ABSTRACT
The emergence of educated elite has been limited in the study of a West Coast Family to a defined area of the west coast and a particular family; there are many similar investigations that could be made. It has been shown that in Fanti coastal towns, the innovating behaviour of the new elite was consistent during the nineteenth century with the exercise of influence in the traditional community, although ultimately a weakening of the association between chiefs and intelligentsia took place. The changing circumstances of colonialism turned Richard Brew into a critic rather than a co-operator; traditional rank was used here for the purpose of impressing upon the British that the Fanti chiefs and the educated elite were at one in their demands for reform. From the standpoint of Fanti society, the nineteenth-century Brews thus belonged to the category of 'scholars' much respected by the illiterate.
