Pauline M. Clerk

Pauline Miranda Clerk (25 May 1935 – 25 October 2013[1]) was a Ghanaian civil servant, diplomat and a presidential advisor.[2][3][4]

Pauline Miranda Clerk
Personal details
Born(1935-05-25)25 May 1935
Accra, Gold Coast
Died25 October 2013(2013-10-25) (aged 78)
Accra, Ghana
RelationsAlexander Worthy Clerk (great-grandfather)
EducationAchimota School
Occupation
  • civil servant
  • Diplomat

Biography

Early life and family
Further information: Clerk family

Pauline Miranda Clerk was born on 25 May 1935 in Accra to Richard Alfred Clerk, a colonial civil servant who worked on the Gold Coast and in Nigeria. Her siblings were Robert, Richard and Caroline. She was a member of the historically important Clerk family of Ghana.[5] She was the great-granddaughter of Alexander Worthy Clerk, a Jamaican Moravian missionary who arrived in the Danish Protectorate of Christiansborg, now the suburb of Osu, in Accra in the Gold Coast 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 Basel, Switzerland.[5][6] A.W. Clerk was a pioneer of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and a leader in education in colonial Ghana, co-founding a boarding middle school in Osu, the Salem School in 1843.[7] Her paternal great-grandmother, Pauline Hesse (1831–1909) was from the Gold Coast, and had Danish, German and Ga-Dangme ancestry.[8] His great-grandaunt was Regina Hesse (1832 ─ 1898), a pioneer educator and school principal who worked with the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast.[8]

Notable among her relations was her granduncle, Nicholas Timothy Clerk (1862 -1961), a theologian and missionary who was elected the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1918 to 1932.[5] N. T. Clerk was a founding father of the all boys’ boarding high school, the Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School established in 1938.[9] Her uncle, Carl Henry Clerk (1895 -1982) was an editor, agricultural educator, school administrator, Presbyterian minister and journalist who was elected the fourth Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast from 1950 to 1954 as well as the Editor of the Christian Messenger, the news bulletin of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana from 1960 to 1963.[10] An uncle, Theodore S. Clerk (1909 -1965) was the first Ghanaian architect of the Gold Coast who planned and developed the port city of Tema[11][12] P. M. Clerk's aunts were Jane E. Clerk (1904–1999), a Gold Coast pioneering woman education administrator and Matilda J. Clerk (1916 -1984), the second Ghanaian woman to become a physician.[13] Her cousins were the academics Nicholas, George and Alexander Clerk.[14][15][16][17][18]

Education and career

Pauline Clerk was educated at the Osu Presbyterian Girls’ School and Achimota School, both in Accra. She joined the Gold Coast Civil Service in the 1950s and became a foreign service official – a career diplomat attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.[2][3][4] Between 1962 and 1965, she was Ghana's diplomatic representative in Dahomey (now the Republic of Benin).[2][3][4] Pauline Clerk was the diplomatic secretary for Information and Culture at the Ghanaian embassy in Paris.[19] A French and German speaker, she also served as the Ghanaian diplomatic representative in Togo and the former East Germany.[2][3][4] In the 1980s, she was appointed an advisor at the Office of the PNDC.[2][3][4] Upon the return to civilian rule in the early 1990s, she became a senior advisor at the Ghanaian presidency under the leadership of Jerry John Rawlings.[2][3][4]

Death and funeral

Pauline Clerk died in Accra on 25 October 2013 of natural causes.[1] Her funeral service was at the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu, after which her body was buried at the Osu Cemetery in Accra.[1]

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References
  1. Obituary: Pauline Miranda Clerk. Accra: Presbyterian Church of Ghana Funeral Bulletin. November 2013.
  2. Steinberg, S. (27 December 2016). The Statesman's Year-Book 1962: The One-Volume ENCYCLOPAEDIA of all nations. Springer. ISBN 9780230270916. Archived from the original on 12 January 2018.
  3. Steinberg, S. (27 December 2016). The Statesman's Year-Book 1963: The One-Volume ENCYCLOPAEDIA of all nations. Springer. ISBN 9780230270923. Archived from the original on 12 January 2018.
  4. Steinberg, S. (26 December 2016). The Statesman's Year-Book 1964–65: The One-Volume ENCYCLOPAEDIA of all nations. Springer. ISBN 9780230270930. Archived from the original on 12 January 2018.
  5. Debrunner, Hans W. (1965). Owura Nico, the Rev. Nicholas Timothy Clerk, 1862–1961: pioneer and church leader. Watervile Publishing House. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017.
  6. "Nicholas Timothy Clerk, 1862–1961, Basel Mission, Ghana". dacb.org. Archived from the original on 28 March 2016. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  7. "Osu Salem". 29 March 2017. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  8. Sill, Ulrike (2010). Encounters in Quest of Christian Womanhood: The Basel Mission in Pre- and Early Colonial Ghana. BRILL. ISBN 978-9004188884. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017.
  9. "PRESEC | ALUMINI PORTAL". 11 November 2016. Archived from the original on 11 November 2016. Retrieved 12 January 2018.CS1 maint: BOT: original-url status unknown (link)
  10. Company, Johnson Publishing (26 August 1954). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. Archived from the original on 7 April 2017.
  11. Goold, David. "Dictionary of Scottish Architects – DSA Architect Biography Report (January 12, 2018, 5:09 pm)". scottisharchitects.org.uk. Archived from the original on 7 April 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  12. "22 Successful Ghanaians Who Went To Achimota School". OMGVoice.com. 28 March 2016. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  13. Jr, Adell Patton (13 April 1996). Physicians, Colonial Racism, and Diaspora in West Africa (1st ed.). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ISBN 9780813014326.
  14. "Sleep Medicine Services". sleepmedicineservice.com. Archived from the original on 25 January 2016. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  15. "Clinical Program – The Stanford Center for Sleep Sciences and Medicine – Stanford University School of Medicine". sleep.stanford.edu. Archived from the original on 11 September 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  16. "Contact Us | Department of Botany". 29 March 2017. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  17. "Membership". gaas-gh.org. Archived from the original on 29 March 2017. Retrieved 12 January 2018.
  18. Uganda; Public Service Review and Reorganization Commission; Clerk, Nicholas T; Uganda; Ministry of Public Service and Cabinet Affairs (1990). Report of the Public Service Review and Reorganization Commission, 1989–1990 Vol. 1, Vol. 1. Entebbe: Ministry of Public Service and Cabinet Affairs. OCLC 651089969.
  19. Company, Johnson Publishing (21 March 1968). Jet. Johnson Publishing Company.
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