Noah Arthur William Cox-George

Dr. Noah Arthur William Cox-George, also known as N. A. Cox-George or Professor "Willie" (June 15, 1915 – November 12, 2004), was a Sierra Leonean economist and academic whose work, Finance and Development in West Africa: The Sierra Leone Experience, was one of the early works that examined and detailed the economic history of a former British West African Colony.

Early life

Cox-George was born on June 15, 1915 in Degema, Nigeria, to Sierra Leonean parents, Noah Obediah Collingwood George and Rosabel Abigail Regina George (née Cox). Noah Obediah George was a civil servant of Nova Scotian Settler descent. The George family had been among the 1,131 black American colonists who had founded the second colony of Sierra Leone and the settlement of Freetown in March 1792. Cox-George grew up in Freetown and attended the Government Model, before proceeding to the CMS Grammar School in 1930.

Education

Following his graduation from the Grammar School, Cox-George was employed as a clerk in the Post and Telecommunications Department in Freetown. He would proceed to the London School of Economics (LSE) where he would study and obtain second-class honours in 1946. Cox-George then completed his M.S.c at LSE, before proceeding to Oxford University and completing his doctorate in 1954.

Career as an academic

Following the completion of his graduate studies, Cox-George proceeded to Fourah Bay College, where he helped to set up the economics department and was a senior lecturer and dean. Between 1961 and 1964, Cox-George proceeded to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, where he was instrumental in setting up the Department of Economics and served as the Head of the Department of Economics. He established himself as an eminent academic within Sierra Leone and the USA and proposed a political development plan that would include a bicameral legislative chamber that would represent both the Colony of Sierra Leone and the Protectorate during the pre-independence era.

Personal life

Cox-George married Rachel Ademike Biola Wright (August 5, 1933 – October 27, 2005) and the couple had children: Luba Bonita Alcestis, Siegfried Amadeus Maynard, Beryl Effuah Zorah and Christabel Isadora Richenda.

Death and legacy

Cox-George died on November 12, 2004, aged 89, and was survived by his wife, Rachel and children. Rachel Cox-George died a year later in 2005, aged 72.

Sources

• Contemporary Authors Biography: Noah Arthur William Cox-George
• Walker, James, The Black Loyalists: The Search for a Promised Land in Nova Scotia and Sierra Leone, 1783–1870, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992).