Major Seth Kobla Anthony (15 June 1915 – 20 November 2008) was a Ghanaian soldier and diplomat. He was the first

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African-born soldier to be commissioned as an officer in the

British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...

Early life and education

Seth Anthony was born at

Adafienu Adafienu is a coastal community located in the Volta Region of Ghana near Denu. Citizens of Adefienu are noted for fishing in the Atlantic Ocean, in May 2007 the fishermen caught a large fish measuring 4.2 metres long, 1.2 metres wide a meter hig ...

in the Volta Region of

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

. His parents were Timothy Agbetsiafa Anthony and Juliana Seakowuwo. Seth Anthony started his elementary education at the Bremen Mission School at Keta also in the Volta Region of Ghana in 1920. He completed in 1929. He proceeded to the

Achimota School Achimota School ( /ɑːtʃimoʊtɑː/ ), formerly Prince of Wales College and School at Achimota, later Achimota College, now nicknamed Motown, is a co-educational boarding school located at Achimota in Accra, Greater Accra, Ghana. The school wa ...

intending to train as a teacher. His admission was deferred for a year as he was thought to be too young. His progress was so impressive he was fast tracked to the secondary education section. One of his course mates at the time was Kofi Abrefa Busia. He was the head prefect in 1935.

Career

Anthony joined the staff of the Achimota School to teach

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

, English and

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in 1937. Later during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

he enlisted as a

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with the British Army. His unit was the Fifth Battalion of the Gold Coast Regiment. He enrolled at the

Royal Military College Royal Military College may refer to: ;Australia * Royal Military College, Duntroon, Campbell, Australian Capital Territory ;Canada * Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ontario * Royal Military College Saint-Jean, Saint-Jean, Quebec ;Mala ...

at Sandhurst in England in 1941 and was commissioned as a

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in 1942. He served with the 81st Division of the

Royal West African Frontier Force The West African Frontier Force (WAFF) was a multi-battalion field force, formed by the British Colonial Office in 1900 to garrison the West African colonies of Nigeria, Gold Coast, Sierra Leone and Gambia. In 1928, it received royal recognition ...

, where he became the first African commissioned officer in the history of the British Army. Following the Second World War, Anthony served as an Assistant District Officer, a position held by only two other Africans at the time (one was

Kofi Busia Kofi Abrefa Busia (born 11 July 1913 – 28 August 1978) was a Ghanaian political leader and academic who was Prime Minister of Ghana from 1969 to 1972. As a nationalist leader and prime minister, he helped to restore civilian government to the ...

, who became Prime Minister of Ghana in 1969). Prior to Ghana's independence in March 1957, Anthony was in the infant diplomatic service and attached to the British embassy in Washington, D.C. He later opened Ghana's embassy there, and was the first Chargé d'affaires of the newly opened Ghanaian diplomatic mission in Washington, D.C. He was at the same time Ghana's Acting Representative to the United Nations and delivered the acceptance speech when Ghana was admitted into the UN. He was the Ghanaian High Commissioner to India between 1962 and 1966, after which he was the High Commissioner to the United Kingdom until 1970. He also served as High Commissioner to Canada until his retirement in 1973.

Honours

Anthony was awarded the

Order of the Star of Ghana The Order of the Star of Ghana is the highest award given by the Government of Ghana to any individual who had helped the cause of the country in one way or the other. Recipients of this award are decorated at a state function, chaired by the Pr ...

, the highest national civilian award in Ghana in July 2006. He was also awarded an

MBE Mbe may refer to: * Mbé, a town in the Republic of the Congo * Mbe Mountains Community Forest, in Nigeria * Mbe language, a language of Nigeria * Mbe' language, language of Cameroon * ''mbe'', ISO 639 code for the extinct Molala language Molal ...

after seeing action in Myohaung,

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

in 1945. The Ghana army's Jungle Warfare School at Akyem Achiase is named Seth Anthony Barracks after Major Anthony. Viscount Slim, son of Field Marshal William Slim and president of the Burma Star Association, awarded Major Anthony with the Burma Star Badge in 2008.

Family

Seth Anthony was married to Adelaide Arajoah Anthony. He had three sons, John Kobla Anthony, Lucas Amegbe Anthony (deceased), and Samuel Kwashie Anthony, and five daughters, Mrs Selina Amayo Dankwa, Mrs Christiana Anokware Addae, Elizabeth Amewusika Anthony, Adelaide Emefa Anthony and Sophia Mawuena Anthony.

References

External links