Frances Herman Gow was born in 1887 in Cape Town, the son of a Coloured mother and an Afro-American father.  He was educated in America and became a Bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Africa in 1956. For six years in the 1920s and 1930s he was principal of Wilberforce Institute in Evaton. He was later a member of the Coloured Advisory Council.Gow was sent after high school to the United State were he earned degrees at Wilberforce and Miami universities in Ohio,and a Doctorate of Divinity from Morris Brown University in Atlanta,Georgia.He enlisted in the American army in World War One and fought inFrance,then returned to the U.Sand taught music at Tuskegee Institute until 1925.

On his return to South Africa,Gow was appointed headmaster of Wilberforce Institute in Evaton near Vereeniging,an AMEschool founded by Charlotte anmd Marshall Maxeke,also becoming pastor of Evaton's AMEchurch.In 1934,Gow return to CT to head Bethal AME Church in Distric Six,which include a large primary school where George Golding was the headmaster.

References

Gerhart G.M and Karis T. (ed)(1977).|Gail M. Gerhart, Teresa Barnes, Antony Bugg-Levine, Thomas Karis, Nimrod Mkele .From Protest to Challenge 4-Political Profiles (1882-1990) http://www.jacana.co.za/component/virtuemart/?keyword=from+protest+to+ch... (last accessed 12 December 2018)

Collections in the Archives