William Vivour

Who is William Vivour?

William Allen Vivour was a native of Fernando Po, Spanish Guinea, who was the most successful 19th-century planter owning a substantial amount of farmland on the island. He is part of a prominent Fernandino Krio family.

By the 1880s Vivour employed a massive labor force of men from diverse ethnic origins recruited from the Biafran and beyond. They were from Loango; the lower Guinea coast; Accra; and Grebo Kruboys from Cape Palmas and the Windward Coast. Vivour also recruited ethnic Bassa and ethnic Bubi. He also employed artisans from Accra who served as coopers, carpenters and smiths.

In his honor, a 40-foot-high, $600 monument imported from Liverpool, England, was erected in a Protestant cemetery near the Krio settlement Clarence Cove on the island during the late 19th century.