John Banks Elliott

During his tenure, he was Dean of the Diplomatic Corps, Head Commonwealth Ambassadors, Head African and Asian Diplomats, Head African Ambassadors Group. His appointment as Ambassador designate to the USSR was announced in Moscow on 8 January 1960 and commented on, in the Central Intelligence Agency bulletin of 12 January 1960.

His accreditation to the Soviet Union was directed by the last Governor-General of the Dominion of Ghana, the Earl of Listowel, William Francis Hare under the direction of Queen Elizabeth II. Ambassador John Banks Elliott presented his first credentials to the then Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet K.E. Voroshilov. On 1 July 1960, Ghana became an independent Republic within the Commonwealth, and the first President of the Republic of Ghana Kwame Nkrumah reaccredited his appointment, which he presented to the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council Leonid Brezhnev. Elliott turned 100 on 9 February 2017.

In 1950, his daughter Alice Ivy Elliott was born in Ghana. She was a ballet teacher and choreographer.

John Banks Elliott (9 February 1917 – 18 July 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat and statesman. He was Ghana's first Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Soviet Union, serving from 1960 to 1966.

Born in 1917 to Gerald Barton Elliott a Lawyer and Auctioneer at large and Mary Wood-Elliott a Sacristan, he was named after his grandfather who came to the Gold Coast as a timber merchant with attention to detail, one of his passions was photography, J. Banks Elliott's photographs of Gold Coast showing trading stations, factories, towns, markets and people taken in 1880-1890 is archived at the Bodleian Library of Commonwealth and African Studies, Rhodes House, Oxford.