Early life and family Jane Elizabeth Clerk was born in
Adawso in the
Eastern Region on 26 May 1904 to
Nicholas Timothy Clerk (1862 –1961) and
Anna Alice Meyer (1873 –1934). The seventh of nine children, Jane Clerk was a third generation member of the historically notable
Clerk family of Accra. Her father was a Basel missionary, the first Synod Clerk of the
Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1918 to 1932 and a founding father of the boys’ boarding secondary school, the
Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School, established in 1938. whose cousin was
Emmanuel Charles Quist (1880 – 1959), a barrister and judge who became the first African President of the
Legislative Council from 1949 to 1951, Speaker of the National Assembly from 1951 to 1957 and the first
Speaker of the National Assembly of Ghana from March 1957 to November 1957. Jane Clerk's paternal grandfather, Alexander Worthy Clerk (1820-1906), a
Jamaican Moravian missionary arrived in the
Danish Protectorate of Christiansborg (now the suburb of
Osu) in Accra, in 1843, as part of the original group of 24
West Indian missionaries who worked under the auspices of the
Basel Evangelical Missionary Society of Switzerland. A.W. Clerk was a pioneer of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and co-founded a middle boarding school for boys, the
Salem School in 1843. His paternal grandmother, Pauline Hesse (1831–1909) was from the Gold Coast, and was of
Danish,
Ga and
German ancestry. Her grandaunt was
Regina Hesse (1832 –1898), a pioneer educator and school principal.
Theodore Clerk (1909 – 1965), her younger brother was the first Ghanaian architect who planned and developed the port city of
Tema. Her younger sister,
Matilda J. Clerk (1916 – 1984) was the second Ghanaian female medical doctor as well as the first woman in Ghana and West Africa to earn a postgraduate diploma.
Education and training Jane Clerk had her early education at the Basel Mission primary school at
Larteh Akuapem where her father was stationed as the district minister for that presbytery. In 1946, Jane Clerk was among a select group of senior teachers who were awarded mid-career scholarships for further professional training abroad at the
University of London's
Institute of Education which today forms part of the
University College London, where she earned an Associate Certificate in Education on completion of the eighteen-month course.
Career Jane Clerk taught at various schools at Aburi and
Agogo during her early career. She was transferred to Kumasi and appointed the Headmistress of the Government Girls’ School. She was later elevated to the position of assistant education officer in 1947. In 1952, she became an education officer for the city of
Koforidua where her roles and responsibilities included general supervision and inspection of schools, a man's domain at the time. She retired from her teaching career in 1959. == Death ==