Chapter D: O. M (1)

This Church Dedicated to ye Service of Almighty God was thrown downe
by ye dreadfull Hurricane of August ye 28th Anno Domini MDCCXII., and
was by ye Divine Assistance, through ye Piety and at ye expence of ye
Parishioners, more beautifully and substantially rebuilt upon its old
foundation in ye thirteenth year of ye Reigne of our most gracious
Sovereigne Queen Ann and in ye Government of his Excellency the Lord
Archibald Hamilton, in the year of our Lord MDCCXIV.

Matthew Gregory, Esq^r.
& Church Wardens.
Mr. Beaument Pestell.

Below this on another marble slab is the following inscription:

This tower was erected,
And the above Tablet removed from the inner Wall
In the year MDCCCXVII.
His Grace the Duke of Manchester Governor.
John Lunan, Francis Smith, Churchwardens.

When Long published his History in 1774, the church being without a tower, the congregation was “summoned by a small bell hung in a wooden frame erected in the churchyard.”

Hakewill (1821), one of the few artists who have ever seen the cathedral, calls it “an ancient brick structure of no exterior beauty.” In Roby’s time (1831) the walls were wainscoted, and the roof was coved and ornamented with circles, ovals, and lozenges. In 1843 the letters patent creating Aubrey George Spencer second bishop of Jamaica, created the parish church of St. Catherine the cathedral of the diocese. The chancel was restored and extended in 1853. A chapter was formed in 1899.

The church, which had fallen into disrepair, was restored in 1901, as is duly recorded on the tower, “in commemoration of the glorious reign of her most gracious Majesty Queen Victoria, 1837–1901.” Considerable damage was wrought by the earthquake of 1907, and a further restoration was completed during the year 1908.

On state occasions, such as the burial of the governor, the House of Assembly was wont to attend in a body; and the church was, from the taking of the island till the removal of the capital to Kingston in 1866, intimately associated with all the important events in the island’s history, being near both to the House of Assembly and the governor’s residence. Nearly all its celebrated personages were at some time or another within its walls, and many of them are buried within its precincts.

Of its monuments the most important are those to the Earl and Countess of Effingham (d. 1791); the wife of Sir Adam Williamson (d. 1794); and Dr. Brodbelt (d. 1795), all by Bacon; Sir Basil Keith (d. 1777), by J. Wilton, R.A.; the Countess of Elgin (d. 1842), by Sir John Steell; Colonel John Colbeck (d. 1682), who came out with Penn and Venables; William Nedham (d. 1746), four times elected speaker of the Assembly; William Selwyn (d. 1702), governor; Henry Cunningham (d. 1735–6), governor; Sir Thomas Modyford (d. 1679), governor; Elizabeth Modyford (d. 1694), wife successively of Samuel Barry and Sir Nicholas Lawes; Sir Thomas Lynch (d. 1684), governor; Samuel Long (d. 1683), the patriot who, with William Beeston, succeeded in maintaining the privileges of the island as against the restrictions attempted to be imposed by the Earl of Carlisle, acting on instructions from home; Peter Beckford (d. 1710), lieutenant-governor; Major-General James Bannister (d. 1674), at one time governor of Surinam.

When Sir William Trelawny died, the Assembly expended 1000 guineas on his funeral, but no monument or slab marks his last resting-place. Other governors who have died in the island and are without a monument are, the Duke of Albemarle, the Duke of Portland, Sir Nicholas Lawes, General Hunter and General Haldane; the bodies of the two first-named (as was that of Sir Basil Keith) were sent across the Atlantic for interment; but portions of Albemarle’s body were buried under the altar. Inchiquin was buried in the church, but there was no memorial of him until the present Lord Inchiquin erected a brass tablet in 1912.

The earliest monument is that to Catherine, wife of Sir Charles Lyttelton (January 1662).

The following plate is in the Cathedral:

FLAGON: The Rev. John Lindsay, D.D., Rector; Samuel Howell, James
Trowers, Esq., Churchwardens. From the old plate of St. Catherine,
Jamaica, 1685. Refashioned 1777. Maker’s name S. W., like that of
the maker of a pair of Candlesticks of the year 1759 in Trinity
College, Oxford (recorded by Cripps).

2 PATENS: On each—The Gift of Susannah Butler, widow, of St.
Catherine, Jamaica, 1702. Refashioned 1777. Maker’s name S. W.

2 PATENS (Small), with foot. The gift of Mrs. Jane Spencer to the
Altar of St. Catherine, Jamaica. Refashioned 1777. Maker’s name S.
W.

2 CHALICES: On each—The gift of Mrs. Jane Spencer to the Altar of St.
Catherine, Jamaica. Refashioned 1777.

FLAGON AND 2 CUPS AND 2 PATENS: With the year mark 1789. Maker’s name,
W. P.

1 FLAGON, 2 CHALICES AND 2 PATENS: On each—Presented by Sarah Cole to
Trinity Chapel, St. Catherine’s, Jamaica. Christmas, A.D. 1851.

