Wesley College Ibadan in 1929 stood within an educational system undergoing profound change. Mission schools had become important centres of literacy and teacher preparation, Nigerian students were increasingly gaining professional qualifications, and organised youth movements such as Scouting were spreading through the country.
A formal group photograph captioned as having been taken at Wesley College, Ibadan, in 1929 presents a missionary figure surrounded by young men in Scout uniforms. The scene reflects an era when missionary institutions played an important role in education and character formation in southern Nigeria.
Wesley College was more than an ordinary school. It belonged to an early network of institutions established to train African teachers, catechists and other educated personnel at a time when mission organisations were expanding schools and churches across southern Nigeria.
Its history also intersects with the lives of two prominent Nigerians, Obafemi Awolowo, who attended the college in 1927, and Tai Solarin, who later trained there before becoming one of Nigeria’s most influential educationists and social critics.
Methodist Education and the Road to Wesley College
The origins of Wesley College can be understood within the longer history of Methodist activity in what later became Nigeria.
In September 1842, the Methodist missionary Thomas Birch Freeman arrived at Badagry with William and Mrs de Graft. Their arrival followed requests from African Christian returnees and local contacts who had appealed for missionaries and teachers.
African participation was an important part of the development of Christianity and formal schooling. African converts, returnees, teachers, interpreters and local leaders contributed to the establishment and expansion of churches and schools.
As Methodist congregations and schools expanded during the nineteenth century, the need for trained African personnel also increased. Missionaries could not personally staff every school or congregation. Teachers and catechists therefore became central to the growth of mission education.
EXPLORE NOW: Biographies & Cultural Icons of Nigeria
By the beginning of the twentieth century, specialised teacher-training institutions had become an increasingly important part of Nigeria’s educational landscape.
In 1905, the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society established a training institution in Ibadan. Educational historian A. Babs Fafunwa records that it opened with four students and was intended primarily to train teachers and catechists.
The institution grew gradually. By 1918, its enrolment had risen to about twenty, and it had become known as Wesley College, Ibadan.
This specialised beginning distinguished the college from the conventional secondary school familiar today. Its early purpose was closely connected with teacher education, Christian instruction and the preparation of African personnel for schools and mission work.
Teacher Training and an Emerging Professional Class
Institutions such as Wesley College helped expand the number of professionally trained Africans working within Nigeria’s developing educational system.
Teachers occupied a particularly important position. They were responsible not only for classroom instruction but also for introducing pupils to literacy, arithmetic and written communication. In many communities, teachers became influential members of a small but growing educated professional class.
The qualifications obtained through teacher-training colleges could also open doors beyond the classroom. Literacy, certification and professional experience provided pathways into journalism, administration, commerce, politics and other forms of public service.
Mission organisations expected their educational institutions to advance Christian teaching and discipline. Nigerian students, however, often used the education they received to pursue careers, political ambitions and intellectual interests extending far beyond missionary work.
Some later became major figures in public life.
The experience of Obafemi Awolowo at Wesley College provides a particularly revealing example.
Obafemi Awolowo’s Year at Wesley College
Chief Obafemi Awolowo described his experience at the college in Awo: The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo.
He entered Wesley College in January 1927 intending to undertake a four-year teacher-training programme leading to the Higher Elementary Teacher’s Certificate.
The financial arrangements were attractive. Awolowo recalled that tuition, books, accommodation, uniforms and travelling expenses during vacations were provided by the institution.
College life also demanded extensive physical and domestic labour from students.
Awolowo described a rigid internal hierarchy in which senior students exercised considerable authority over new arrivals. First-year students undertook tasks including collecting firewood, cutting grass, drawing water, washing plates and performing other forms of manual work.
He objected particularly to the practice under which a new student could be expected to act as a personal servant, or “fag”, for a senior student.
Awolowo remained at Wesley College for only one year rather than completing the intended four-year course.
His experience provides a valuable firsthand description of institutional life at Wesley College shortly before the period represented by the 1929 photograph.
Wesley College Ibadan in 1929 and the Growth of Scouting
The appearance of Scouts in a photograph associated with the college in 1929 belongs to the wider history of the Scout movement in Nigeria.
Organised Scouting had reached Nigeria well before that year. The Scout Association of Nigeria dates the beginning of Scouting in the country to 21 November 1915.
By the late 1920s, Scouting had become part of the wider educational and youth environment.
Scouting promoted ideals such as discipline, service, physical activity, practical skills, teamwork and organised citizenship. These values fitted closely with the emphasis on discipline and character formation found in many mission schools and teacher-training institutions.
READ MORE: Ancient & Pre-Colonial Nigeria
The photograph associated with Wesley College therefore evokes more than school life alone. It represents an era in which education often sought to shape behaviour and character as much as academic ability.
Uniforms, organised formations, manual labour, religious instruction and professional preparation all belonged to a wider approach to education that stressed order, service and responsibility.
The students who passed through institutions such as Wesley College would eventually apply their education in very different ways.
Tai Solarin and the Wesley College Tradition
Tai Solarin was another notable Nigerian associated with Wesley College.
Solarin attended the college during the 1930s and completed his teacher training there in 1936.
He subsequently worked as a teacher before serving with the Royal Air Force during the Second World War. He later pursued further studies in Britain and returned to Nigeria.
He became principal of Molusi College, Ijebu-Igbo, in the early 1950s. His increasingly secular approach to education brought him into disagreement with the institution’s governing authorities.
