Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-rvbq7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-14T23:09:14.389Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

British Propaganda and the Mobilization of the Gold Coast War Effort, 1939–1945

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2009

Wendell P. Holbrook
Wendell P. Holbrook
Affiliation:
Rutgers University, New Jersey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This article examines the nature and impact of the most extensive propaganda campaign mounted in a British West African colony during the Second World War. An avalanche of war information and appeals to the people of the Gold Coast was channelled through a new communications network which included radio broadcasting, information bureaux, and mobile cinema presentations. The innovative wartime publicity scheme was not enough to produce a completely voluntary war effort; however, the campaign was responsible for irreversibly changing mass communications techniques in the territory. The propaganda drive used in the war mobilization provided a pool of experienced propagandists and a successful structural model which proved valuable both to post-war governments charged with pre-independence political education, community development and public services, and, somewhat ironically, to anti-colonialist post-war party politics.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 26 , Issue 4 , October 1985 , pp. 347 - 361
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 For contemporary discussions of both the earthquake's impact and popular reactions, see J. Royal African Soc., XXXVIII (1939), 414–415Google Scholar, and Gold Coast Independent, 24 June 1939Google Scholar; also see field notes and transcriptions of taped interviews with Mrs Mabel Dove Danquah, Accra, 9 June 1980, and Mr J. B. Odunton, Accra 6 May 1980. Interviews cited in this article are included in data collected from 360 informants who contributed to an oral history project on the Second World War, conducted by the author in Ghana in 1980. Data records from the project are on deposit at the Department of History, Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, in the United States.

2 Ghana National Archives (GNA): Adm 12/1/213. Telegram from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to Governor Hodson, 10 April 1939. Similarly alarming telegrams, found in the same file, were sent to the Governor on 15 June 1939 and 8 September 1939.

3 See, for examples, Gold Coast Times, 31 December 1938, 14 January 1939, and 25 February 1939Google Scholar; also see Gold Coast Independent, 21 August 1939.Google Scholar

4 GNA: Adm 12/3/136. See ‘secret’ telegrams from the governor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 30 and 31 August 1939.

5 GNA: Adm 12/3/136. Telegram from the governor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 6 September 1939.

6 Crowder, Michael, ‘The Second World War: prelude to decolonisation in Africa’, Cambridge History of Africa, VIII (Cambridge, 1984), 30CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kiyaga-Mulindwa, D., ‘The Bechuanaland protectorate and the Second World War’, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, XII (1984), 34Google Scholar

7 GNA: Adm 12/1/213. Telegram from the Secretary of State for the Colonies to the governor, 22 February 1939.

8 GNA: Adm 1/2/259. See report by John Wilson, Director of Information, ‘Public opinion in the Gold Coast’, 18 July 1940.Google Scholar A similar African reaction to the war has been noted for Nigeria. See Leith-Ross, Sylvia, Stepping Stones: Memoirs of Colonial Nigeria, 1907–1960 (London, 1983), 109–119.Google Scholar

9 Public Record Office (PRO): Ministry of Information File 558, Overseas Planning Committee Paper 265, 22 October 1942; Overseas Planning Committee Paper 514, 1 July 1944. Government correspondence and office records show that the word ‘propaganda’ was used most often to refer to the publicity campaign in the early war period; gradually, ‘information’ became more commonly used among government workers and by 1944 the director of the campaign in the Gold Coast was referred to as a ‘public relations’ officer.

10 Gold Coast Independent, 12 August 1939.Google Scholar

11 PRO: ‘Gold Coast Executive Council Minutes, 1937–1940’, see minutes of 30 May 1940; also see Ashanti Pioneer, 25 May 1940.Google Scholar

12 Kay, G. B. (ed.), The Political Economy of Colonialism in Ghana: A Collection of Documents and Statistics, 1900–1960 (Cambridge, 1972), 334–335.Google Scholar After experiencing revenue deficits in 1930 and 1931, the Gold Coast government recorded revenue surpluses for each of the succeeding years before the war, including surpluses of £377,000 and £123,000 in 1938 and 1939 respectively (ibid., 344–345).

13 Shaloff, Stanley, ‘The income tax, indirect rule, and the depression: the Gold Coast riots of 1931’, Cahier d'Études Africaines, XIV (1975), 359–375;Google ScholarCoast, GoldLegislative Council Debates, 1931–1932 (Accra, 1932)Google Scholar; see debates of 28 September 1931, 367–419.

