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336_8 | Another theatre for the campaign is the European Parliament, where in March 2010 a resolution was passed calling for progress to be made in identifying ways to set up a "Robin Hood" type tax.
Efforts in 2011 and later
Campaigning for the tax continued in 2011, with over 1000 economists signing a letter addressed to G20 finance ministers prior to their April 2011 meeting in Washington. Prominent signatories include Jeffery Sachs ; Nobel prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman ; Harvard's Dani Rodrik and Cambridge's Ha-Joon Chang. A copy of the letter was also sent to Bill Gates, who has been commissioned by G20 chair and French president Nicolas Sarkozy to investigate new ways of funding the development of low income countries. The Guardian reported that staff from the Gates Foundation are also involved in international lobbying at G20 capitals. |
336_9 | The Robin Hood campaign has been attempting to build international public enthusiasm for the tax prior to the November G20 summit; in June the organisation reported the staging of campaigning events in 43 different countries. In late June the European Commission reversed its earlier opposition to the tax, proposing EU financial transaction tax be adopted within all member states of the European Union. Moves to pass the proposal through the legislative process are scheduled to commence in autumn 2011.
A European version of the tax is projected to raise up to €30bn a year. ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet warned that implementing the tax could hurt Europe unless it could be rolled out globally. |
336_10 | In August 2011 Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel affirmed their support for the proposed European implementation. Great Britain's prime minister David Cameron remains opposed to the tax unless it can be implemented globally, meaning that a European implementation would likely have to be confined to the Eurozone not the whole EU. |
336_11 | As part of his September State of the Union speech, President of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso officially proposed an upgraded package of transaction taxes for adoption by the EU, now projected to raise up to €55bn ($75bn) per year. Also in September, Bill Gates presented his preliminary findings to the 2011 IMF & World Bank meeting in support of the Robin Hood tax. Gates's proposal is for a set of taxes which could raise between $48–250bn per year. Unlike Barroso's proposal, Gates is advocating the tax be adopted on a G20 wide bases rather than for just the EU, and Gate's plan is geared more towards raising funds for aid and development rather than for regular public spending and repairing government finances. Various British business, banks and economists such as Howard Davies have attacked the EU proposal saying it would be bad for growth and would harm the economy. Max Lawson for the Robin Hood campaign responded to developments by saying "Game on!". |
336_12 | In October, Adbusters, the organisation responsible for sparking the Occupy movement, called for a global march in support of the Robin Hood tax, to take place on 29 October just before the 2011 G20 leaders summit. Marches did not occur in all "occupied" cities, but events involving several hundred protesters did take place at locations including Washington DC, Vancouver and Edinburgh.
Also in October the Robin Hood tax was endorsed by Pope Benedict XVI . In November, Rowan Williams, then Archbishop of Canterbury, re-affirmed his support of the Robin Hood campaign with an article in the Financial Times, saying the Vatican's strong backing for a FTT was "probably the most far-reaching" of their recent statements on reforming the International monetary system. |
336_13 | In November, Bill Gates presented his report to the 2011 G-20 Cannes summit, saying that a FTT tax could be an effective way to raise funds to tackle poverty in the developing world. However Gates also told the Financial Times that an FTT was only one option among many, admitting that in his opinion it was less important than tobacco and fuel taxes. At the G20 Summit there was strong support for the Robin Hood tax from Germany and France but opposition from other members including the US, Canada and Australia. |
336_14 | A few days after the G20 Summit, European finance leaders debated the possible introduction of a regional FTT tax. Again there was strong support from Germany and France but also from Austria, Belgium, Greece, Finland, Luxembourg, Spain, Portugal, while strong opposition comes from Britain, Sweden, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Romania and Bulgaria, with some members being sceptical especially about the value of implementing an FTT without including at least all 27 EU states. As European Union members remain divided over the issue, advocates of the FTT have said it could be implemented only within the eurozone, excluding countries like Sweden and the United Kingdom. |
336_15 | France's president Hollande had committed to a Robin Hood tax in his 2012 election campaign. In a meeting just prior to the 2012 G8 summit he advised that he intends to uphold his commitment, though David Cameron repeated that Britain would veto the tax if attempts were made to impose it across the EU. Plans were made in France to implement the tax unilaterally, though these were superseded by an agreement to launch a Robin Hood tax at EU level. Eleven countries including France and Germany will take part, with the tax due to go live in 2014. |
336_16 | European Union financial transaction tax
The EU financial transaction tax (EU FTT) is a proposal made by the European Commission in September 2011 to introduce a financial transaction tax within the 27 member states of the European Union by 2014. The tax would only impact financial transactions between financial institutions charging 0.1% against the exchange of shares and bonds and 0.01% across derivative contracts. According to the European Commission it could raise €57 billion every year, of which around €10bn (£8.4bn) would go to Great Britain, which hosts Europe's biggest financial center. It is unclear whether a financial transaction tax is compatible with European law. |
336_17 | If implemented the tax must be paid in the European country where the financial operator is established. This "R plus I" (residence plus issuance) solution means the EU-FTT would cover all transactions that involve a single European firm, no matter if these transactions are carried out in the EU or elsewhere in the world. The scheme makes it impossible for say French or German banks to avoid the tax by moving their transactions offshore, unless they give up all their European customers.
Being faced with stiff resistance from some non-eurozone EU countries, particularly United Kingdom and Sweden, a group of eleven states began pursuing the idea of utilising enhanced co-operation to implement the tax in states which wish to participate. Opinion polls indicate that two-thirds of British people are in favour of some forms of FTT (see section: Public opinion). |
336_18 | The proposal supported by the eleven EU member states, was approved in the European Parliament in December 2012, and by the Council of the European Union in January 2013. The formal agreement on the details of the EU FTT still need to be decided upon and approved by the European Parliament.
Celebrity involvement
The campaign involves a fictional film made by Richard Curtis and starring Bill Nighy, in which Bill Nighy plays a banker who is being questioned about the Robin Hood tax. He eventually admits that the tax would be a good idea and would not be too damaging to the financial sector.
