John Hope Smith was an English Colonial Head of the Gold Coast

Gold Coast (British colony)

The Gold Coast was a British colony on the Gulf of Guinea in west Africa that became the independent nation of Ghana in 1957.-Overview:The first Europeans to arrive at the coast were the Portuguese in 1471. They encountered a variety of African kingdoms, some of which controlled substantial...

 (now Ghana

Ghana

Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...

) as Governor of the Committee of Merchants of the Gold Coast from 19 January 1817 until 27 March 1822.

"Respectably born and educated", John Hope Smith, aged fourteen, was placed by his father as a writer at Cape Coast Castle

Cape Coast Castle

Cape Coast Castle is a fortification in Ghana built by Swedish traders. The first timber construction on the site was erected in 1653 for the Swedish Africa Company and named Carolusborg after King Charles X of Sweden. It was later rebuilt in stone....

. He was appointed to be Governor in Chief of the Gold Coast aged 30. Disagreements with Charles MacCarthy

Charles MacCarthy (governor)

Brigadier-General Sir Charles MacCarthy KCMG was an Irish-born soldier who served in the French, Dutch and British armies, and was a governor of various British territories in West Africa....

 led to his resignation. A cold caught in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

led to his early death aged forty-four.