14 Shaloff, Stanley, ‘Press controls and sedition proceedings in the Gold Coast, 1933–1939’, African Affairs, LXXI (1972), 241–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Other useful discussions of African protests in the 1930s are found in Asante, S.K.B., Pan-African Protest: West Africa and the Italo-Ethiopian Crisis, 1934–41 (London, 1977), 101–107, 122–125Google Scholar; and Langley, J. A., Pan-Africanism and Nationalism in West Africa, 1900–1945 (Oxford, 1973), 326–346.Google Scholar

15 Howard, Rhoda, Colonialism and Underdevelopment in Ghana (London, 1978), 206–219.Google Scholar

16 For a general discussion of protests from the grassroots, see, inter alia: Agbodeka, Francis, Ghana in the Twentieth Century (Accra, 1972), 112–114.Google Scholar Among studies focused on protests by asafo companies (commoners' village men's associations) are: Shaloff, Stanley, ‘The Cape Coast asafo company riot of 1932’, Int. J. African Historical Studies, VII (1974), 591–609CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Simensen, Jarle, ‘The asafo of Kwahu, Ghana: a mass movement for local reform under colonial rule’, Int. J. African Historical Studies', VIII (1975), 383–406CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘Rural mass action in the context of anti-colonial protest’, Canadian J. African Studies, VIII (1974), 25–41.Google Scholar

17 GNA: Adm 1/2/272. See memo enclosed in despatch from the governor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 8 November 1943.

18 Gold Coast Bulletin, 20 August 1947, 4.Google Scholar

19 PRO: Ministry of Information File 558, Overseas Planning Committee Paper 264, n.d., 3; and File 559, see letter of 8 January 1944 to the Resident Minister in West Africa.

20 Ibid.; also see interview with the wartime director of radio publicity Mr James Moxon, Accra, 2 April 1980, 2–3.

21 PRO: Ministry of Information File 558, Overseas Planning Committee Paper 265; and File 163, see letter from Mr R. P. Nicholson to Mr Macgregor, 5 July 1940.

22 PRO: Ministry of Information File 559, see ‘Comments on overseas planning committees’, n.d., c. April 1944, 4.Google Scholar

23 Leith-Ross, , Stepping Stones, 116.Google Scholar

24 PRO: Ministry of Information File 163. Letter from R. P. Nicholson to Mr Macgregor, 5 July 1940.

25 PRO: Ministry of Information File 559, ‘Comments on overseas planning committees, n.d., c. April 1944, 4.Google Scholar

26 Field notes from an interview with retired Supreme Court Justice Augustus Molade Akiwumi, Accra, 3 July 1980, 3.

27 GNA: Adm 1/2/259. H. Lironi, ‘Report on cinema unit in Togoland: first trek’, 1 August 1940.Google Scholar

28 GNA: Adm 1/2/260. Governor's broadcast statement of 24 October 1940, enclosed in letter from the governor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 20 November 1940.

29 Gold Coast Independent, 9 September 1939.Google Scholar

30 The governor judged radio remarks given by Brigadier J. D. Butler as especially useful to the recruitment campaign. See GNA: Adm 1/2/260, enclosure in the governor's letter to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 20 November 1940.

31 Gold Coast Times, 21 October 1939Google Scholar; also see interview with Mrs Mabel Dove Danquah, Accra, 9 June 1980.

32 Governor Hodson's strong support for mass media and communications development in the Gold Coast derived, in part, from his commitment to the performing arts. Hodson was a playwright who had also staged several pantomimes and musicals; and some of his contemporaries have claimed that the ‘Elizabethan’ governor, also enjoying the role of impresario, recognized the radio as a sound stage capable of entertaining vast audiences. For the governor's views on broadcast communications, see his speeches before the Legislative Council: Legislative Council Debates, 1939, 14 March 1939, 9Google Scholar; Legislative Council Debates, 1940, 12 March 1940, 15.Google Scholar Also see interview with James Moxon, Accra 2 April 1980, 14–15; and Head, Sidney W., ‘British colonial broadcasting policies: the case of the Gold Coast’, African Studies Review, XXII, 2 (1979), 39–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

