Colonial Students’ Hostel

 UncoverED  No Responses »
Oct 192020
 

36 Hope Terrace, Edinburgh EH9 2AR

36 Hope Terrace
36 Hope Terrace

36 Hope Terrace contained the ‘Colonial Students’ Hostel’ in the 1940s. A “three-story building with basement rooms,” this is where many students from British colonies would stay upon their arrival in Edinburgh. Secretary of State for the Colonies Arthur Creech Jones made it clear, however, that such hostels provided only temporary accommodation, and colonial students “should live and work on the same conditions as students in this country rather than be segregated into permanent hostels of their own.” Ghanaian medical student Emmanuel Evans-Anfom stayed here when he matriculated at Edinburgh in 1941. In his memoir To the Thirsty Land: Autobiography of a Patriot, Evans-Anfom recalled, “Apart from the residential accommodation at the hostel, there were a small restaurant, dining-room and sporting facilities like a billiards room, a library, and a reading room with newspapers. It was really a place where even non-resident colonial students […] could come for relaxation and subsidized meals.” At the Colonial Students’ Hostel, Evans-Anfom met students “from West Africa, Nigerians, Sierra Leonians, Gambians, and, of course, students from the Caribbean. […] And even after we had finally got permanent lodgings we could always go back to use the facilities at 36 Hope Terrace.”

Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942
Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942
Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942
Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942
Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942
Students at Hope Terrace, Edinburgh, Scotland, 1942

1 Roseneath Terrace

 UncoverED  No Responses »
Oct 192020
 

1 Roseneath Terrace, Edinburgh EH9 1JS

1 Roseneath Terrace
1 Roseneath Terrace

The sixth floor of 1 Roseneath Terrace was home to Eustace Akwei while he studied medicine at Edinburgh during the 1940s. Coincidentally, another Ghanaian medical student, Emmanuel Evans-Anfom, would later move into the very same room. The landlady was therefore “familiar with the ways of students from the Gold Coast” and remarked that Eustace Akwei was “a courteous and cultured gentleman”. Eustace Akwei trained to become a doctor in Edinburgh at a time when it was official policy to exclude indigenous African from practicing medicine in West Africa. From the beginning of the twentieth century to the end of 1945, the medical services in British West Africa were amalgamated and in 1902 the West African Medical Staff (WAMS) was formed. The WAMS formally rejected any physician not of “European parentage” from its ranks and was the only department in the British empire to do so. In 1955, more than half a century after this racist policy was first enacted and a decade after it was repealed, Eustace Akwei became the first Ghanaian to be appointed Chief Medical Officer in the Gold Coast. In 1958, he was one of the prominent doctors present at the inauguration of the Ghana Medical Association.