PATEN (Small): The gift of Wm. G. Macfarlane, in memory of his sister,
Elizabeth E. Jackson, born October 8th, 1819, died Dec. 5th, 1854.

STRAINER SPOON: Year mark 1855. Maker’s name G. A.

It is to be regretted that the old plate of 1685 was refashioned in 1777.

The church at Spanish Town is the oldest foundation in the colony, dating from the year of the British occupation, 1655; the next oldest being St. Andrew (Halfway-Tree), dating from 1666, the Alley, 1671, and St. John’s Guanaboa Vale, which dates from 1699.

The Baptismal and Marriage registers date from 1668: the Burial from 1671.

It is interesting to note that one of the earliest bequests recorded in the island was that of Edward Morgan of July 14, 1674, of “his house for a parsonage house” in St. Jago de la Vega.

In April 1677, the Assembly gave “Thanks to Mr. Howser for his sermon; to be desired to say prayers in the House every morning between six and seven o’clock, who answered that he would give his attendance at that time. Every member not attending prayers to be fined 15d.”

In the following year the Assembly requested Mr. Howser “to say prayers every morning between 6 and 7 o’clock.”

The following is a list of the rectors. Since 1899 they have been _ex officio_ senior canons of the cathedral.

1664–1683—Rev. Henry Howser (d. Dec. 29, 1683). 1683–1700—Rev. Philip Bennett (d. Sept. 5, 1707). 1700–1702—Rev. James Cunningham. 1702–1703–4—Rev. William Alsop (d. Jan. 10, 1703–4). 1704–1720—Richard Tabor (d. April 6, 1720). 1720–1734—Rev. John Scott (d. Nov. 22, 1734). 1735–1748—Rev. Calvin Galpine (d. Aug. 20, 1748). 1748–1764—Rev. John Venn, B.A. (d. April 6, 1764). 1764–1773—Rev. Samuel Griffiths, A.M. 1773–1788—Rev. John Lindsay, D.D. (d. Nov. 3, 1788). 1789–1791—Rev. Alexander Cumine, D.D. (d. July 18, 1791). 1791–1808—Rev. Robert Stanton Woodham, M.A. 1808–1813—Rev. Isaac Mann. 1814–1822—Rev. William Vaughan Hamilton. 1823–1843—Rev. Lewis Bowerbank, A.M. 1843–1857—Rev. Samuel Paynter Musson, D.D. 1857–1864—Rev. G. J. Handfield, M.A. 1864–1868—Rev. Joseph Williams. 1869–1875—Rev. F. S. Bradshaw, LL.D. 1876–1891—Rev. Charles Frederick Douet, A.M. (afterwards Assistant Bishop). 1892–1900—Rev. Canon Edward Jocelyn Wortley. 1901–1904—Rev. Canon Reginald John Ripley. 1904–1908—Rev. Canon John Walton Austin. 1909– —Rev. Canon Samuel Purcell Hendrick, M.A.

Tabor is referred to in “The Groans of Jamaica.”

Of the Rev. John Venn, Bryan Edwards wrote an epitaph beginning:

Beneath this stone lies plain John Venn,
Neither the best, nor the worst of men;

and ending:

To sum in short—yet speak in full—
Our plain John Venn was blunt John Bull.

Lindsay was ordained in December 1753 in Conduit Street Chapel, Hanover Square, London; he was presented to the rectory of St. Thomas-ye-Vale, Jamaica, in 1768, and was made rector of St. Catherine in 1773; and he was made D.D. by the University of Edinburgh in the same year. He officiated at Spanish Town till his death in 1788. The sermon which he preached at the funeral of Sir Basil Keith, the governor, in 1777, was published. In 1770 he petitioned the House of Assembly to assist him in publishing his collection of “drawings of the most curious and beautiful plants, trees, fruits, birds, insects, fishes,” but received but cold comfort—the House resolving that the drawings “will merit the attention of the curious in natural history.” In 1781 and 1783 he published in “The Gentleman’s Magazine,” “An Examination of the Hypothetical Doctrine of Waterspouts, in Opposition to the Ingenious Speculations of Dr. B. Franklin, of Philadelphia, F.R.S.,” which was reprinted in “The Journal of the Institute of Jamaica,” for December 1897. It is curious that one of his illustrations represents the church of St. Catherine with a tower and spire, for it had not even a tower in 1781. In the Bristol Museum are four volumes of coloured drawings of Jamaica plants and animals made by Lindsay from 1758 to 1771, many of them accompanied by descriptive matter.

The Rev. Robert Stanton Woodham was rector in Nugent’s time, and is frequently mentioned in Lady Nugent’s Journal. She appears to have formed no very high opinion of the clergy of the island.

Dr. Musson, who died in 1857, is the only rector whose resting-place is recorded in the church.