33 Legislative Council Debates, 1940, 20 March 1940, 157.Google Scholar

34 PRO: Ministry of Information File 558, Overseas Planning Committee Paper 257, n.d., 5.

35 GNA: Adm 1/2/264. See letter from the governor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 31 December 1941.

36 Wilson, John, ‘Gold Coast information’, African Affairs, XLIII, 3 (1944), 113–114.Google Scholar

37 Interview with James Moxon, Accra, 2 April 1980, 7.

38 Wilson, , ‘Gold Coast information’, 113–114.Google Scholar

39 Interview with James Moxon, Accra, 2 April 1980, 7.

40 Interview with Mr J. B. Odunton, wartime commentator for the mobile cinema unit, Accra, 6 May 1980, 6.

41 Ibid.

42 Wilson, , ‘Gold Coast Information’, 111–115.Google Scholar

43 Interview with James Moxon, Accra, 2 April 1980, 5.

44 Legislative Council Debates, 1939, 14 March 1939, 9.Google Scholar

45 Among the 340 Second World War army veterans interviewed in Ghana, five informants recalled joining the army because of suggestions and enlistment arrangements made by teachers.

46 Interview with James Moxon, Accra, 2 April 1980, 1.

47 See, for example, the war memoirs of Commander Bruce, Ian, ‘They put us in boots’, unpublished paper, Imperial War Museum.Google Scholar Also see interviews with two wartime officers in the R.W.A.F.F., Major Seth Anthony, Accra, 19 May 1980, and Mr Kenneth Scott, Accra, 7 July 1980. For a discussion of recruitment, see Killingray, David, ‘Military and labour recruitment in the Gold Coast during the Second World War’, J. Afr. Hist., XXIII (1982), 83–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Kay, , The Political Economy of Colonialism in Ghana, 334–335, 338.Google Scholar

49 Among the seven volunteers who recounted being particularly impressed by Information Department presentations, other factors stimulating their enlistment were also cited, including chiefly appeals and the attractiveness of army pay. See Holbrook, Wendell P., ‘Oral history and the nascent historiography for West Africa and World War II: a focus on Ghana’, International Journal of Oral History, III, 3 (1982), 149–166.Google Scholar

50 See, for example, Fortes, Meyer, ‘The impact of the war on British West Africa’, International Affairs, XXI, 2 (1945), 209–219.Google Scholar

51 See Kiyaga-Mulindwa, D., ‘The Bechuanaland protectorate’, 38.Google Scholar

52 See field notes from interview with former recruitment agent Ali Grumah, Ashiaman Ghana, 3 May 1980; also see an autobiographical narrative recounting the experience of being ‘press ganged’ into military service by non-commissioned officers at Kumasi. Owusu-Ansah, Felix, ‘Abongo Boy’, unpublished manuscript (Accra 1971),Google Scholar a part of the private collection of Mr James Moxon, Accra.

53 Ashanti Pioneer, 23 February 1940 and 1 March 1946Google Scholar; also see GNA: 1/2/268, letter and enclosure from the governor to the Secretary of State for the Colonies, 26 September 1942; interview with Mrs J. V. Phillips, Accra, 2 May 1980.

54 Spitzer, Leo and Denzer, Laray, ‘I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson’, Int. J. African Historical Studies, VI (1973), 413–452.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

55 For a discussion of political campaigns by the Convention Peoples Party, see Austin, Dennis, Politics in Ghana, 1946–1960 (London, 1970), 130–131, 212–215, and 329–330.Google Scholar For a review of the post-war period, also see Manns, Adrienne, ‘The role of ex-servicemen in Ghana's independence movement’ (Ph.D. thesis, Johns Hopkins University, 1984).Google Scholar

56 Field notes from an interview with Mrs Mabel Dove Danquah, Accra, 5 June 1980.

57 Interview with Mr Harry Marshall, former cinema van commentator and, later, administrator for the Ghana Ministry of Information, Accra, 2 April 1980, 24–25.

58 Interview with Harry Marshall, 1. Also see Austin, , Politics in Ghana, 310–312.Google Scholar

59 For a review of the post-war activities of the mobile publicity vans see: ‘The cinema section – June 1940 to May 1960’, unpublished paper, Ghana Ministry of Information, Accra. Also see interview with Harry Marshall, Accra, 2 April 1980, 13–21.