The J. B. Danquah Memorial Lecture Series was instituted in 1968 in memory of a foundation member of the Academy, Dr. Joseph Boakye Danquah, who died in prison in February 1965. J. B. Danquah was a lawyer, philosopher, scholar, novelist, dramatist, politician, and journalist.
The themes for the Danquah Memorial lectures were originally restricted to fields like law, history, philosophy, and literature, disciplines whose study occupied the greater part of J. B. Danquah’s academic pursuits. His Excellency W. B. Van Lare, a Foundation Member of the Academy, who at the time was Ghana’s High Commissioner to Canada, and had had a long and distinguished career at the bench, delivered the maiden Danquah Memorial Lecture in 1968. The lecture was on the topic, ‘The Law, Human Rights and the Judiciary’.
