Nicholas Timothy Clerk (28 October 1862– 16 August 1961) was a Gold Coast theologian, clergyman and pioneering missionary of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society in southeast colonial Ghana.

His father was the Jamaican Moravian missionary and teacher, Alexander Worthy Clerk (1820 – 1906),who worked extensively on the Gold Coast with the Basel Mission and co-founded in 1843 the Salem School, a Presbyterian boarding middle school for boys. Born on the Gold Coast, N. T. Clerk was elected the first Synod Clerk of the Presbyterian Church of the Gold Coast, in effect, the chief ecclesiastical officer, equivalent to the chief administrator, leading the overall strategic operations of the national Reformed Protestant 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 high school into reality.

Rev Nicholas Timothy 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 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, 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.

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 nineteenth century.

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.

In appreciation of NT Clerk’s 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 on 18 December 1828, selfless work and toil of the missionaries in the early years. The names of Nicholas Clerk and his father, Alexander Clerk appear on a commemorative plaque in the sanctuary of the Ebenezer Presbyterian Church, Osu, listing pioneering missionaries of the church, in recognition of their contributions to formal education and the growth of the Presbyterian faith in Ghana. ~ Source -Wikipedia