In 1956, Solarin established Mayflower School at Ikenne, where he developed an educational philosophy that emphasised hard work, self-reliance, practical labour and intellectual independence.
Solarin later became widely known as an educationist, writer, humanist and social critic.
His career illustrates one of the most striking consequences of mission education. A student could receive professional training within a Christian institution and later develop ideas quite different from the religious philosophy surrounding that education.
Wesley College provided training, but its students followed many different intellectual and professional paths.
More Than a Missionary College
Wesley College belonged to a missionary educational system, but its influence extended far beyond church work.
African students, teachers and families used formal education to pursue professional and personal ambitions of their own.
Education created possibilities beyond religious service. Teachers became journalists. Clerks entered administration and commerce. Educated Nigerians increasingly participated in political associations, newspapers, trade unions and constitutional debates.
By the middle of the twentieth century, some of the people shaped by mission and teacher-training institutions were playing important roles in Nigeria’s political transformation.
Awolowo’s career illustrates this development particularly clearly. The young man who left Wesley College after one year would later become a lawyer, nationalist politician, Premier of the Western Region and one of the leading figures in debates over Nigeria’s constitutional and political future.
Solarin followed another path. His training contributed to a lifelong commitment to education, but he eventually became famous for secular humanism, educational reform and criticism of corruption and authoritarianism.
Their contrasting careers demonstrate how education could encourage intellectual independence as well as professional advancement.
From Mission College to Wesley College of Science
The Wesley College name remains part of Ibadan’s educational landscape.
The Oyo State Government’s educational directory lists Wesley College of Science, Elekuro, in Ibadan South-East Local Government Area.
The modern institution operates within a very different educational and administrative environment from the Methodist teacher-training establishment of the early twentieth century. The continued use of the Wesley College name nevertheless preserves an important connection with Ibadan’s educational past.
The early Wesleyan Methodist training institution dates to 1905, when it began with a small number of students preparing for careers as teachers and catechists.
More than a century later, the Wesley College name continues to be associated with education in Ibadan.
Why the 1929 Image Still Matters
The importance of the photograph lies not only in the individuals pictured but also in the world it represents.
Wesley College Ibadan in 1929 belonged to a Nigeria in which missionary organisations still exercised major influence over formal education, while a growing generation of Africans was acquiring knowledge and qualifications that would transform the country’s social and political life.
The college was preparing teachers at a time when trained African educators were crucial to the expansion of schooling.
Scouting reflected contemporary ideas about discipline, public service and citizenship.
Students such as Awolowo showed that institutional authority could be questioned. Later students such as Solarin demonstrated how people educated within mission institutions could go on to develop very different philosophical and political outlooks.
Educational institutions in colonial Nigeria became spaces where religious teaching, professional training, social ambition and intellectual independence met.
Their influence extended into Nigerian public life long after students left their classrooms.
Conclusion
Wesley College, Ibadan, emerged from the Methodist educational movement at the beginning of the twentieth century. Founded as a training institution in 1905, initially with only four students, it helped prepare teachers and catechists for an expanding network of schools and churches.
By the late 1920s, when the photograph associated with Wesley College and its uniformed Scouts was taken, the college was part of a changing Nigerian society in which formal education was helping to create new professional and intellectual opportunities.
Obafemi Awolowo entered the college in January 1927 but left after one year of an intended four-year teacher-training course. Tai Solarin later trained at Wesley College and completed his studies there in 1936 before embarking on the educational career that eventually led to the establishment of Mayflower School.
EXPLORE: Nigerian Civil War
Their lives reveal the broader significance of Wesley College. The institution did not simply prepare teachers for Methodist schools. It participated in the formation of generations of educated Nigerians who would take their skills, ambitions and ideas into public life.
The enduring importance of Wesley College therefore lies beyond the missionary and uniformed Scouts captured in an old photograph. Its history belongs to the larger story of how education helped transform colonial Nigeria and contributed to the emergence of an increasingly confident African professional class.
Author’s Note
The story of Wesley College shows how educational institutions can influence society far beyond the original purpose for which they were founded. A Methodist college established to train teachers and catechists became part of a broader transformation that gave Nigerians new professional opportunities and greater access to public life. The experiences of Obafemi Awolowo and Tai Solarin illustrate different ways in which education could shape ambition, independence and leadership, while the 1929 image captures a period when schooling, discipline, service and citizenship were becoming increasingly important in Nigeria’s social development.
References
Obafemi Awolowo, Awo: The Autobiography of Chief Obafemi Awolowo. Cambridge University Press, 1960, Chapter 5, “Wesley College”.
A. Babs Fafunwa, History of Education in Nigeria. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1974.
University of Ibadan Repository, studies on the historical development of teacher education in Nigeria and the Wesleyan Methodist training institution in Ibadan.
University of Ibadan Repository, historical studies of Methodist missionary activity in Nigeria and the arrival of Thomas Birch Freeman and William and Mrs de Graft at Badagry in 1842.
Kayode Soyinka, “Obituary: Tai Solarin”, The Independent, August 1994.
Tai Solarin, Mayflower: The Story of a School. J. West Publications, 1970.
World Organization of the Scout Movement, historical account of the development of Scouting in Nigeria.
Oyo State Government, Educational Institutions Directory, entry for Wesley College of Science, Elekuro, Ibadan South-East.