United States financial transaction tax proposals |
336_19 | Different US financial transaction tax (US FTT) bills have been proposed in Congress since 2009. The main differences between the proposals has been the size of the tax, which financial transactions are taxed and how the new tax revenue is spent. The bills have proposed a .025%–.5% tax on stocks, .025%–.1% tax on bonds and .005%–.02% on derivatives with the funds going to health, public services, debt reduction, infrastructure and job creation. The House of Representatives has introduced since 2009 ten different US FTT related bills and the Senate has introduced four. The bills in the Senate have been variously sponsored by Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) or Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont). The bills in the House have been variously sponsored by Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon), John Conyers (D-Michigan) or a number of other Representatives. |
336_20 | The US FTT bills proposed by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) and Sen. Harkin (D-Iowa) have received a number of cosponsors in the Senate and House. The Let Wall Street Pay for the Restoration of Main Street Bill is an early version of their cosponsored US FTT bill which includes a tax on US financial market securities transactions. The bill suggests to tax stock transactions at a rate of 0.25%. The tax on futures contracts to buy or sell a specified commodity of standardised quality at a certain date in the future, at a market determined price would be 0.02%. Swaps between two firms and credit default swaps would be taxed 0.02%. The tax would only target speculators, since the tax would be refunded to average investors, pension funds and health savings accounts. Projected annual revenue is $150 billion per year, half of which would go towards deficit reduction and half of which would go towards job promotion activities. The day the bill was introduced, it had the support of 25 of |
336_21 | DeFazio's House colleagues. |
336_22 | in 2012, Rep. Keith Ellison introduced the new version of the U.S. Robin Hood Tax Campaign, which promises to raise up to $350 billion in annual revenues that would be used to revitalise Main Street Communities across America.The legislation embodies the Robin Hood Tax, a 0.5% tax on the trading of stocks, 50 cents on every $100 of trades, and lesser rates on trading in bonds, derivatives and currencies.
Comparison with the Tobin Tax
As of November 2011, the term "Tobin tax" is often used as a synonym for the Robin Hood tax. The Robin Hood FTT variant is similar to the original Tobin tax proposal but would apply to a broader set of financial sector transactions. Tobin suggested a form of currency transaction tax. This is a type of financial transaction tax, which taxes specific types of currency transaction. This term has been most commonly associated with the financial sector, as opposed to consumption taxes paid by consumers. |
336_23 | Another difference between the Robin Hood FTT and the Tobin tax is that the Tobin tax was intended primarily to stabilise the economic market rather than generate revenue. Economists and analysts are now divided as to whether a small transaction tax would have a significant braking effect on the velocity of trades. According to the campaigning organisation, the Robin Hood Tax campaign presents the raising of revenue for domestic use and to fund international aid as a leading aim. |
336_24 | Evaluation and reception of the Robin Hood tax
Despite the early support for the FTT variant by leading statesmen such as Gordon Brown, by March 2010 the Financial Times had reported the international consensus now favoured a straightforward levy against various bank assets rather than a financial transaction tax. |
336_25 | After the June 2010 G20 meeting of finance ministers in Busan, the G20 were no longer agreed even for the less radical global bank levy, with opposition led by Canada and Australia. Officials from EU, USA and UK said they were still planning to implement levies on their own banks, although the tax would likely be at a lower rate now to limit the risk of banks moving to jurisdictions that aren't planning on implementing the levy. Following on from the Pusan meeting but prior to the main 2010 G-20 Toronto summit, the European Union president Herman Van Rompuy announced that the EU had a common position in favour of both a Robin Hood style transaction tax and a bank levy which they would push for at the G20 gathering. However, according to the Canadian Embassy Newspaper there were divisions within the EU with some member countries such as the Czech Republic against any form of bank tax. |
336_26 | No consensus for the tax emerged from the 2010 G20 summit. Prior to the 2011 G20 Summit in November, the Robin Hood campaign had become even more prominent, though it also provoked dozens of critical articles. Again it failed to achieve consensus at the 2011 summit. |
336_27 | General criticism |
336_28 | The proposed FTT could reduce the total volume traded in financial products, with negative consequences for employment. While this may reduce employment in brokerages and other areas of the securities industry, a further consequence could be unemployment outside of the financial sector. Schwabish (2005) examined the potential effects of introducing a stock transaction (or "transfer") tax in a single city (New York) on employment not only in the securities industry, but also in the supporting industries. A financial transactions tax could lead to job losses also in non-financial sectors of the economy through the so-called multiplier effect forwarding in a magnified form any taxes imposed on Wall Street employees through their reduced demand to their suppliers and supporting industries. The author estimated the ratios of financial- to non-financial job losses of between 10:1 to 10:4, that is "a 10 percent decrease in securities industry employment would depress employment in the |
336_29 | retail, services, and restaurant sectors by more than 1 percent; in the business services sector by about 4 percent; and in total private jobs by about 1 percent." |
336_30 | Other unintended consequences of an FTT could include a reduction in professional market participants such as market makers who stand ready to buy or sell at prevailing prices. This could impact the orderly and efficient operation of markets, including the price discovery process. It has been suggested that such reforms could lead to reduced liquidity, wider bid / offer spreads, and greater volatility.
According to the United States Chamber of Commerce, the tax could double the cost of certain financial transactions and could cause the Dow Jones Industrial Average to fall by 12.5%. |
336_31 | Mike Devereux, director of the Centre for Business Taxation at Oxford University,
has argued the tax would effectively be a stealth tax as the banks would pass all costs on to their customers, with no guaranteed transparency about who exactly would bear the costs.
Economics writer Tim Worstall has made similar arguments, stating the tax would ultimately be paid not by the banks but by ordinary consumers and workers. Worstall also argues that overall an FTT tax would reduce tax revenue, so would fail to help provide extra money for helping the poor.
In 2011 Oxfam banned a pensioner from one of its stores as he was incensed by the organisation's support for the tax, feeling that it could reduce the income of small-time pensioners and shareholders like himself. |
336_32 | By May 2013, with the EU due to launch a Robin Hood tax in 2014, there has been considerable caution expressed from commentators within nations due to implement the tax, such as Germany. For example, Jens Weidmann, president of the Bundesbank, warned that in its current form the tax would harm Europe's repo market, with knock on effects to the real economy as some firms would likely find themselves less able to borrow.
Criticism against implementation at national or regional level only
If implemented just at EU level rather than globally, critics have stated the negative consequences would be felt disproportionately in Britain, with economists such as Tim Congdon estimating an FTT could result in over 100,000 job losses from London's financial sector. |
336_33 | Andrew Tyrie, Chairman of the UK Treasury Select Committee, has listed 17 problems with the FTT tax, including a loss of overall tax revenue for Britain. Critics have conceded that the FTT would reduce the overall volume of transactions, especially those originating from High-frequency trading, but deny that it would reduce the risk of further crises in the financial sector.
On 15 April 1990, the tax on fixed-income securities was abolished. It is notable that the tax imposed an increased cost on government borrowing, and this may have influenced the decision to repeal the tax. |
336_34 | Public opinion
A Eurobarometer poll of more than 27,000 people published in January 2011 found that Europeans are strongly in favour of a financial transaction tax by a margin of 61 to 26 per cent. Of those, more than 80 per cent agree that if global agreement cannot be reached – an FTT should, initially, be implemented in just the EU. Support for an FTT, in the UK, is 65 per cent. Another survey published earlier by YouGov suggests that more than four out of five people in the UK, France, Germany, Spain and Italy think the financial sector has a responsibility to help repair the damage caused by the economic crisis. The poll also indicated strong support for an FTT among supporters of all the three main UK political parties.
