Life
John Mensah Sarbah was born on Friday, 3 June 1864, in the Fante Confederacy in the Gold Coast. He was the eldest son of John Sarbah (1834-1892), a merchant of Anomabu and Cape Coast and a member of the Legislative Council of the Gold Coast, and his wife Sarah. Mensah Sarbah was educated at the Cape Coast Wesleyan School (later renamed – by Mensah Sarbah himself – as Mfantsipim School) and then at Taunton School in Devon, England, matriculating in 1884. He subsequently entered Lincoln's Inn in London to train as a barrister, and was called to the English bar in 1887 – the first African from his country to qualify in this way.
In 1897, along with J. W. Sey, J. P. Brown, J. E. Casely Hayford he co-founded the Aborigines' Rights Protection Society, which became the main political organisation that led organised and sustained opposition against the colonial government, laying the foundation for Ghanaian independence.
Mensah Sarbah was appointed a member of the Legislative Council in 1901, and was re-appointed in 1906.
In the first birthday honours of King George V, Mensah Sarbah was recognized with the award of the Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George in 1910, a few months before his death at the age of 46.
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