George Peter Thompson

George Peter Thompson (1819–1889) was a Liberian-born educator, clergyman and pioneer missionary of the Basel Evangelical Missionary Society of Switzerland. He was also the first African to be educated in Europe by the mission and subsequently, the first African to be consecrated and ordained a Basel missionary. Thompson was part of the Basel Mission team led by Danish missionary, Andreas Riis that recruited 24 West Indian missionaries from Jamaica and Antigua in 1843, to aid the work of the society. Together with the Jamaican educator-missionaries, Alexander Worthy Clerk and Catherine Mulgrave, George Thompson was a co-founder and the first principal of the all boys’ middle boarding school, the Salem School, Osu, established in November 1843.