Harford Secondary School for Girls is a secondary school for girls in

Moyamba Moyamba is the capital and largest city of Moyamba District, in the Southern Province of Sierra Leone. There has been a recorded population of 11,485 in the 2004 census. The city is ethnically diverse, although the Mende people make up the majo ...

Sierra Leone Sierra Leone,)]. officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It is bordered by Liberia to the southeast and Guinea surrounds the northern half of the nation. Covering a total area of , Sierr ...

History

The roots of the school lie in the Mary Sowers School for Girls, founded by Church of the United Brethren in Christ, United Brethren in Christ (UBC) missionaries at Rotifunk. The school was closed during the

Hut Tax War of 1898 The Hut Tax War of 1898 was a resistance in the newly annexed Protectorate of Sierra Leone to a new tax imposed by the colonial governor. The British had established the Protectorate to demonstrate their dominion over the territory to other Europ ...

, but was reopened as the Moyamba Girls School. In 1903 the school was merged with the UBC's girls' boarding school at Shenge, and buildings were completed and occupied at Rotifunk in 1908.

Julius Gulama Julius Momoh Gulama (born Julius Foday Cole, 1893 – 8 March 1951) was a Sierra Leonean paramount chief, statesman and educator in the preindependence era. As paramount chief of Kaiyamba Chiefdom, he ruled the largest and most powerful Mende chi ...

taught at the school before he became a paramount chief in 1928. In 1921 the school was renamed the Lilian Harford School for Girls, after the American missionary

Lillian Resler Keister Harford Lillian Resler Harford (, Resler; May 15, 1851 – 1935) was an American church organizer, editor, and author. She was an active worker in the Woman's Missionary Association of her church, the United Brethren in Christ, and delivered lectures for ...

, and in 1944 the school became a secondary school. The American missionary Esther L. Megill taught biology at Harford for a year in 1957, and later published her reminiscences of the school. From 1961 to 1965 William Henry Fitzjohn and his wife Alice served as Principal and Vice-Principal of Harford School.

John K. Yambasu John K. Yambasu (24 August 1956 - 16 August 2020) was a Sierra Leonean Bishop of the United Methodist Church. He was elected Bishop in 2008 and became one of Sierra Leone's "most illustrious religious personalities." In 2019 he was instrumental i ...

, later Bishop, was a senior teacher and school chaplain from 1982 to 1990. During the

Sierra Leone Civil War The Sierra Leone Civil War (1991–2002), or the Sierra Leonean Civil War, was a civil war in Sierra Leone that began on 23 March 1991 when the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), with support from the special forces of Liberian dictator Char ...

the school's buildings were badly damaged, and the school has needed to rebuild itself since then.

Alumni

* Lucy Sharon-Mae Anthony, first woman bishop in Sierra Leone.First Ordained Sierra Leonean Bishop
''The Patriotic Vanguard'', 10 March 2010. Accessed 10 January 2021. * Ella Koblo Gulama (1921-2006), Sierra Leone's first female Member of Parliament * Umu Hawa Tejan-Jalloh (born 1949), Chief Justice of Sierra Leone

External links

Harford ex-pupils association

References

{{reflist 1900 establishments in the British Empire Educational institutions established in 1900 Secondary schools in Sierra Leone Girls' schools in Sierra Leone