Despite the arguments that an EU only FTT tax would hurt Great Britain, other 2011 polls have suggested about two-thirds of the British public support the Robin Hood tax campaign. |
336_35 | See also
Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and for Citizens' Action
Currency transaction tax
European Union financial transaction tax
Robin Hood
Robin Hood effect
Spahn tax
Transfer tax
References
External links
The Robin Hood Tax organisation
Financial transaction tax
International taxation
International development
Taxation and redistribution |
337_0 | Aspects of Love is a musical with music and book by Andrew Lloyd Webber, and lyrics by Don Black and Charles Hart. It is based on the 1955 novella of the same name by David Garnett.
The piece focuses on the romantic entanglements of actress Rose Vibert, her admiring fan Alex Dillingham, his underage cousin Jenny, his uncle George, and George's mistress, sculptor Giulietta Trapani, over a period of 17 years. The "aspects" of the title refers to the many forms that love takes in the show: love between couples, both as romantic infatuation and as married people; children and their parents; and hints of same-sex attraction (Giulietta and Rose). |
337_1 | Lloyd Webber was introduced to Aspects of Love in 1979, when he and Tim Rice were approached to write a few songs for a proposed film version. When nothing came of it, he suggested to Trevor Nunn that they collaborate on a stage adaptation. In 1983, they presented a cabaret of numbers they had written, but it was not until five years later that they tackled the project in earnest. The musical features the song "Love Changes Everything". |
337_2 | Productions |
337_3 | The West End production, directed by Trevor Nunn and choreographed by Gillian Lynne, musical direction by Michael Reed, opened on April 17, 1989, at the Prince of Wales Theatre, where it ran for 1,325 performances. The original cast included Ann Crumb as Rose Vibert, Michael Ball as Alex Dillingham, Kevin Colson as George Dillingham, Kathleen Rowe McAllen as Giulietta Trapani, Diana Morrison as Jenny Dillingham and Sally Smith as The Chanteuse. Roger Moore was due to star as George in the production but left two weeks before opening night. He later stated in an interview he was unable to cope with the technical side of singing in Aspects of Love, and the production required someone with experience of singing with orchestras. Following his departure, his understudy Kevin Colson took over the role. During the run, the role of Rose Vibert was also played by Susannah Fellows, Helen Hobson and Sarah Brightman; Alex Dillingham by David Greer, David Malek and Michael Praed; Giulietta Trapani |
337_4 | by Becky Norman and Grania Renihan; and George Dillingham by Barrie Ingham. |
337_5 | The Broadway production, with the same creative team and many of the original London cast, opened on April 8, 1990, at the Broadhurst Theatre and closed on March 2, 1991, after 377 performances and 22 previews. Brightman and John Cullum joined the cast later in the run. The reviews were lacklustre and New York Times critic Frank Rich wrote in a negative review "Whether Aspects of Love is a musical for people is another matter." When the musical closed, the entire $8 million investment was lost, which, according to the New York Times, made it "perhaps the greatest flop in Broadway history."<ref>Bernstein, Richard."'Aspects,' the Musical That Had Everything, And Lost Everything",The New York Times", March 7, 1991</ref>
In 1991, a "chamber" version of the show with Keith Michell was mounted in Canada. It subsequently toured in America and a similar production was staged in Australia. Aspects of Love was produced in Japan, the Philippines, Hungary, Finland, and Denmark as well. |
337_6 | In 1993, R.U.G and Apollo Leisure breathed life into a new production directed by Gail Edwards and choreographed by Jo Anne Robinson. The show opened at the Alexandra Theatre, Birmingham, toured the UK and then headed into the West End and re-opened at the shows original venue, The Prince of Wales theatre, London. There were many differences from the original, especially in the stage design, which used a revolve and beautiful butterfly gauzes to help the flow from scene to scene.
Kathryn Evans played Rose, Alexander Hanson played Alex, Gary Bond played George, Lottie Mayor played Jenny and Karen Skinns played Giulieta. The cast also included Paul Bentley, Helen Viner-Slater, Alisdair Harvey, Nicola Dawn, Martin Callaghan, Russell Wilcox, Heather Davies, Nathan Harmer, Leslie Meadows, Gail-Marie Shapter, Myles Faraday, Kate Marsden, Natalie Holton, Angela Lloyd and Peter King. |
337_7 | A new UK tour began on 31 August 2007, the first production in 15 years. It starred David Essex as George Dillingham, along with Matt Rawle, Shona Lindsay, and Poppy Tierney. The production was directed by Nikolai Foster, with musical direction by Andrew J.Smith. It opened at the Theatre Royal, Newcastle upon Tyne, and toured for 36 weeks through 8 December 2007. Rawle was later replaced by Tim Rogers.
Following the UK tour, the musical played a limited engagement at The Joburg Theatre in Johannesburg, South Africa from May 22 to June 28, 2009. The touring production was re-directed by Nikolai Foster and starred Samantha Peo, Robert Finlayson, Angela Kilian and Keith Smith.
A London revival ran at the Menier Chocolate Factory from July 15 to September 11, 2010, with new direction by Trevor Nunn. The cast featured Dave Willetts as George, Rosalie Craig as Giulietta, Katherine Kingsley as Rose, and Michael Arden as Alex. |
337_8 | In 2012, a Dutch production toured the Netherlands, produced by Stage Entertainment.
The new Definitive script was staged at The Playhouse, Whitley Bay from February to March 2014. Produced by Tynemouth Operatic Society, it was the first non-professional staging in the UK with the new script and full orchestra. It was also the first staging in the world of the Definitive version worked on by Lord Lloyd Webber who pulled together various aspects of productions and tours over the years and created the show as he wishes to see it staged.
In July 2018, a new revival opened at the Hope Mill Theatre, Manchester.
In January 2019, the Hope Mill production transferred to the Southwark Playhouse.
Synopsis
Act One
At a train station in Pau, France in 1964, 34-year-old Alex Dillingham reflects on his love life over the past 17 years ("Love Changes Everything"). A woman (Giulietta Trapani) replies to him that "it's all in the past." |
337_9 | Flashing to 1947, Rose Vibert, a 20-year-old actress, complains that their production of The Master Builder is a flop. The producer, Marcel, tries to placate Rose by introducing her to a fan, 17-year-old Alex ("A Small Theatre in Montpellier"). Alex and Rose have a brief tryst at his uncle George's villa in Pau ("Seeing is Believing", "The House in Pau"). George Dillingham, in Paris with his mistress, Giulietta Trapani, an Italian sculptor, returns to his villa to see for himself what Alex and Rose are doing ("An Art Exhibition in Paris", "A Memory of a Happy Moment"). Rose is attracted to George, who is overcome when he sees Rose dressed in a gown belonging to his beloved late wife, Delia, also an actress, and remarks how much Rose resembles Delia ("In Many Rooms in the House at Pau"). |
337_10 | He advises Alex that all good things have to end, and that his interlude with Rose will be a memory. Alex insists that his relationship with Rose is real love ("On the Terrace"). George leaves, and Rose leaves to rejoin Marcel. Alex realizes that Rose had never taken him seriously ("At the House at Pau").
