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THE FIRST BA IN AFRICA? NS DAVIS SPEAKS David Williams, Durham First editor, reports on the latest instalment in our investigation into whether Durham created the ‘first BA in Africa’. Several issues ago, we asked you to help us find out if one of the University’s former affiliate colleges – Fourah Bay in Sierra Leone – had conferred the first degree to be awarded to an African in Africa.
The second entry is an account of a visit along the coast during his long vacation session of 1879-80. He visited Lagos and gave a talk to explain the work of the College.
Back in June 2011 (issue 30), we only knew that the alumnus was called NS Davis and that he had graduated from Fourah Bay in 1878. Our appeal for information had a huge response.
‘What was the object of the Church Missionary Society in building the College in Sierra Leone, and the Collegiate Institution here at Lagos?’ he asks. ‘Certainly, not for the keeping of turkey buzzards? Why take the trouble of affiliating Fourah Bay College to an English University? Why, but that they thought it time enough for higher educational advantages to be general?’
One of the respondents, Matthew Andrews (MA SeventeenthCentury Studies, St Chad’s, 1994-98) went on to write an article in the last issue telling us how he had found a picture of NS Davis in the archives at Palace Green Library and that the ‘N’ stood for Nathaniel. Now we have more to report. Another of our readers, Anne George (née Cooper) (BA Classics, St Aidan’s, 1973-76) wrote in to say that she had found references to a Nathaniel Davis in the archive material from the Church Missionary Society (CMS) where she works at the University of Birmingham.
Nathaniel then spent a week in Monrovia, the capital of Liberia. ‘There was a time when degrees were conferred at Monrovia,’ he notes, ‘but as the College is not a component part of any university, and the questions were drawn on the spot, these degrees were not much thought of, and, as a consequence, are a thing of the past… Everything in the educational line is in a semi-defunct state: the buildings of the college are half-fallen; students attend at will, and professors lecture when it suits their convenience.’ Nathaniel had great hopes that the new, enhanced status of Fourah Bay would revolutionize attitudes to college education in West Africa.
Anne found two reports written by Nathaniel himself. The first is a journal describing his work at Anne found only a few other references Fourah Bay. For the week 7-12 to Nathaniel’s work in the CMS records. July 1879, he writes, ‘Took my college duties, and after lectures ‘He obviously suffered from ill health in the 1880s,’ she reports, ‘and he died in 1913.’ my examination papers for the Licence in Theology of the Durham University. This is indeed It is intriguing that Nathaniel writes so a great trial of strength – working, studying much about the status of education in and passing examination at the same time, Liberia. If Fourah Bay and Durham were to have a rival for conferring the ‘first BA but God in mercy took me through.’ in Africa’, it would be Liberia College.
If any Durham First readers can corroborate what Nathaniel wrote in 1880 about the status of degrees in Liberia, please get in touch with us at durham.editor@durham.ac.uk