The Society

The Historical Society of Ghana was founded in 1951 under the auspices of leading scholars and nationalists such as John D. Fage, A. A. Kwapong, Albert Adu Boahen, J. B. Danquah, Kobina Sekyi, Nana Kobina Nketsia and others. Membership of the society is drawn from historians, archaeologists, linguists and ancillary disciplines, and includes university lecturers and Students from the five public Universities- University of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, University of Cape Coast, University of Education , Winneba, the University of Development Studies , Tamale and teachers in Secondary Schools and Training Colleges . The society ran a journal, Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana, which was the leading journal on Ghanaian history. It also published the Ghana Notes and Queries and Teachers Journal, which also served as a scholarly forum for secondary school history teachers. The society became defunct in 1983 in the general decline of scholarship due to economic decay. It was only revived in 2001. The revived Historical Society of Ghana has since then resumed publication of the Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana. It has also held widely publicized annual conferences under the themes:

• Abolition Conference in association with the Omohundhro Institute - 2007

• Roundtable Conference on Ghana's 50 years celebration (See reports) - 2006

• Linking the Present to the Past: Reflections on a half Century of Independence - 2005

• Tradition and Modernity in Ghanaian Urbanization – 2004

• Chieftaincy in Africa : Culture, Governance and Development – 2003

• History, our Heritage and National Development – 2002

Opening the 2004 annual conference, the Hon. Minister for Tourism and Modernization of the Capital, Jake Obetsebi Lamptey, encouraged the society to lend its expertise to the development of a viable tourist industry. At the Society’s 2005 annual conference the Hon. Minister in-charge of Tertiary Education, Ms. Elizabeth Ohene challenged the Society to play a more active role in documenting, preserving and interpreting the history of Ghana and Africa for the benefit of posterity.

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