An Oak Tree has fallen: Professor Ivor Wilks

Professor Emeritus, Ivor G Wilks passed away on Wednesday 7th October after a long illness. He was aged 86.

He was instrumental in setting up the institute of African Studies at Legon around the time of independence, and chronicled the rise of the Asante Kingdom in the 19th century through original and far-reaching research.

His most famous work “Asante in the 19th Century” remains a standard text book for many students of African history around the world.

He’s the author of over 178 published works mostly about Ghana. Some other titles are Forests of Gold, Wa and the Wala, and Akwamu – A Study of the Rise and Fall of a West African Empire.

Why is Ivor Wilks an important figure to remember? Because he was among a group of radical ‘whites’ in the 1950s who changed the way the world perceived Ghanaians and Africans.

His seminal text Asante in the 19th Century showed a West African civilisation on par with Europeans in law and order and civil development. “Decolonising history” is how he once described his motive. This fuelled confidence in the early independence years that Africans could indeed ‘do it for themselves’. All we have to do is look back a short step in history.

Ivor Wilks was also among a unique group of European academics who chose to remain in their field, post independence and to marry into African society. He gave up a promising career at Oxford University to remain in Ghana after independence. He was later recruited to North-Western University in Chicago, USA and was given the honorary title of Professor Emeritus on his retirement 20 years ago.

Family members have said that even as he was dying in the UK he was talking about meeting with Asantehene, such was the importance he attached to the Asante stool and a remarkable chapter in African history.