Dr. C. F. Douet was for many years assistant bishop of the diocese—1888–1904. He died in England in 1905. The stained glass window was erected to his memory in 1914, at the same time as the Children’s window over the north door.

After the Rodney memorial, the monument in the cathedral, Spanish Town, erected to the memory of the =Earl of Effingham=, governor of Jamaica, and his countess, is the most important and the most beautiful work by Bacon in Jamaica. It is of marble, and bears the legend “J. Bacon, sculptor, London, 1796.”

On a base stands an urn, decorated with festoons of flowers, and bearing, under an earl’s coronet, the arms of Effingham: Quarterly, 1st gules on a bend between six cross crosslets fitchée argent, an escutcheon or, bearing a demi-lion rampant pierced through the mouth with an arrow within a double tressure flory counterflory of the first. 2nd gules three lions passant guardant in pale or (England) with a label of three points. 3rd checky, or and azure. 4th gules a lion rampant argent. In fess point of the shield a mullet for difference. Supporters two lions rampant. Motto, _Virtus mille scuta_. Above the urn, hanging on an obelisk which rises from the base of the monument, are represented the Chancellor’s seal, the mace and sword in saltire, and the usual emblematic scales.

On one side of the monument, clasping the urn, is an elegant female figure personifying Jamaica, bearing the crest of the colony, an alligator passant proper, on her zone. On the other side is a lovely boy, his left hand holding an olive branch, resting on a cornucopia full of tropical fruits, and his right hand upon a shield bearing the arms of Jamaica as granted by Charles II, viz,: Argent on a cross gules five pineapples proper. Dexter supporter an Indian female, in her exterior hand a basket of fruit. Sinister, an Indian warrior, in his exterior hand a bow, both plumed, all proper. Crest, an alligator. Motto, _Indus uterque serviet uni_. The epitaph, written by Bryan Edwards, the historian of the West Indies, and then member of Assembly for Trelawny, is as follows:

TO THE MEMORY OF

THOMAS EARL OF EFFINGHAM BARON HOWARD, CAPTAIN GENERAL AND CHIEF
GOVERNOR OF THIS ISLAND IN THE YEARS 1790 AND 1791, AND OF CATHERINE
HIS WIFE. THE LATTER DEPARTED THIS LIFE ON THE THIRTEENTH DAY OF
OCTOBER, 1791, IN A VOYAGE UNDERTAKEN FOR THE BENEFIT OF HER HEALTH,
IN HIS MAJESTY’S SHIP DIANA: THE FORMER ON THE 19TH OF THE FOLLOWING
MONTH, THE THIRD WEEK AFTER THE MELANCHOLY RETURN OF THE DIANA WITH
THE REMAINS OF HIS BELOVED CONSORT, WHOM HE SEEMED UNWILLING TO
SURVIVE, AND WITH WHOM HE WAS DEPOSITED IN THE SAME GRAVE, THUS,
UNITED IN THEIR LIVES BY THE MOST TENDER AND EXALTED TIES,

HE—THE FOND AND INDULGENT HUSBAND,
SHE—THE CHEERFUL AND OBEDIENT WIFE—
IN THEIR DEATHS THEY WERE NOT DIVIDED.

TO PERPETUATE THE REMEMBRANCE OF SO ILLUSTRIOUS A PATTERN OF CONJUGAL
AFFECTION, TO MANIFEST THE PUBLIC SENSE OF THE MANY PUBLIC AND PRIVATE
VIRTUES OF THEIR RESPECTED GOVERNOR, AND TO RECORD FOR THE BENEFIT OF
POSTERITY THE CLEARNESS OF THAT SAGACITY, THE EXTENT OF THAT
KNOWLEDGE, AND THE PURITY AND FIRMNESS OF THAT INTEGRITY, WHICH
RENDERED HIS ADMINISTRATION THE BOAST AND SECURITY OF A GRATEFUL
PEOPLE; THE ASSEMBLY OF JAMAICA, HAVING CAUSED THE REMAINS OF THIS
NOBLE AND LAMENTED PAIR TO BE INTERR’D WITH FUNERAL HONOURS AT THE
PUBLIC EXPENSE, THE WHOLE HOUSE ATTENDING EACH PROCESSION AS MOURNERS,
AS A FURTHER TESTIMONY OF MERITED ESTEEM, INSCRIBE THIS MONUMENT.

By an Act passed in 1789, burying in churches had been recently prohibited, and a penalty of £500 imposed on any rector permitting such burial; but two bills, dispensing with that Act and indemnifying the Rev. Robert Stanton Woodham, the then lately appointed rector of St. Catherine, from its penalties in the special cases of the Earl and Countess were introduced in the Assembly by Bryan Edwards and passed unanimously.

