John Francis was, like Bernard Bull, a British academic who was on the staff of the Faculty of Art at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) in the early 1970s, but there the similarity ended. Whereas Bernard was a painter and sculptor and an archetypal bohemian artist employed in the fine arts department, John was an industrial ceramist and head of the ceramics section of the industrial art department. Tall, blond and clean-shaven, John was faced with the task of getting a fully functioning ceramic production unit up and running, giving students the hands-on experience of following their creations from raw clay to glazed product. finished. During the few years that he spent in Kumasi, John Francis fulfilled his official duties and made many more lasting benefits for the university.

John Francis was a founding member of the Suame Product Development Group (SPDG), an informal team of KNUST academics who were inspired by Prime Minister Kofi Busia’s initiative to take an interest in Suame Magazine artisans in Kumasi, the informal industrial industry. largest in Ghana. area. Beginning in February 1971, the group began production engineering and roll weaving projects that were taken over by the Technology Consulting Center (TCC) when it became operational in January 1972. It was John Francis who designed the Logo for the SPDG , based on a traditional Adinkra cloth print symbol, which was later adopted by the TCC and became known throughout the international development community.

It was John Francis who brought Sosthenes Buatsi to the TCC in August 1973. Sosthenes graduated from the College of Art with a degree in metal product design. After graduation, he spent eighteen months gaining practical experience in Switzerland and returned with the hope of working at his old school. John Francis saw the potential in him in TCC and Sosthenes became the first manager of Suame’s Intermediate Technology Transfer Unit (ITTU) in 1980, and the first Ghanaian director of TCC in 1986.

John Francis not only supported the work of TCC but also benefited from their support. He relied on the TCC campus workshop to help him set up the ceramic production unit’s clay processing machines and high-temperature kilns. This job often involved manufacturing parts to repair or adapt equipment to the needs of the unit. When the TCC began assisting traditional glass bead makers in the villages of Dabaa and Asaman, northwest of Kumasi, in 1975, this close collaboration and the technical expertise of John and his colleagues facilitated the introduction of the use of pigments. ceramics.

John Francis arrived in Kumasi with his wife, Sheila, and their three children. Sheila was a great horsewoman, so she took over the KNUST Horse Society and turned it into a fully functioning organization. Sheila Francis bought horses at Kumasi Racecourse and encouraged other scholars to ride horses. She was soon hosting parties on campus most weekday afternoons and venturing into the surrounding bushland on Sunday mornings. Several small villages, located deep in the forest and far from any motor roads, were first started and later delighted in being visited by cohorts of mounted scholars; and when the gentlemen’s races were scheduled at the racecourse, Sheila, John, and his sons were often seen galloping in the lead.

After leaving Kumasi, John and Sheila set up their own pottery in a pleasant rural location on the Isle of Wight. Needless to say, there were plenty of acres of grass for the horses. Unfortunately, however, within a few short years, John met an eternal death. The work he did in Kumasi lasted much longer and he will long be remembered as one of those foreign pioneers who helped promote interest in grassroots industrial development at KNUST.