PROFILE of PROFESSOR IVOR WILKS Professor Emeritus Ivor G

PROFILE OF PROFESSOR IVOR WILKS Professor Emeritus Ivor G. Wilks was born on July 19th, 1928 and joined the ancestors on 7th October 2014. He was a noted British Africanist and historian. He attended the University of Bangor, and also took a degree in Philosophy at Oxford University graduating in 1951. In the 1940s Professor Emeritus Wilks was a Lieutenant in the British Army in Palestine and also an ardent supporter of Welsh independence. He thus participated in Welsh Nationalist politics and the Welsh Republican Movement. Professor Emeritus Wilks was an authority on the Ashanti Empire in Ghana and has also written on Chartism in Wales, the working-class movement in the Nineteenth century. In 1953 Professor Emeritus Wilks left Oxford for the University College of the Gold Coast (now the University of Ghana) where he devoted his long career to what he described as the decolonization of West African history. He had a distinguished career as a historian of Africa, which ended as Professor Emeritus of History at Northwestern University in Illinois, USA. Professor Emeritus Wilks started his career at University College of the Gold Coast, Achimota in the Philosophy Department. He was assigned by the Institute of Extra-Mural Studies as Resident Tutor for the Northern Territories, 1955-58, and Resident Tutor for Ashanti and Brong Ahafo, 1958-61, where he developed his interest in African History. When the decision was taken to establish an Institute of African Studies, he together with Professors Shinnie and Nketia were commissioned as a small Committee in the early 1960s to co-ordinate African Studies with Departments that wanted their students to study African materials.1 He subsequently took up an appointment as a Senior Research Fellow and later as a Research Professor of the African Historical Studies section at the Institute of African Studies, from 1961 to 1966. He was thus not only instrumental in setting up the Institute of African Studies, but also in the running of the Institute from its inception. In September 1961, he was put in administrative charge of the Institute following the temporary absence of Professor Nketia who was then the Acting Director (in the absence of Prof. Shinnie).2 Following the commencement of the Graduate course in African Studies in 1962, Professor Wilks was among the Fellows who taught the eleven pioneer students. His research interests 1 Agbodeka, Francis, 1998, A History of University of Ghana; pg.168. 2 Ref: F.569, Letter from R.W.H. Wright, Acting Principal to I.G. Wilks. Esq.; Sept.25, 1961. 1 included the history of Akwamu and Ashanti, and of Islamic and Mandean influences in Ghana, which led him to publish “The Northern Factor in Ashanti History: Begho and the Mande” in 1961: and “The Tradition of Islamic Learning in Ghana” in 1964. Professor Wilks is a recipient of numerous awards including: African Studies Association Distinguished Africanist Award in 1998; Herskovits Professor of African Studies; and Professor Emeritus. He is the author of over 178 published works mostly about Ghana, including: The Northern Factor in Ashanti History. Legon: Institute of African Studies (1961); Asante in the Nineteenth Century: The Structure and Evolution of a Political Order. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1975); South Wales and the Rising of 1839: Class Struggle as Armed Struggle. Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press (1984); Chronicles from Gonja: A West African Tradition of Muslim Historiography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1986 with N. Levtzion & B. Haight); Wa and the Wala: Islam and Polity in Northwestern Ghana. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (1989); Forests of Gold: Essays on the Akan and the Kingdom of Asante. Athens, OH: Ohio University Press (1993); Akwamu 1640-1750: a Study of the Rise and Fall of a West African Empire. Department of History, Trondheim: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (2001). Professor Wilks is survived by his wife, Nancy Lawler, and four children from his previous marriage to Grace Amanor-Wilks: Professor Kojo Amanor, Institute of African Studies, UG; Ms Dede Amanor Wilks (PhD candidate, Institute of African Studies, UG); David Amanor (BBC, UK); and Suzanne Peggy Amanor-Wilks (neurodevelopmental movement specialist, USA). 2 .

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