On November 19 the House “resolved, _nem. con._, in order to testify the grateful respect which this House entertain of his late Excellency’s merit and virtues, his firm and independent conduct, and the sense they have of the great and universal satisfaction which his mild and equitable administration, in every department, gave to all ranks of people, and the regret which they feel at his loss, that the funeral of the late Earl of Effingham be conducted at the public expense”; and on December 7, 1791, the Assembly voted £500 sterling toward this monument. The monument, together with the two funerals, which were attended by the members of the Assembly, cost the island £8700.

The Rev. Thomas Warren, rector of St. Elizabeth, and domestic chaplain to the governor—the same Thomas Warren who ten years later disgusted Lady Nugent by his toadyism while conducting the service at Black River-preached the funeral sermons, which are given in the “Columbian Magazine or Monthly Miscellany” published in Kingston in June 1797.

The Earl and Countess of Effingham arrived at Port Royal on March 17, 1790, in the ship _Catherine Countess of Effingham_. During his short period of governorship the condition of Jamaica was the cause of some anxiety owing to the nearness of the republican movement in San Domingo; so much so, that during the Christmas holidays of 1791 two ships of war patrolled round the island. The National Assembly of France passed a decree of thanks to the King of Great Britain, to the English nation, and to Lord Effingham, governor of Jamaica, for his generous conduct in relieving the planters of St. Domingo from the horrors of famine, and in furnishing them with arms and military stores against the rebel negroes. It was during Effingham’s governorship that the bread-fruit and other trees were imported from the south seas, and a collection of Jamaica plants was sent home to Kew Gardens.

The House of Assembly addressed the governor on the subject of proposed additional duties by England on sugar and rum, but to their representations the governor made a diplomatic reply.

The Earl’s mother was daughter of Peter Beckford, speaker of the Assembly, and sister to the celebrated lord mayor of London. His wife, whom he married in 1765, was the daughter of Metcalfe Proctor, of Thorpe, near Leeds. They had no children.

Next to the Effingham monument that to the =Countess of Elgin= is the most interesting from an art point of view.

In April 1841, Elizabeth Mary, the twenty-year-old daughter of Charles Lennox Cumming Bruce, was married to Lord Bruce, the son of the earl of “Elgin Marbles” fame. He had the year before become heir to the earldom through the death of his elder half-brother; and in the July following he was elected member of Parliament for Southampton, and succeeded to the title in the November of the same year (1841), becoming a peer of Scotland without a seat in the House of Lords. In the April of the following year he was made governor of Jamaica at the early age of thirty-one years, and there served his apprenticeship to his greater work as governor-general of Canada and viceroy of India. He experienced a period of depression, owing to the effects of emancipation, and of storms and floods; but in spite of difficulties he endeavoured, not without success, to improve the social conditions and develop the industrial resources of the island. The Royal Agricultural Society of Jamaica (later merged into the Royal Society of Arts and Agriculture of Jamaica) and several parochial agricultural associations were established by him; the first batch of coolies arrived from India in 1845, and the railway was opened for traffic in the same year.

On the death of the countess within less than a twelvemonth of her landing, and after a little more than two years of married life, the House of Assembly voted three hundred guineas for a monument to be erected in the cathedral at Spanish Town. It was carved by Sir John Steell, and is inscribed on the back “Jn. Steell, Sculptor, Edinr., 1849.” He is best known for his statues in Edinburgh of Sir Walter Scott and the Prince Consort, and for his colossal statue of Burns in New York. The first-named is said to have been the first marble statue commissioned in Scotland from a native artist; the second secured him his knighthood. Steell in early life patriotically declined Chantrey’s flattering offer to remove from Edinburgh to London, in order that he might devote himself to the improvement of the art of his native country.

His busts are said to be distinguished by great dignity and refinement. These characteristics are evident in his posthumous portrait of Lady Elgin.

The following is the inscription on the monument:

IN MEMORY OF

ELIZABETH MARY, COUNTESS OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE, ONLY CHILD OF
CHARLES LENNOX CUMMING BRUCE, ESQR., OF ROSEISLE AND KINNAIRD IN
SCOTLAND, MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT FOR THE COUNTIES OF ELGIN AND NAIRN,
AND OF MARY ELIZABETH BRUCE. GRANDDAUGHTER AND REPRESENTATIVE OF THE
DISTINGUISHED TRAVELLER IN ABYSSINIA. BORN ON THE 13TH APRIL, 1821,
SHE WAS MARRIED ON THE 22ND APRIL, 1841, AND HAVING ACCOMPANIED HER
HUSBAND, HIS EXCELLENCY JAMES EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE, TO
JAMAICA, IN APRIL, 1842, SHE DIED AT CRAIGTON, IN THE PARISH OF ST.
ANDREW’S, ON THE 7TH JUNE, 1843: RESTING WITH ASSURED FAITH ON THE
LOVE OF HER REDEEMER, AMIDST THE UNSPEAKABLE SORROW OF HER RELATIVES
AND FRIENDS, AND THE DEEP LAMENT OF THE COMMUNITY THAT HAD WITNESSED
THE RICH PROMISE OF HER EARLY VIRTUES. THIS MONUMENT WAS ERECTED BY
THE LEGISLATURE OF THE COLONY NOT AS A COLD TRIBUTE OF RESPECT DUE TO
EXALTED RANK, BUT TO MARK THE PUBLIC REGRET, FOR DISTINGUISHED WORTH
AND TALENT, SO EARLY LOST TO HER COUNTRY AND HER FAMILY.