Two years later, Alex, now a soldier, visits his uncle in Paris, and is shocked to find that Rose is now George's mistress. He accuses her of chasing his uncle's money, but Rose protests that she really loves George. She admits that she did love Alex once, and the two, drawn to each other again, fall into bed ("George's Flat in Paris"). |
337_11 | The next morning, an agitated Rose tells Alex to leave before George returns. Alex, enraged, pulls out his gun. Rose throws a candlestick at Alex, and the gun goes off, shooting Rose in the arm, and she faints ("First Orchestral Interlude"). After George arrives, he and Alex each try to convince the other that the other is the right man for Rose. George wins the debate, insisting that Alex should begin a new life with Rose, and Alex finally agrees ("She'd Be Far Better Off With You"). George then heads to Venice to see his former mistress, Giulietta. However, Rose orders Alex to leave, having chosen to stay with George. Alex leaves, and Rose and Marcel follow George to Venice. Rose intends to confront Giulietta and reclaim George. In Venice, Giulietta and Rose bond while discussing George's foibles. They both express surprise that the other woman is not at all what they'd imagined. George returns and says that he has lost most of his money ("Stop. Wait. Please"). |
337_12 | Rose then asks George to marry her and he agrees. At the wedding, Giulietta shocks everyone by claiming her best man's rights and kissing Rose on the mouth. George, however, is delighted ("A Registry Office").
At "A Military Camp in Malaya", Alex receives a letter from Rose telling him that she married George, and they are expecting a child.
Act Two |
337_13 | Twelve years later at a theatre in Paris, Rose has risen to stardom and has a young lover, Hugo. Marcel and the rest of the cast celebrate the latest hit (A Month in the Country) ("Leading Lady"), but Rose insists that she must return to the villa at Pau and to her husband George and their 12-year-old daughter, Jenny. Marcel reintroduces her to the 32-year-old Alex ("At the Stage Door"). Rose is delighted and insists that he come with her to Pau. At the villa, Jenny is excited by the prospect of her mother's return. George is happy to see Alex, returning with Rose, and Jenny, who has heard much about him, meets him for the first time. Rose and George insist that Alex should stay with them ("Other Pleasures"). Meanwhile, in Venice, George's former mistress, Giulietta, ponders the meaning of stable, long-lasting love versus romantic infatuation ("There Is More to Love"). |
337_14 | Two years later, Alex suggests that Jenny needs a Paris education, which upsets Rose, who suspects that her daughter has developed an unhealthy crush on Alex ("The Garden at Pau (Version 2)"). That evening Jenny appears wearing Delia's gown, much as Rose did ("On the Terrace (Version 2)"); George happily dances with his daughter. Jenny tries to draw Alex into the dance, but Alex politely refuses ("The First Man You Remember"). Later, Jenny and Alex are left alone, and Jenny finally convinces Alex to give her the last dance. Rose catches Jenny clasping Alex in a very adult fashion, and Alex leaves. Jenny tells her mother that Alex is the first to make her feel like a woman. Rose confronts Alex, who admits to having feelings for Jenny, but insists that he would never harm her ("The Vineyard at Pau"). Later, Jenny tells Alex that she loves him. She begs him to be honest, then kisses him ("Up in the Pyrenees"). |
337_15 | George plans his wake, insisting that there should be dancing and fun. Rose tells him that he's bound to outlive them all ("George's Study at Pau"). At a circus in Paris, George, Rose, Alex, and Jenny are celebrating Jenny's fifteenth birthday ("Journey of a Lifetime"). George becomes agitated as he watches Jenny talking with Alex ("Falling"). Later, Alex puts Jenny to bed. Jenny tries to convince him that she's really in love with him, but Alex insists that they're just cousins. Jenny falls asleep, and Alex reflects that he knows he must not love her, but cannot help loving her. George overhears Alex and is enraged, suspecting the worst. He collapses, and Alex comes out of Jenny's room to find him dead ("Jenny's Bedroom"). |
337_16 | At George's wake, Giulietta gives a eulogy celebrating George's unconventionality and his belief in living life to the fullest ("Hand Me the Wine and Dice"). Giulietta and Alex join in the dancing and are attracted to each other, eventually trysting in a hayloft. Jenny spies on them, while Marcel tries to comfort the grieving Rose. Alex, alone with Giulietta, wonders how to end his relationship kindly with Jenny. He returns to the villa for one last confrontation. Alex tries to explain to Jenny that their relationship was unnatural. She reminds him that he was only seventeen when he met Rose, and that she is no younger than Shakespeare's Juliet ("On the Terrace (Version 3)"). |
337_17 | Rose bids Alex farewell, but then breaks down and begs Alex not to leave her. Alex, unsure of how to reply, leaves ("Anything But Lonely"). At the train station at Pau, as Alex and Giulietta wait for the train, Giulietta wonders what will happen when Jenny reaches legal majority in three years. Alex, unable to reply, reflects once more on how love changes everything ("It Won't be Long till Jenny's a Woman").
Song list |
337_18 | Act I
"Love Changes Everything" – Alex
"A Small Theatre in Montphile" – Rose, Marcel, Actress and Alex
"Parlez-vous Français?" – Crooner, Alex, Rose, Marcel, Waiter and Actors
"The Railway Station" – Alex and Rose
"Seeing is Believing" – Alex and Rose
"The House in Pau" – Alex and Rose
"An Art Exhibition in Paris" – George and Giulietta
"A Memory of a Happy Moment" – Giulietta and George
"In Many Rooms in the House at Pau" – Rose and Alex
"On the Terrace" – George, Alex and Rose
"Outside the Bedroom" – Rose and Alex
"Chanson d'Enfance" – Rose and Alex
"At the House at Pau" – Rose and Alex
"Everybody Loves a Hero" – Harkers and Ensemble
"George's Flat in Paris" – Elizabeth, Alex and Rose
First Orchestral Interlude – Alex, Elizabeth, Rose and George
"She'd Be Far Better Off with You" – George and Alex
Second Orchestral Interlude – Orchestra
"Stop. Wait. Please." – George, Giulietta and Rose
"A Registry Office" – Priest, Friends, George, Rose and Giulietta |
337_19 | "A Military Camp in Malaya" – Alex |
337_20 | Act II
Orchestral introduction to Act II – Orchestra
"A Theatre in Paris" – Marcel, Rose, Actress and Hugo
"Leading Lady" – Marcel, Rose, Alex and Hugo
"At the Stage Door" – Rose and Alex
"George's House at Pau" – Jenny and George
"Other Pleasures" – George, Jenny, Rose and Alex
"A Cafe in Venice" – Giulietta
"There is More to Love" – Giulietta
"The Garden at Pau" – George, Jenny, Rose and Alex
"Mermaid Song" – Jenny, Alex and George
"The Country Side Around the House – Orchestra
"The Garden at Pau (Version 2)" – Jenny, Alex and Rose
"On the Terrace (Version 2)" – George, Hugo, Alex, Rose and Jenny
"The First Man You Remember" – George, Jenny and Alex
"The Vineyard At Pau" – George, Rose, Alex, Jenny, Hugo and Workmen
"Up in the Pyrenees" – Jenny and Alex
"George's Study at Pau" – George and Rose
"Journey of a Lifetime" – Chanteuse, Ensemble, George, Rose, Alex and Jenny
"Falling" – Alex, Jenny, Rose and George |
337_21 | "Jenny's Bedroom in Paris" – Alex, Jenny, George, Rose and Hugo
"Hand Me the Wine and the Dice" – Giulietta, Chorus, Alex, Jenny, Rose, Hugo and Marcel
"A Hay Loft" – Giulietta and Alex
"On the Terrace (Version 3)" – Alex, Jenny and Rose
"Anything But Lonely" – Rose
"It Won't be Long till Jenny's a Woman" – Giulietta and Alex |
337_22 | Note: Although most of the musical is sung, not all the parts that are sung are titled songs; some are simply sung-through scenes with minor amounts of dialogue.
