The Wesley Girls’ Community – Wesley Girls High School and Wesley Girls’ Basic Schoolproudly traces its history back to 1836, and as we celebrate this historic 190th Anniversary, we take a look back at our history and honour our founding mother Mrs Harriet Wrigley and all those that followed her to nurture the seed she planted.  Rev. George Wrigley and his wife Harriet arrived in Cape Coast on 15th September 1836, just a year after the first Wesleyan missionary set foot on our land to establish the Wesleyan mission – now the Methodist Church Ghana. A flourishing school for boys and a small one for girls in the Cape Coast Castle already existed. Mrs Wrigley immediately after her arrivalstarted her own school with a few girls, teaching them subjects such as reading, writing, religious studies, music and sewing in her house: Standfast Hall – also the headquarters of the Wesleyan Mission. Sadly, she passed away on 11th February 1837, just five months after she founded the school. A few months later, in November, her husband Rev Wrigley also passed away.  These were tough times indeed for the missionaries. Mrs Barr succeeded Harriet Wrigley temporarily until August 1837, when Ms Elizabeth Waldron, a very efficient schoolmistress was appointed. Of Irish and Ghanaian descent, Ms Waldron survived where foreign missionaries had not, due to their lack of resistance to malaria and other tropical diseases. Miss Olive Compton, who served in Wesley Girls’ High School from 1942-1960, would later write in her curriculum vitae, “climatic conditions made continuity of staff difficult, but the school survived and for some years was staffed by deaconesses from England assisted by African colleagues.” Under Ms Waldron, the school was known as “Wesleyan Girls’ School and Training Home. By 1883, demand had grown for the education of girls beyond the primary/middle level. The Methodist Synod decided to establish a Higher School for girls, and in 1884 the secondary level was started with twenty girls who were taught subjects among which was Advanced Arithmetic. Secondary school classes were held at the Boys’ School (now Mfantsipim). One of the students of Ms Waldron – Wilhelmina Pietersen, eventually became the first Africansenior teacher at the girls’ high school department. The tenets of the school, drawn from words by Alfred Lord Tennyson, were established by the school’s founding administrators: Live Pure; Speak True; Right Wrong; Follow the King. All departments of the school from class one to the final year of the high school commenced the day with assembly for all comprising prayers and Methodist hymns. The uniform for the school was blue with yellow trimmings. Wesley Girls continued to thrive and in 1900 while Mrs Ellis was heading the school, more room was made in Standfast Hall for the increase in girl students. The Wesley Deaconess Order founded in 1890, provided a constant stream of teachers for the school and in 1904, they accounted for the increase in teaching staff that sustained the school and put girls on the right course of educational advancement. A small boarding department was also established and an article published in the December 1910 edition of the Gold Coast Leader reported on alterations being made in the girls’ premises to make them airier and more commodious. That was the standard set for the accommodation of the girls in the boarding facility. While Deaconess Evelyn Bellamy was in charge from 1914 to 1943, the high school grew toabout 40 girls and included a small boarding department. The first 3 girls had passed to Cambridge School Certificate examination under her guidance. In 1943, the Methodist Church set up a Commission on Girls Education.  At this time, there were three university graduates on the staff including Miss Ethel Jones and Miss Olive Compton. Miss Compton was made a member of the commission and together with a team of teacher from the high school, designed a short and long-term development plan for secondary school education for girls which was later adopted by the government. Evelyn Bellamy retired in 1944 and was awarded an MBE in recognition of her 30 years’ service for girls’ education. Miss Olive Compton succeeded her in 1944 and in 1947, the WGHS was divided into separate schools that occupied the same building.  This was when the high school adopted its colours of green and yellow to project its identity as Wesley Girls’ High School. A new site was obtained for the high school four miles out of the town by the Methodist Church, and the colonial government supported with the provision of a magnificent set of buildings designed by the administration of the school in the shape of a ship – HMS Excellence.   At the beginning of 1951, the high school moved to its new site at Kakumdu, and was officially opened by Evelyn Bellamy, whose passage to Ghana was sponsored by Old Girls of the High School. Initially, the course of study only reached GCSE ‘O’ level but with help from St Augustine’s College for two years and subsequently the Mfantsipim Boys’ School, a small number of girls begun Sixth Form work and it was then possible to re-grade the curriculum. By 1960, to meet the demand for higher education in Ghana, the school had its own Arts Sixth form to prepare girls for admission into the University College of the Gold Coast (now University of Ghana, Legon). New buildings were being erected, including science laboratories, more classrooms and dormitories. In the same year, Miss Olive Compton retired after her long service. Miss Clarice Garnett, who was then a science mistress at the school, succeeded Miss Compton in 1961. The school expanded and a Science Sixth Form was added on which opened a new line of opportunity for girls under Miss Garnett’s leadership.  Her administration lasted from 1961 to 1980 and recorded a considerable improvement of the science department.  She was a role model of intelligence, service and humility and very popular with the girls who fondly refer to her as Garnie. Miss Garnett, the last of the missionaries to head the school, retired in 1980. The mission that Mrs Harriet Wrigley set out to achieve had been accomplished one hundred-fold. Many of the girls who had passed through the school had become responsible parents and career women, engaged in all the known professions.  Mrs. Rosina Acheampong, succeeded Miss Garnett as Headmistress, followed by Mrs Nancy Thompson, Mrs Betty Djokoto and currently Mrs Kay Oppong-Ankomah, all Old Girls of the School. All students, old girls and well-wishers of the Wesley Girls’ Community owe a great deal to these Methodist missionaries who gave up so much, and in some cases, their very lives to make the school what it is today. We thank God for them and the foundation they laid.