“BLESSED ARE THE PURE IN HEART FOR THEY SHALL SEE GOD.”

Craigton, used as a mountain residence by the Earl of Elgin, is in the Blue Mountains, by the fourteenth milestone on the driving road to Newcastle.

The following passage from Professor Wrong’s “Earl of Elgin” tells in a few words the sad cause of Lady Elgin’s death:

In April 1842 Lord Elgin left England for Jamaica. On the way he
experienced the dramatic and, for him, tragic consequences of
shipwreck; the steamer struck on the coral reefs surrounding Turk’s
Island, one of the Bahamas, and became a total wreck. No lives were
lost, but Lady Elgin received a shock from which she never recovered.
When, in the following summer, she died in Jamaica, Lord Elgin was so
prostrated by grief that his recovery seemed doubtful. He was left
with one infant daughter. From utter loneliness the society of his own
kindred saved him; with him were his sister Charlotte, afterwards Lady
Charlotte Locker, and his brother Robert, the latter as his Secretary.
Though living chiefly at the country house, Craighton (sic), in the
Blue Mountains, he did not neglect holding at Spanish Town, then the
capital of Jamaica, the receptions and entertainments which must be a
heavy burden upon the time and patience of those in high official
position. The life was sufficiently monotonous, and after three years
he longed for more active employment.

The immediate cause of Lady Elgin’s death was the birth of an infant daughter, who only lived a few hours. Her only surviving child, Elma, married Baron Thurlow.

With regard to the actual spot where the body is interred, we read in the “Morning Journal” of June 1843:

His Honour, the Chief Justice, the Custos, and several other
officials, then proceeded to the selection of a proper place for the
sepulture of her Ladyship. The spot they selected was immediately
below the Communion Table, in the Cathedral, and in which the remains
of the Earl and Countess of Effingham were interred in 1791. The
excavation took place under the superintendence of His Honor the
Custos, assisted by Mr. Churchwarden M’Anuff; and about five o’clock
on Thursday morning the vaulting and arches were complete.

The funeral was attended by all the high officials, civil, naval and military, and by the members of the House of Assembly.

Though the present =House of Assembly= probably only dates from about the same period as King’s House (1762) or a little later, the Assembly always met (with a slight diversion, in favour of Kingston, under Admiral Knowles in 1755) in Spanish Town, and the old capital was thus associated with the story of the long series of struggles which took place between the people’s representatives and the Crown.

In 1702 the Assembly met at the Queen’s House and at the Court House. In his speech to the Assembly on September 5, 1706, Handasyd said, “That the public building, I mean the Assembly House, being ready to fall, I don’t doubt but you will give orders for the rebuilding of the same.”

In 1728 the Duchess of Portland, widow of the late Governor, gave a portrait of George I to the Assembly. It was hung over the speaker’s chair. One wonders where it now is.

One of the most dramatic incidents which ever happened during a session of the Assembly is that which caused the death of Peter Beckford, a former lieutenant-governor of the colony, the president of the Council, and the first custos of Kingston.

The incident is thus described by Bridges:

During a warm debate in the Assembly on June 8, 1711, on the right of
adjournment for a longer period than _de die in diem_, Peter Beckford,
the Speaker (son of the President), repeatedly called to order; and
was at length compelled to enforce it by adjournment. But irritation
had gone so far that, when he rose to quit the chair, the Members drew
their swords and held him there, while the obnoxious questions in
debate were put and carried. The doors were barred; the uproar was
alarming; and the Speaker’s father heard the disturbance in the
Council Chamber. He recognised the voice of his son crying aloud for
help, and rushed into the Governor’s apartment. Sir Thomas Handasyde
seized his sword, ordered the sentinels to follow him, forced the door
of the Court House, and dissolved the Assembly in the Queen’s name.
But the fray was fatal to the elder Beckford; in his agitation his
foot slipped, and he was precipitated down the staircase, and the
effects of terror were deadly to his aged frame.

From this account we incidentally learn that the Assembly then had no House of its own and met in the court house, which probably stood where the present court house stands, at the south side of the square; the House of Assembly being on the east side, the King’s House on the west, and Rodney’s memorial on the north. In 1679 the church was first used as a House of Assembly, and was so used occasionally, as well as the court house, till its destruction by hurricane in 1712.

In “A View of the Proceedings of the Assemblies of Jamaica for some years past,” published in London in 1716, occurs a letter dated from Kingston, December 4, 1715, which begins, “The Grand Court is Sitting, as also the Assembly (who as former Assemblies have done in Court time) Sit in the Great Church [at Spanish Town]....”

