Clerk family

Clerk family

Left to right: A.W. Clerk, N.T. Clerk and C.H. Clerk
Ethnicity	Ga Euro-Afro-Caribbean
Current region	Accra, Ghana
Place of origin	Fairfield, Manchester Parish, Jamaica
Members	Alexander Worthy Clerk Nicholas Timothy Clerk Carl Henry Clerk Theodore S. Clerk Matilda J. Clerk Nicholas T. Clerk George C. Clerk Alexander A. Clerk
Distinctions	architecture church development civil service education health services journalism medicine natural sciences public administration public health public policy urban planning

The Clerk family is a Ghanaian historic family that produced a number of pioneering scholars in the Gold Coast. Predominantly based in Accra, the Clerks were traditionally Protestant Christian and affiliated to the Presbyterian Church. The Clerk family is primarily a member of the Ga-Dangme coastal people of Accra and in addition, has Euro-Afro-Caribbean heritage, descending from Jamaican,German and Danish ancestry.

During the Gold Coast colonial era, the Clerks were among a group of thinkers, often from the coastal areas of Ghana, who flourished in the arts and sciences, across multiple familial generations. Some other historically important Gold Coast families, mainly from southern Ghana, of Akyem, Anlo Ewe, Fante and Ga ethnicities that thrived in various intellectual pursuits within this period include the Bartels, Brew, Casely-Hayford, Easmon, Gbeho and Ofori-Atta families. Other learned persons were members of the Euro-African Ga intelligentsia of Accra, linked by intermarriage, as well as trade and commerce along the Gold Coast, such as the Bannerman, Bruce, Hesse, Hutton-Mills, Meyer, Quist, Reindorf and Vanderpuije families. The Clerk family is also related through marriage to several distinguished Ga families in Accra like the Adom, Nikoi, Odamtten, Ollennu and Quao families among others.