Nationalism and British Business

Abstract

From the late 1940s, the pace of political change in the Gold Coast was very rapid. Not all companies were as directly caught up in political developments as the merchant firms belonging to the Association of West African Merchants, but after the war management in all sectors found their activities affected by anti-colonial nationalism. Sir Gerald Creasy's proposals for the localization of the United Africa Company (UAC) were made within days of the Accra riots of February 1948, and by the end of March the Colonial Office was considering the ways in which the colony's import and retail trade might best be reformed. This chapter explores the ways in which British companies were affected by anti-colonial nationalism from c.1947. It also examines the impact of the eruption of anti-colonial protest in 1948 on the companies' relations with the colonial and imperial governments, and the consequences for British firms of both the introduction of African ministerial government in 1951 and of the development of nationalist politics between 1951 and 1957.