The speaker alluded to above, Peter Beckford, held that office no less than four times. He will ever be remembered, in Spanish Town at all events, as the founder of Beckford and Smith’s School.

Space will not permit of any detailed reference to the continual struggles which took place between the Assembly and the Governor in Council, or the Assembly and the Crown, for in some cases the Assembly found governors who from the larger knowledge gained by local experience were in sympathy with many of their claims for equitable treatment. But we may perhaps for a moment try to picture to ourselves the scene at the opening of an assembly a hundred years ago. There were then forty-three members representing twenty constituencies or parishes. Of these all but a few came from outside Spanish Town, and had perforce to find temporary homes for themselves, their servants, and their horses: and the old capital must have offered a gay appearance. If the member for noble St. James did not drive his own horses it must have cost him some £8 to £10 to post.

It is true that Feurtado mentions ten lodging-houses and six hotels or taverns as existing at the time of the removal of the Government from Spanish Town to Kingston in 1870; but it is somewhat curious that, though travellers and historians have recorded the names of some ten or twelve taverns throughout the colony in the eighteenth century, no mention is made of any such institution of importance in the old capital.

In 1812 the lieutenant-governor was Lieutenant-General Edward Morrison. His secretary was William Bullock, who later, under the Duke of Manchester, became a great pluralist and wielded much power. The speaker of the Assembly was James Lewis, who represented St. Catherine. John Jacques, the mayor, was one of Kingston’s three representatives. St. Andrew sent as one member a James Stewart, Trelawny sent another James Stewart, and Westmoreland a third—which suggests numerous pitfalls for the unwary student of genealogy—while a fourth Stewart, John by name, sat for St. Ann. John Shand, the custos of St. Catherine, represented St. John. One of Vere’s members was J. P. Edwards, while Robert Allwood came up from St. Elizabeth. Hanover was represented by a Scarlett. Portland sent two Minots. The wealthy and powerful Simon Taylor represented St. Thomas-in-the-East, where most of his property lay.

The officers of the Assembly were: _Clerk_, F. Smith; _Serjeant-at-arms and Librarian_, John Clement; _Chaplain_, Isaac Mann (rector of St. Catherine); _Printer_, A. Aikman; and _Doorkeeper_, J. Wintle.

KING’S HOUSE
]

COURT HOUSE
]

RODNEY MEMORIAL
]

HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY
]

THE SQUARE, SPANISH TOWN

The president of the Council, which was not infrequently recruited from the Assembly, was John Lewis, the chief justice, a relative of the well-known “Monk” Lewis; and other members (twelve in all) bore the well-known Jamaica names of Broadbelt, Ross, Pinnock, Cuthbert, Scarlett, Nembhardt and Jackson. Its chaplain was the Rev. John Campbell (rector of St. Andrew). Its librarian was Alexander Dallas, a relation of the author of the “History of the Maroons.” The Assembly opened daily with prayer.

Until 1842, when a new judicature law, which transferred to a vice-chancellor the authority of chancellor, came into force, the governor for the time being was _ex-officio_ chancellor of the island, and sat in a Chancellor’s Court which was held in the Egyptian hall of Ring’s House.

At its first session the House was wont to go over “in grand procession”—the speaker preceded by the macebearer with the mace—to King’s House at 4 P.M. to hear the governor read his speech. They then returned and deliberated on the speech, to which they sent a reply. They formally elected a speaker. He was wont to plead his unworthiness but allowed himself to be over-persuaded, and the governor gave his approval. After the passing of many compliments the pendulum not infrequently swung round to the point of contention and bickering, but many of the Assembly honestly did their best in legislating for the well-being of the colony. To do honour to Sir Henry Barkly the Assembly turned their hall into a ballroom, each member subscribing £10 toward the cost of the entertainment.

In 1853 the House committed to jail, where he was kept for upwards of twenty-four hours, one of the judges of the supreme court, William Stevenson (afterwards governor of Mauritius), for an alleged breach of privilege in writing a letter to the public press, in which he accused them of violating public faith and confiscating the property of public men.

An English merchant describing Jamaica in 1726 says, “Nor is the keeping of a coach and six any more credit than keeping a horse in England, it is so common in the lowlands where the roads will admit”; and, even within the memory of those living, members of the Council and Assembly were wont to drive into Spanish Town in style. The late Mr. Judah, in “Old St. Jago” (1894), says:

