William Edward Maxwell

Sir William Edward Maxwell, KCMG was Governor of the Gold Coast, then a British colony, from 7 April 1895 – 6 December 1897.

Under his governorship the British declared war on the Asante Empire, the fourth Anglo-Ashanti War, known as the "Second Ashanti Expedition" in 1895.

An earlier Treaty signed by the Asantes in 1874, but whose terms were widely considered as absurd and unenforcable, was invoked by Maxwell. When the Asante King, Asantehene Agyeman Prempeh, could not meet the terms, Maxwell had him arrested, together with his mother, father, brother, uncles and a dozen advisors.^[1] They were later exiled to the Seychelles, not returning to the Gold Coast (now Ghana) until the 1920s.

References

 Carlyle, Edward Irving (1901). "Maxwell, William Edward". In Lee, Sidney. Dictionary of National Biography (1st supplement). 3. London: Smith, Elder & Co. p. 158.