Recording
The two-disc original cast recording of the London production preserved the bulk of the score with some edits made for reasons of length. A 2005 remastered edition restored all the material cut from the original release.
When the musical opened, the song "The First Man You Remember" was often performed on TV, the impression being that it was between a couple of romantic lovers. However, in the show itself it is actually a father and daughter duet between George and Jenny. It was sung by Michael Ball and Diana Morrison in the CD single version.
The first single released from the musical was "Love Changes Everything", also sung by Ball. It was a success, peaking at #2 and staying in the UK singles chart for 15 weeks, and has since become his signature song.
Awards and nominations
Original Broadway production |
337_23 | Notes
References
'Aspects of Love' listing, "Really Useful" Official site
Anything But Lonely - Aspects of Love
Further reading
Andrew Lloyd Webber – Snelson, John (2004), Yale University Press, New Haven CT.
Andrew Lloyd Webber: His Life and Works'' – Walsh, Michael (1989, revised and expanded, 1997), Abrams: New York
External links
Ovrtur.com Listing
1989 musicals
West End musicals
Broadway musicals
Musicals by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Musicals based on novels
Sung-through musicals
Bloomsbury Group in performing arts
British musicals
LGBT-related musicals |
338_0 | Jack Good (7 August 1931 – 24 September 2017) was a British television producer, musical theatre producer, record producer, musician and painter of icons. As a television producer, he was responsible for the early popular music shows Six-Five Special, Oh Boy!, Boy Meets Girls and Wham!! TV series, the first UK teenage music programmes. Good managed some of the UK's first rock and roll stars, including Tommy Steele, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Jess Conrad and Cliff Richard.
Early years
Good was born in Greenford, London, England, and was brought up in Palmers Green. His father was a piano salesman in Bond Street. Jack Good attended Trinity County Grammar School and, after national service, studied philology at Balliol College, Oxford, where he became president of the university debating society and of the college drama society. |
338_1 | Initially intending to become an actor, he studied at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and worked as half of a comedy double act with Trevor Peacock, before joining the BBC to work on the magazine-format show Six-Five Special. Having recently been impressed by the movie Rock Around the Clock, he wanted music and a lot of movement. To get his way, Good had sets built, but shortly before the show started, they were wheeled out of the way, and he filled the space with the milling audience and performers. Television then was live, so once the programme started, Good kept it all as impromptu as possible. The running order was sketched out on Friday morning, then the only complete run-through happened immediately before transmission. The show launched the hand jive and Good even wrote an instruction book, Hand Jive at Six-Five. None of the Six-Five Special productions shows was recorded (due to the then-existing procedure of destroying and erasing already filmed programmes to |
338_2 | make room for new ones), but a low-budget film based on the show survives. |
338_3 | Independent Television |
338_4 | Although Good had given the BBC a show that was attracting 12 million viewers, he was being paid only £18 a week. He left for independent television and launched Oh Boy! in June 1958 for the ITV franchise holder Associated British Corporation (ABC). After trial broadcasts in the Midlands, it went national, in direct competition with Six-Five Special on Saturday evenings. Six-Five Special stuck to its mix of rock, jazz, skiffle and crooners, but Good was in his rock 'n' roll element with Oh Boy! The programmes were broadcast from the Hackney Empire, London, and made a star of Cliff Richard, as well as showcasing Billy Fury in several editions. Oh Boy! was non-stop rock and roll. Each show was 26 minutes, and no song lasted more than a couple of minutes. When ITV replaced the show on 12 September 1959 with Boy Meets Girls, people wondered whether Good had lost his touch. He later claimed his wife persuaded him that rock 'n' roll was on the way out and to adopt a more middle of the road |
338_5 | approach. |
338_6 | In the early 1960s, he wrote a column for Disc, a weekly UK pop magazine. He appeared on numerous TV shows such as The Monkees plus Hogan's Heroes and produced the rarely seen television special 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee starring the Monkees.
Shindig!
In 1964, he made a one-off programme Around the Beatles, but regular rock 'n' roll television had disappeared from British screens apart from Ready Steady Go, which made heavy use of Good's technique of building excitement and interest by allowing the audience to mill round the singers. |
338_7 | Good championed the rise of rhythm & blues and went to the United States in 1962, where he spent $15,000 of his own money to produce a pilot show for the American market. After trying for a year to persuade television executives to take on the show, he gave up and returned to the UK. A year later, a disc jockey gave the tape of the pilot show to an American television executive, who sent for Good. This led to the broadcasting of the first Shindig! show, first broadcast by the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) on 16 September 1964. Shindig! had a half-hour spot until January 1965, when it was extended to an hour, before switching to twice-weekly half-hour episodes in the autumn. |
338_8 | The show was the first to broadcast rock and roll on prime-time television. With its famous cast and flashy camera work, the show was a success. The integration of black and white artists, however, displeased some executives and affiliates, particularly those in the South. As a result, Darlene Love of the Blossoms recalled, "Even after Shindig! was a hit, [producer Jack Good] continued to get grief from the network about the 'color' of the show, and the more grief he got, the more the more black acts he booked." Occasional broadcasts were from London. Good fell out with ABC executives and walked out. The show could not survive without Good's dynamic influence and it was cancelled in January 1966 to make room for screenings of the new Batman series.
He was a subject of the British television programme This Is Your Life in March 1970 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews. |
338_9 | Music and musical theatre
Good played and recorded with Lord Rockingham's XI. Their hit singles included "Fried Onions" and the better known UK Singles Chart #1, "Hoots Mon". He also produced records by performers including The Vernons Girls, Joe Brown, and Jet Harris, and, most notably, Billy Fury's 1960 album The Sound of Fury, often cited as the first British rock and roll album.
He was a musical theatrical producer creating productions such as Good Rockin' Tonite. Oh Boy!, Elvis the Musical and Catch My Soul, which was also made into a film of the same name, released in 1974.