We come to so late as 1848–49 when Sir Charles Grey was Governor. He
rode in a State Coach drawn by four horses, and had outriders as part
of his equipage. Besides coachman and groom he had two footmen behind
his coach holding, in their dignity, their straps in holders; all in
splendid livery. When the Honourable James Gayleard was President of
the Council, he rode too in State Coach and pair, with coachman and
groom on the box and a footman behind standing with strap and holder,
all too in livery. Sir Joshua Rowe, Chief Justice, in his stately
barouche with liveried servants. The Honourable William Church
Macdougall driving in uniform with high-booted postilion. The
Honourable Alexandre Bravo, always arriving in town on the first day
of the meeting of the Council, of which he was a member, with four in
hand, his wife and then young family inside, himself on the driving
box with his son Alexandre, afterwards Major and Acting Governor in
one of Her Majesty’s Colonies in Africa, seated beside him; while Mr.
Moses Bravo followed with his wife, driving a gay and attractive
tandem. “Old Saint Jago” has its traditions, and is full of memories
of the old past and the greater days of Jamaica. A hundred of these
memories as it were pass before my eyes, and I feel a real pleasure in
recalling some of them, associated as they are with the days of my
boyhood and my early manhood. I well remember the first day of the
inauguration of a new Governor, attended at old King’s House by all
the heads of departments and highest officials of the colony. The
Lieutenant-Governor, who was always then the Major-General commanding
the Forces in this island, and his brilliant staff, the Admiral with
his staff, the Commodore on the station—the whole in full dress
uniform. The Bishop with his mitre on, and his black silk gown with
ample lawn sleeves. The three Archdeacons in their full college dress
and honours. The Chief Justice and Puisne Judges in their purple
robes. The Registrar in Chancery and Clerk of Patents, gowned in black
silk and bearing on a scarlet velvet cushion the insignia in gold of
Equity and of his office. The Clerk of the Crown and Supreme Court
with parchment scroll surmounted by the British Crown in gold. The
Military and Navy in full dress uniform. The foreign Consuls also in
uniform—those of Spain, France, Austria, and the Mosquito territory
being most conspicuous for their splendour. The three members of “the
mixed Commission” (for the adjudication of cases arising out of the
slave trade treaties) in their peculiar dress of white kerseymeres
trimmed in silver, and their silver-sheathed swords suspended in fine
silver chains. The military band of music arriving from the barracks,
at the head of the regiment, with standards flying and taking up their
position in the present garden on the left hand opposite to the front
of the King’s House. During the administration of the usual oaths to
the new Governor the playing of the National Anthem, and this followed
by a salvo of fourteen guns from two field pieces positioned in front
of Rodney’s statue, then on its original site, under the dome of the
colonnade, at the north side of the public square.

Then there was the opening day of the annual meeting of the
Legislature, with almost the like pageantry and with the members of
the Privy Council in Windsor uniform, and the members of the
Legislative Council, attended by “Black Rod” in full Court dress with
his _chapeau bras_. The entrance of the Governor into the Egyptian
Hall of King’s House, in full military dress as Captain-General and
Commander-in-Chief, attended by his Secretary in Windsor uniform, and
his aide-de-camp in full military dress. The despatch of “Black Rod”
by the Governor, summoning the Assembly to attend him in the Council
Chamber. The arrival of “Black Rod” at the bar of the Assembly Hall,
delivering the message, and his retiring backways, making his
obeisance three times to the Chair while retiring. The attendance of
the Speaker and the whole House, headed by the Serjeant-at-Arms
carrying, with head covered by his _chapeau bras_, the large gilt mace
of the House, and with his ivory-hilted sword at side, while the band
plays the grand and stately “God Save the Queen.” These pageantries
followed by a grand dinner at King’s House to the Lieutenant-Governor
and staff, Admiral and staff, Chief Justice, Bishop, and the high
officials of the day.

The mace mentioned above is now in the history gallery in the Institute of Jamaica.

Tradition has it that the old house known as =Eagle House=, behind the Public Hospital in King street, Spanish Town, was the residence of William O’Brien, second earl of Inchiquin, who was governor of Jamaica in 1690–91–2. Its local name, from the remaining eagle that surmounts one of the gate-posts, is John Crow House; John Crow being the popular designation of the vulture of Jamaica (_Cathartes aura_).

A discussion on the subject of this house took place in the “Gleaner” newspaper during August and September 1911, with the result that, though some light was thrown on the subject, nothing was settled for certain. Mr. G. F. Judah, whose antiquarian knowledge of Jamaica was unequalled, informed us that his father told him that when he first visited the house as a boy in 1808–9 both eagles were _in situ_; but that when he went to reside in Spanish Town in 1830–31 only one remained; and further that tradition said that it had once been the residence of Sir James de Castillo, the agent of the Assiento Company.

Mr. Judah seemed to think that “Eagle House” is identical with the “Fort House,” which he told us was granted first in 1662 to Sir Charles Lyttelton, deputy governor to Lord Windsor, being the first of the records of Patents in the island, and dating only seven years after the British occupation. Lyttelton sold it to Charles Brayne, who sold it to Sir Thomas Modyford. Modyford’s nephew succeeded to the baronetcy and his executors sold the “Fort House” in 1715 to John Stewart, president of the Council, who had the title to the house confirmed by a special act of the Legislature in 1733. From an act which was passed in 1736 it appears that the Fort House bounded north-east on a street between a storehouse belonging to John Stewart, Esquire, and the dwelling-house formerly belonging to Arnold Brown, Esquire, deceased, to the Parade; south-east on land belong to William Careless, Esquire, deceased; south-west on the town Savanna; and north-west on the land lately belonging to Ursula Hunt, widow, deceased, by indenture.

