Wesley Girls' Senior High School

Founding Years

On 15 September 1836, Harriet Wrigley arrived in Cape Coast accompanying her husband Reverend George Wrigley (the second Methodist missionary to be posted to the Gold Coast).^[3] Upon her arrival, she founded the school 25 girls. She offered classes to the girls in catechism, reading, writing, sewing and general housekeeping at the Manse in Standfast Hall near Victoria Park in Cape Coast.

^[4]5 months after her arrival, on 8 February 1837, she died of malaria^[5] and it was not till later on that year in 1837 that the school found another head; Elizabeth Waldron. She remained at the helm for a total of 43 years and laid the foundation for what would become The Wesleyan Girls' School and Training Home.^[6]

By 1884, the school had garnered a reputation for its academic achievements. This incentivised the Methodist Church to make arrangements for the creation of a secondary division of Wesley Girls'. As a result, the then headmaster of Mfantsipim School, Reverend W.M Canell established the secondary section with 20 girls. Both the primary and secondary divisions experienced periods of closure due to financial difficulties. For a time, the secondary part was combined with Mfantsipim to become the Collegiate School before regaining independence in 1900.^[7]

Development in the Early 20th Century (1900s – 1920s)

Shortly after regaining its identity, the school was led by H. J. Ellis until 1913. During the transition period following her departure, it was administered by a group of deaconesses before Evelyn Bellamy assumed headship in 1914 until 1943. During her tenure, on 8 June 1925 Kwegyir Aggrey visited the school grounds at the Manse and penned in the logbook the now famous words, " to educate a boy is to educate and individual to educate a girl is to educate a family".^[7]

Mid-Century Expansion

In 1951, the headmistress at the time Olive Compton permanently separated the secondary section and moved to its present location at Kakumdo.The design of the new school grounds was conceptualised by Compton herself and was inspired by the appearance of the HMS Excellence, a ship. ^[8].

The last missionary headmistress, Clarice Garnett, took over the leadership of the school up from 1960 until 1981.^[7] She oversaw the establishment of a Science Sixth Form in the school. Although an Arts Sixth Form was established under Olive Compton, the addition of the Science Sixth Form meant that students could complete Advanced Levels in the school eliminating the need for students to transfer to other schools.^[9]

Wesley Girls' High School was ranked 68th out of the top 100 best high schools in Africa by Africa Almanac in 2003, based upon quality of education, student engagement, strength and activities of alumnae, school profile, internet and news visibility.^[10]

Location and Architectural Origins

The school is situated in the suburb of Kakumdo in Cape Coast, roughly 5 kilometres inland from the Atlantic coastline among several other academic institutions, including the nearby University of Cape Coast.^[12]

The earliest buildings on the Kakumdo campus, including the chapel, Wallisberg ( Waldron, Ellis Bellamy and Wrigley) Houses and the original classroom blocks were designed by the British architect duo Maxwell Fry and Jane Drew in Tropical Modernism,^[13] an architectural movement that adapted European modernist building styles to fit the hot and humid climate of the then Gold Coast. Other prominent schools with buildings designed by them include Wesley Girls' sister school, Mfantsipim,^[14] and Aburi Girls' Senior High School.^[13]

Layout

The Kakumdo campus was planned around an open-ended rectangular courtyard inspired by both the British collegiate quadrangle and traditional West African compounds. On the left side of the arrangement, the Wrigley House dormitory block connected directly into single-story classrooms and teacher accommodation. At the end of this line of interconnected houses on the left stood the three-storey structure housing Bellamy House, where the top two storeys served as student dormitories while the ground floor underneath contained the original administrative offices (the Old Admin Block).^[15]

These dormitory blocks joined directly to the combined chapel, belfry and water tower which served as the architectural and communal focal point of the campus. Positioned at the highest and central section of the campus, the structure was in line with Fry and Drew’s design principle of creating focal elements within educational complexes. The chapel also featured a Greek Cross tracery pattern on its ventilating wall, made from concrete mullions and transoms, which allowed airflow while incorporating Christian symbolism into the design.^[15]

The layout of the school features walkways connecting the first four houses, and prominent public structures like the assembly hall, chapel, and old administrative block (located beneath Bellamy House). The school features long colonial-era classroom blocks with wide verandas, pitched roofs typical of mid-20th-century Ghanaian institutional architecture.^[16]

To enable cooling, the buildings were built with high-level wall vents made of wooden slats, brise-soleils to effect cooling in the girls' accommodations, and natural ventilation throughout. ^[16]The buildings themselves incorporated reinforced concrete, local stone, and Tyrollean cement finishes ^[14]and high-traffic areas like corridors featured terrazzo or polished concrete. Some of these features were later incorporated into the later Comabrew ( Compton, Abban and Wardbrew) Houses built in the late 1950s to 1960s.

The newest housing option; that is, the Valley Houses, Thompson-Djokoto , Garnett Acheapong, and Oppong Ankomah-Siameh—take their own turn, being primarily built throughout the 21st century and reflect more contemporary building styles in Ghana.

Facilities

^[18]

• Physics, Biology and Chemistry Labs
• Book Store
• Basketball Court
• Football Field
• Old Assembly Hall
• New Assembly Hall
• Dining Hall
• English Lab^[18]