He had a cameo appearance as an uptight naval officer in the comedy film Father Goose (1966). |
338_10 | Art
Good converted to Roman Catholicism and devoted his time to Christianity and icon painting, including a wall painting portraying the television as the Devil. His paintings have been exhibited at the Rancho de Chimayó gallery alongside those of painter Antonio Roybal. He lived in New Mexico for many years, but returned to England to live in Oxfordshire.
Death
Good died of complications from a fall in Oxfordshire on 24 September 2017, at the age of 86.
References
Further reading
External links
Shindig produced by Jack Good
1931 births
2017 deaths
Converts to Roman Catholicism
English music managers
English record producers
English Roman Catholics
English television producers
People from the London Borough of Ealing
English expatriates in the United States
20th-century English businesspeople |
339_0 | Nicholas Timothy Clerk (28 October 1862 – 16 August 1961) was a Gold Coast-born theologian, clergyman and pioneering missionary of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society who worked extensively in southeast colonial Ghana. His father was the Jamaican Moravian missionary Alexander Worthy Clerk (1820 – 1906), who worked on the Gold Coast with the Basel Mission and co-founded in 1843 the Salem School, a Presbyterian boarding middle school for boys. N. T. Clerk was elected the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, in effect, the chief administrator and overall strategy lead of the national church organisation, a position he held from 1918 to 1932. A staunch advocate of secondary education, Nicholas Timothy Clerk became a founding father of the all-boys Presbyterian boarding school in Ghana, the Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School, established in 1938. As Synod Clerk, he pushed vigorously for and was instrumental in turning the original idea of a church mission |
339_1 | high school into reality. |
339_2 | Early life and education |
339_3 | Gold Coast |
339_4 | Clerk was born on 28 October 1862 at Aburi, about twenty miles north-east of the Ghanaian capital, Accra. N. T. Clerk was a second generation descendant of the historic Clerk family of Accra. His father was Alexander Worthy Clerk, a Jamaican Moravian missionary who was among the first group of West Indians, recruited by the Danish minister, Andreas Riis (1804–1854) of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society in 1843. Riis lived on the Gold Coast from 1832 to 1845. His mother, Pauline Hesse (1831–1909) was from the Gold Coast, and was of Danish, German and Ga descent. His aunt was Regina Hesse (1832 –1898), a pioneer educator and school principal. He studied at Basel Mission primary and boarding middle schools in Aburi. During his basic school years, Clerk took subjects in reading, writing, arithmetic, biblical studies, history, geography, science, music and general religion. This was followed by pedagogy and theology training at the Basel Mission Seminary, now the Presbyterian |
339_5 | College of Education, Akropong, in the state of Akuapem, 32 miles (51 km) north-north-east of Accra where he showed strong interest in Christian missionary work and stayed until the end of 1883. He was described by his biographer, the Swiss German church historian and theologian, Hans Werner Debrunner, as "a sturdy lad who had inherited his father's intelligence...and was by far the best student" at the Akropong seminary. The Basel missionaries founded the Akropong seminary in 1848 as the second oldest higher educational institution in early modern West Africa after Fourah Bay College, established in 1827. Nicholas Clerk spent his summers helping the German Huppenbauer missionary family household at Aburi. In 1884, Mrs. Huppenbauer gave birth to a baby, Carl. Nicholas, together with others assisted in the care of the baby while Mrs. Huppenbauer underwent emergency surgery to amputate a gangrene-afflicted leg, performed by Dr. Mahly, an ethnologist and a linguist, who used a hand saw, |
339_6 | a bread knife and silk thread for the procedure. After a short period of recovery, the Huppenbauer family returned to Germany with Nicholas Clerk who was about to continue his seminary studies in Europe. |
339_7 | Germany and Switzerland |
339_8 | Nicholas Clerk spent a year (1884 – 1885) in Schorndorf, about 42 miles (26 km) east of Stuttgart, Germany, learning Latin, Greek and Hebrew and mastering German while living with and studying under the award-winning German philologist, Johann Gottlieb Christaller who had earlier been influential in the translation of the Bible into the Twi language with the help of Akan linguists and missionaries, David Asante, Theophilus Opoku, Jonathan Palmer Bekoe and Paul Staudt Keteku. Christaller was a two-time recipient (1876; 1882) of the most prestigious linguistics prize, The Prix Volney, awarded since 1822, by the Institut de France "to recognize work in general and comparative linguistics." While living in Germany, Clerk assisted Christaller in completing some of his works in the Twi language. With the aid of a bursary awarded by the Basel Mission, Clerk then pursued further studies at the Basel Mission Seminary (Basler Missionsseminar) between August 1885 and July 1888, where he |
339_9 | received advanced instruction in theology, philosophy and linguistics, with special emphasis on philology. His theology courses included dogmatics, homiletics and catechesis. Clerk was the third African to be educated in Europe by the Basel Mission after the Americo-Liberian pastor, George Peter Thompson, an 1842 alumnus and the native Akan missionary, David Asante who had earlier completed his training in 1862. The Basel mission also had a holistic and rigorous skills-based approach to educating its students. This was geared towards teaching them the survival know-how to especially endure harsh terrains during Christian missionary fieldwork. In this regard, in addition to his integrated classical education, N. T. Clerk received practical training in geography and cartography, botany, rudimentary civil engineering as well as basic natural science, medicine, anatomy and surgery. At Basel, Clerk suffered a nervous breakdown halfway through his studies but recovered quickly. He passed |
339_10 | his final examinations, was consecrated in the Basel Minster as a missionary on 5 July 1888 and shortly thereafter, ordained a minister at Korntal, situated at the northwestern border of Stuttgart of the German state of . Briefly transiting in Liverpool in August 1888, he arrived in his homeland, two months later, in October 1888. |
339_11 | Missionary work
Clerk's first station was at Anum, on the banks of the Volta River, about 50 miles (80 km) inland, where he arrived in October 1888. In August, 1890 he left Anum to start a mission station in the State of Buem in what is now the Volta Region of Ghana. He chose Worawora, more than 110 miles (176 km) from the coast, as his headquarters. In Worawora, he built a school, a chapel, an administrative office and a house for himself. He also constructed a water well for the Worawora community. In August of the 1891 he left Anum to establish a mission station he worked in at Boradaa in the Buem area and later became the principal evangelist there. In January 1894, Clerk was a delegate of the Synod of the Basel Mission held on the coast. |
339_12 | N. T. Clerk preached against human sacrifice, persecution of albinos, witch-hunt, oppression of widows and orphans, infanticide, specifically, superstitious killing of twins as well as ritual servitude and slavery, child labour and trafficking. He tried to encourage parents to send their children, including the girl-child, to school. He also tried to persuade adults to join the church, but adherence to the practice of polygamy (which was opposed by the Christian Church) made his work difficult. He had come to Buem at a time when it was still independent of either German or British rule, and when inter-tribal wars were not uncommon. The younger generation wanted him to side with them in community disputes with their elders. However, Clerk remained neutral, infuriating the youth who refused to cooperate with him In spite of many challenges, the Worawora mission station was making modest progress by 1898. In 1899, when the inhabitants moved from the hill to the valley, Clerk followed |
