Macormack Charles Farrell Easmon, Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, popularly known as M.C.F. Easmon or "Charlie", was born in Accra in the Gold Coast, where his father John Farrell Easmon, a prominent Creole doctor, was working at the time.
Background
Macormack Charles Farrell Easmon was born on 11 April 1890 in Accra, Gold Coast, to Doctor John Farrell Easmon and his wife, Kathleen Annette Easmon (née Smith). Macormack Easmon descended from prominent Sierra Leonean families and had numerous ancestors who distinguished themselves in the civil service and medical field
Education
Easmon was educated for six months at the Content Management System Grammar School in Freetown and later at Colet Court School, the preparatory school for Street Paul"s Preparatory School in London. He went on to attend Epsom College in Surrey. After graduating in 1907, Macormack Easmon was awarded a scholarship to study medicine at the Medical School of Saint Mary"s Hospital in London.
After a distinguished academic career, Easmon qualified in medicine and surgery in 1912, and in the following year passed the examination of the London School of Tropical Medicine.
Career
Easmon was named "McCormack" or "MacCormac" after his great-grandfather John MacCormac, who was the uncle of Doctor William MacCormac. Doctor John Farrell Easmon (1856-1900) was a prominent Sierra Leonean doctor with a distinguished medical career who was the first West African to serve as Chief Medical Officer of a British West African territory. The Easmon family descended from the original settlers of the Freetown Colony, the Nova Scotian Settlers.
Through his maternal lineage, Doctor J. F. Easmon was descended from the MacCormac family and was a nephew of Sir William MacCormac.
Kathleen Annette Smith (1870-1951) was the daughter of William Smith Esq. and Anne Smith (née Spilsbury). William Smith Junior. was the son of Judge William Smith, a Yorkshireman who settled on the Gold Coast and was a judge in the Mixed Commissionary Court in Freetown.
Anne Spilsbury was the daughter of Joseph Green Spilsbury and Hannah Carew. J. G. Spilsbury"s father was Doctor George Green Spilsbury, a distant relative of Bernard Spilsbury, and Elizabeth "Betsy" Fowler, a Jamaican Maroon woman.
Hannah Carew was the daughter of Thomas and Betsy Carew, both Liberated Africans.
Easmon was also instrumental in the Monuments and Relics Commission alongside other Sierra Leoneans such as Doctor Ernest Jenner Wright and Wilmot A. Dillsworth, a Freetown city town clerk. Easmon worked relentlessly to acquire worthy exhibits for the museum and to set up attractive displays. He also hosted a popular radio programme called Sierra Leone in Retrospect.
In 1954, Doctor Easmon was awarded the Order of the British Empire (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).
Through his mother, Easmon was the nephew of Adelaide Casely-Hayford.
Membership
As a member of the Sierra Leone Society, he spearheaded the founding of the Sierra Leone Museum in 1958 and became its first curator.