Old Fourah Bay College, UNESCO, Freetown, Sierra Leone

Old Fourah Bay College, UNESCO, Freetown, Sierra Leone 

The Original Fourah Bay College building is located in the east end of Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. Fourah Bay College opened in 1827 as the first institution of higher learning in modern sub-Saharan Africa after the collapse of the one at Timbuktu. Until the Second War Fourah Bay College offered the only alternative to Europe and America for British colony West Africans who wanted a university degree.

The Original Fourah Bay College is a four-story structure built of dressed blocks of laterite. Sierra Leone’s first coloured Governor, Staff Sergeant Major William Fergusson laid the building’s foundation stone when its construction started in 1845. The building construction was supervised by the African American Reverend Edward Jones, who became the institution’s first principal. The Old Fourah Bay College is perhaps the single most influential institution in Africa in accounting for the penetration and acceleration of the spread of Western education on the continent.

The Original Fourah Bay College building was in regular use till the Second World War, when the college was temporarily moved outside Freetown for security reasons. After the war it became the headquarters of the Sierra Leone Government Railway; and later as a Magistrate court in the 1980. The building ceased to be in use in early 1990. The Original Fourah Bay College building was proclaimed a National Monument in 1955.

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