339_13 | them, and established a new mission station. Buem had then become a part of the German Togoland, conditions of peace prevailed, and Clerk's work had become easier. Before the forcible German takeover of Buem, the inhabitants had wanted Clerk to persuade the British to annex the area, while the German administration, based in Lomé on the coast, had sent a messenger to him to ask him to persuade the people of Buem to become German subjects, but he had refused to take sides based on his personal conviction and the apolitical code of conduct for a Basel missionary at the time which required that he remained neutral in all issues relating to colonial governance. |
339_14 | With a family to support, Clerk struggled to live on his meagre £10 monthly stipend, and occasionally felt that he should seek a more lucrative post. Dr. Gruner, the German district commissioner at Misahohé, nearly 50 miles (80 km) to the south in what is now the Republic of Togo, had heard of his plight, and in 1893 had written to him, offering him a permanent post in the civil service of the German administration with a starting monthly salary of 500 Deutsch marks. Nonetheless, Clerk once again refused to quit his mission job with the response that he considered the Basel Mission to be his "mother" and he cannot leave her side. Though he disliked the German way of treating Africans, and made them aware of it, he was still highly regarded by the Germans. |
339_15 | Under German rule, parents were obliged to send their children to school, and cleanliness as well as hygiene were strictly enforced. Clerk taught his converts to plant cocoa using more modern mechanised methods and his pioneering work in agriculture bore fruit years later. The German administration insisted that Ewe should be taught in the mission's schools instead of the Basel-preferred language of Twi. As a result, Clerk could not continue his work in Buem. In the 1904 (the year he left), the Basel Mission station was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Bremen Mission. |
339_16 | Clerk then moved to Berekum, near Sunyani, about 80 miles (128 km) northwest of Kumasi, in what is now the Brong -Ahafo Region of Ghana, and here he had intended to settle. The paramount chief however refused to grant him accommodation, and the inhabitants would not help him build a house. Nonetheless, the Rev. N. T. Clerk established the first congregation, in the Brong Ahafo Presbytery, the Berekum Congregation, in 1905 and was its first residential Minister. The Berekum Presbyterian District was founded in 1920. After nearly three lacklustre years and in the face of hostility, intimidation and poor health including a tapeworm infection, he was transferred to Larteh, just south of Akropong, where he found the work more pleasant, staying there as the resident district minister from 1907 to 1918. In an entrepreneurial drive and a practical approach to sustain their work, Clerk and several African Christian missionaries set up cocoa farms. With financial proceeds he received from his |
339_17 | personal farm enterprise at Adawso, a few miles to the west, he was able to give his children high-quality education and raise them to become responsible professionals in society: a Protestant minister, an architect, teachers, a nurse, a medical doctor and fashion designers. |
339_18 | An extensive collection of Nicholas Clerk's cartographic manuscripts and ethnographic reports, produced from his missionary work in numerous Ghanaian towns and villages, is housed at the Archives and Library of the Basel Mission / Mission 21 in Basel, Switzerland. |
339_19 | Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church
The European members of the Basel Mission, however, did not treat their African colleagues as adults, and kept them out of the church and mission administration with central decisions concerning the local church made in Basel, Switzerland. Clerk resented this paternalism, and felt that the Basel Mission on the Gold Coast should become operationally decentralized and Africanized and tailored more to the local context, a view which he communicated strongly to the European missionaries. The coming of the First World War (1914-1918) gave the African missionaries a chance to undertake heavier responsibilities, even though they had not been trained for them. When the Basel Mission was expelled from the Gold Coast in 1917 during World War I, the Free Church of Scotland led by the minister, A. W. Wilkie took over their work. |
339_20 | A Synod (a Presbyterian judicatory or polity, composed of members from all presbyteries within its geographic jurisdiction) and a Synod Committee were established. Clerk was elected the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast on 14 August 1918; his tenure of office, as effectively the chief administrative officer and de facto organizational leader of the wholly indigenous and self-governing African church was from 1918 to 1932. In his inaugural address, N. T. Clerk passionately argued for a secondary school for boys, a pitch which was eventually taken up by the church leading to the establishment of the Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School in 1938. Peter Hall, the son of John Hall, another Jamaican missionary was also elected the First Moderator of Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast in 1918. At the 1918 Synod held at the Christ Presbyterian Church, Akropong, Hall and Clerk authored the first constitution of the Ghanaian Presbyterian Church. At the Synod, the |
339_21 | church retained its eleven districts: Christiansborg (Osu), Abokobi, Odumase-Krobo, Aburi, Akropong, Anum, Kyebi, Begoro, Nsaba, Abetifi and Kumasi. At the 1922 Synod, the first five Presbyteries were created: Ga and Adangme; Akuapem and Anum; Agona and Kotoku; Akyem and Okwawu; Asante and Asante Akyem. Mission stations were opened at Aburi, Larteh, Odumase, Abokobi, Kyebi, Gyadam, Kwahu, Asante, Anum as well as the Northern territories including Yendi and Salaga. |
339_22 | Determined to succeed as an administrator, Clerk preached self-reliance and self-sufficiency, refusing to ask Missionary Societies abroad for funds This attitude was unpopular at home as the church was facing a financial crisis; while teachers could then earn good government salaries, Presbyterian pastors had to live on very modest stipends that the church could afford. Clerk's administration initially relied on sequestration for funding. He cooperated and collaborated with the Scottish missionaries after he had got over his initial suspicion of them. As Synod Clerk of the church, he emphasised the continued use of indigenous languages in church and school, and insisted on an unassuming and austere lifestyle. Clerk also attempted to forge unity between the Presbyterian church and the Evangelical Presbyterian Church with objective of forming a merger, the "United Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast" but his unification efforts proved futile. |
339_23 | In the 1926 Synod meeting opened by N. T. Clerk, at Abetifi, the church polity voted to adopt the name ‘The Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast’ later to become ‘The Presbyterian Church of Ghana’ after the country gained its independence from the United Kingdom in 1957. The change in name from the Basel Mission Church to the Presbyterian Church was in recognition to the complex history between the Scottish Presbyterian polity, the 1560 Scottish Reformation and the pivotal role the City of Basel in Switzerland played during the Protestant Reformation. After the Basel Missionaries were permitted to return to the Gold Coast in 1926, they cooperated with their Scottish colleagues, working together in the renamed and independent Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast. In that same year, 1926, Clerk returned to Basel as the church's delegate, and was able to dispel any notions in missionary circles that the Presbyterian Church had forgotten its roots and its debt to the Basel Mission. |
339_24 | In this context, the church's logo is an expression of the "triple heritage" of missionary epochs in the formation of the Ghanaian Presbyterian church, representing the efforts of the Basel Europeans, the Moravian West Indians and the Scottish Presbyterians. This coming together of the three main missionary eras to forming one entity is captured in the church's motto, "That they all may be one."
