Some Members Of Chinery Family
The neighbourhood of Adeinkpo, also referred to as British Accra, came to life on the morning of Wednesday, November 29 as the Chinery clan gathered to celebrate the 154th anniversary of the birth of their family patriarch – Arthur Robert Chinery of blessed memory.
A full requiem mass was led by Very Rev Cannon Andrew Torgbor of the Holy Trinity Cathedral.
A roll call of departed family members was very solemn and candles lit in their memory as some shed tears.
Cecil Owusu Addo, president of the fourth generation of Arthur Chinery’s descendants, delivered an address titled ‘Chinery: Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow’.
In a brief history, Mr Addo stated that the Chinery family entered West Coast of Africa in the year 1859 when Arthur Chinery and his brother David Chinery arrived at Barthurst, Gambia, with a trading firm named Parker Foster & Co.
David Chinery, due to the heavy mortality rate among the Europeans then in West Africa, decided to return home but Arthur Chinery moved eastwards, arriving in Jamestown, Accra of Gold Coast in 1860.
Arthur customarily married Kwama, received by hand of her uncle John Dodoo ‘Kremekuku’, a prosperous merchant prince and gave birth to Arthur Robert Chinery on November 29, 1863.
Arthur Robert Chinery joined the government service and was placed in the Customs and Excise Department as a supervisor port officer at Accra Port for 25 years.
His office is where the light house now stands. Arthur Robert Chinery, the patriarch of the Chinery family of the Gold Coast (Ghana), was resourceful, sharp-witted and an indefatigable person, a civil servant and later an estate agent with wide experience.
He was a highly respected church leader, trusted by his European and African colleagues and many people.
His motto was ‘honesty is the best policy’ and by his enterprise and hard work at death, left several houses, namely Alata, Adedenkpo, Korle-Gonno to shelter his issues. He passed away in Accra in 1954.
By Christopher Kotei