to practise medicine in the Gold Coast.
- ^ a b Michael R. 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, Brill, 2005, p. 148.
- ^ British Medical Journal, 1 August 1953, p. 289.
- ^ The Times, 3 June 1935.
- ^ "Ghana Medical Association: About Us". Archived from the original on 29 May 2009. Retrieved 14 February 2010.
- ^ Doortmont, p. 261.
- ^ Doortmont gives the date as 3 July 1951.