The Synod took place biennially between 1918 and 1950, after which it was organised on a yearly basis. Furthermore, from 1918 to 2000, the Ghanaian Presbyterian Church operated the Synod system. At the 2000 Abetifi Synod, the Church switched to the General Assembly system, with the first General Assembly held in Navrongo in 2001. |
339_25 | Nicholas T. Clerk also attended the International Missionary Council (IMC) conference from 14 to 20 September 1926 held in Le Zoute (Het Zoute) in the municipality of Knokke-Heist in the Belgian province of West Flanders, on the theme "The Christian Mission in Africa". The event brought together clergymen, missionary educationalists, medical experts and consultative members from the global academic community to discuss a variety of topics, relating to formal education and holistic training on the African continent, with topics encompassing "the Christian ideal in education, policy curriculum, the education of women and girls, the medium of instruction, languages and literature, and religious education." The IMC “encouraged ecumenical cooperation in support of world evangelization," and had its roots in the 1910 World Mission Conference in Edinburgh – a meeting that established the International Review of Mission, subsequently leading to the formation of the International Missionary |
339_26 | Council in 1921 which was later incorporated into the World Council of Churches in 1961, as the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism. |
339_27 | Later years
After Clerk's retirement in 1933, he split his time between Adawso and his home in Christiansborg (Osu) and continued to be active in church work. He often gave sermons at the local chapel, Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, in Osu as a locum tenens minister, even at the age of 90.
The Government of the Gold Coast, on behalf of King George V and The Crown, awarded him a Certificate and a Badge of Honour, in June 1934 in recognition of his dedicated and distinguished service to his country and selfless contributions to education and nation building. The people of Buem invited him to visit them in 1937, a happy reunion he considered his "greatest moment".
Personal life |
339_28 | Nicholas Timothy Clerk married Anna Alice Meyer (born on 13 March 1873), a homemaker and teacher from Christiansborg (Osu) on 26 February 1891 at Aburi. The wedding ceremony was officiated by Clerk's own father, the Rev. A. W. Clerk. Meyer was described as a "mulatress" and the daughter of the Rev. Carl Meyer, an 1850 seminarist at Christiansborg and a minister of the Basel Mission who belonged to the Meyer family that had origins in Denmark and was associated with a trading company on the Gold Coast. Anna Meyer's mother was a member of the Ga people of Accra and hailed from Agbajajoohe, a hamlet near the Christiansborg Castle in Osu. A descendant of the Euro-African mercantile class, Anna Meyer's probable ancestors included Hartvig Meyer, the Danish Governor of the Gold Coast from 11 September 1703 to 23 April 1704, and Peder Meyer, the Danish colonial merchant who settled on the Gold Coast and flourished between the last decade of the eighteenth century and the first decade of the |
339_29 | nineteenth century. |
339_30 | She was educated at the now defunct all-girls boarding school, Basel Mission Girls’ School, established by Catherine Mulgrave in 1857, at Abokobi near Accra. Anna Meyer had spent half-a-year in Odumase with her uncle, Carl Quist/Karl Kvist (1843-99) who had previously been a catechist and a housemaster at the pastors' seminary. Carl Quist's son (Meyer's cousin) was Emmanuel Charles Quist (1880 – 1959), a barrister and judge who became the first African President of the Legislative Council from 1949 to 1951, Speaker of the National Assembly of the Gold Coast from 1951 to 1957, and Speaker of the National Assembly of Ghana from March 1957 to November 1957. |
339_31 | Anna Meyer also stayed with the German missionary Kopps family. Several of the Abokobi school's enrolled pupils came from the Euro-African Christian families of Christiansborg in Osu though the school was open to all. In this regard, the Abokobi school was quite similar to the Christiansborg Castle School, opened in 1722, as well as the Cape Coast Castle School, established in the eighteenth century by the Reverend Thompson of the Anglican Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) associated with the Church of England. The castle schools were originally approved by the European Governors to baptise and educate the male Euro-African children of European men and Gold Coast African women. These children later became clerks and soldiers in the colonial civil service. |
339_32 | Nicholas and Anna Clerk had nine children: Paulina Ruth (Mrs. Tagoe), Alexander Worthy (died in infancy), Carl Henry, Kate Hedwig (Mrs. Odonkor), Caroline Rebecca (Mrs. Quartey), Theodora Louisa (Mrs. Hall), Jane Elizabeth, Theodore Shealtiel and Matilda Johanna Clerk.
Within a year of his retirement, Clerk's wife, Anna Alice died suddenly on 2 August 1934 from a heart attack at their home in Adawso. Like his father, A. W. Clerk, N. T. Clerk was a polyglot; he read, wrote and spoke English, Ga, German and Twi fluently. |
339_33 | Selected writings
Clerk, N. T. and Christaller, J. G. (1890), "Neue Reise in den Hinterländen von Togo, nach Nkonya, Buem, Obooso, Salaga, Krakye, 2. Dezember 1889 bis 5. Februar 1890," Mitteilungen der geographischen Gesellschaft für Thüringen zu Jena, vol. IX, pp. 77 – 98 [An account of the northern Volta of the Gold Coast, written entirely in German in the "Missionsgeorgraphischer Teil" of the periodical, Journal of the Geographical Society of Thuringia]
Clerk, N. T. (1943), "The Settlement of West Indian Emigrants on the Gold Coast under the Auspices of the Basel Mission 1843-1943 - A Centenary Sketch," Accra |
339_34 | Death and funeral
He died of natural causes at his home in Osu, Accra, two months before his ninety-ninth birthday, on 16 August 1961. A large crowd was present to mourn him at his funeral service held at the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu. His remains were interred in the Basel Mission quarter (section) of the Osu Cemetery (formerly known as the Christiansborg Civil Cemetery) in Accra. |
339_35 | Memorials and legacy |
339_36 | In appreciation of his contributions to education, the Government of the Gold Coast honoured him by naming two streets in Ghana after him: The Reverend Nicholas Timothy Clerk Road in Worawora and the Clerk Street in Osu, Accra. A boarding house, Clerk House at the Presbyterian Boys' Secondary School (PRESEC, Legon) was named in his honour, in recognition of his selfless service to the church and the founding of a school that became synonymous with academic excellence and highly regarded alumni. The "N. T. Clerk Congregation" in the Volta Presbytery of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana was named in his honour for the evangelical work he did in the Worawora area. The Rev. N. T. Clerk Memorial International School, Worawora was also named in his memory. A roundabout and a church in Buem were also named in Nicholas Clerk's honour. The Presbyterian Church today has instituted "Presbyterian Day" also "Ebenezer Day", a special Sunday designated in the church almanac to celebrate the arrival |
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