It was conveyed to Thomas Brayne, descended to his daughter, Mary Elizabeth, wife of Alexander Henderson. They conveyed it to Walter Thomas, and he and his wife conveyed it to John Stewart. Stewart sold it to Robert Delap (nephew of Francis Delap, provost marshal), and the place subsequently fell into the hands of Bogle & Co., of which firm Michael Scott, the well-known author of “Tom Cringle’s Log,” was a member. It then passed successively into the possession of Alexander Young, William Taylor and Robert Nichol. Mr. Oscar Plummer, quoting from manuscripts in his possession, of which however he gave no details, said that various personages—Robert Russell, Andrew Gregory Johnson, and Richard Hill—in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, gave credence to the legend that Eagle House was the residence of the Earl of Inchiquin, and that some of them alluded to Eagle House as the Moat House. In this case, although there is no proof, it is quite likely that the legend that Inchiquin inhabited it is true; but it is not likely that much of the old fabric remains, though the present house is of considerable antiquity. There is nothing in all this to aid in the identification of Eagle House with the residence of Lord Inchiquin; but as the rent for the house he occupied was paid to Samuel Bernard, the chief justice, it was probably not identical with Fort House, which, as we have seen, belonged to the Modyfords.

The early life of the Earl of Inchiquin was spent with his father in foreign military service, during which he lost an eye and suffered imprisonment in Algiers. In 1764 he was appointed captain-general of the King’s forces in Africa, and governor and vice-admiral of the royal citadel of Tangier, ceded by the Portuguese to Britain as part of the marriage portion of Catherine of Braganza. He held the post for six years.

Inchiquin welcomed the Prince of Orange in 1688, and in the following year he and his son were attainted by the Irish Parliament of James II, and their estates were sequestrated. He appealed to arms, but was defeated and fled to England.

After the Revolution he was appointed governor of Jamaica. On going to take up office he was allowed £500 in lieu of fifty tons of baggage, and also passage and victuals for seventy-five menial servants. It is interesting to note that on his journey he drew half-pay salary (_i.e._ at the rate of £1000 a year).

He, after escaping great dangers by sea and a malignant fever brought on board by the soldiers embarked at Plymouth, arrived at Jamaica, accompanied by Lady Inchiquin, on May 31, 1690, in H.M.S. _Swan_, “so bad a sailor that she is little better than nothing”—the same ship that was “forced over the tops of many houses” in the earthquake of two years later. Inchiquin was sworn in as governor on the same day.

He met with considerable opposition from a portion of the Assembly, whose temper had been ruffled by Albemarle’s arbitrary government, and whom he treated in a somewhat tactless manner. That, added to troubles arising from incursions by French cruisers on the seaside plantations—the result of the war—plunderings by the runaway slaves, the original maroons, and an outbreak of slaves in Clarendon, undermined his constitution. Nineteen months of worry were terminated by his death, on Saturday, January 16, 1691–2, “after long indisposition through fever and plague which ended in a flux”; he was buried that night in the parish church at St. Jago de la Vega. Until recently no monument marked the spot. A memorial brass has now, however, been erected in the cathedral by Lord Inchiquin with the following inscription:

IN MEMORY OF
WILLIAM O’BRIEN, 2ND EARL OF INCHIQUIN
GOVERNOR OF JAMAICA
FROM 31ST MAY, 1690, TILL 16TH JANUARY, 1691–2.
_When he died of fever at St. Jago de la Vega_,
AND WAS BURIED IN THIS CHURCH
ERECTED IN 1912 BY LUCIUS W. XVTH BARON INCHIQUIN.

In connection with his governorship of Tangier, Inchiquin has been described as “a well-meaning impulsive man, devoid of discretion,” and this description seems equally applicable to his Jamaica career.

By his first wife, Lady Margaret Boyle, daughter of the first Earl of Orrery, he had three sons, of whom the third, James, was a member of the Council of Jamaica, Captain of Fort Charles, and chief of an expedition that destroyed French settlements in Hispaniola.

James O’Brien returned to England at his father’s death.

For the first thirty-four years of British occupation, the governors of Jamaica lived partly at Spanish Town and partly at Port Royal. In 1675 the Assembly voted £500 to be employed in buying the house Lord Vaughan lived in at Spanish Town “for the Governor’s use for ever.”

On January 13, 1690, however, the President and Council passed an “Order for hiring a house in Port Royal and for provision for the reception of Lord Inchiquin.”

On March 27, 1690, they passed an “Order for King’s House to be made ready for Lord Inchiquin,” but the Order does not state whether Port Royal or St. Jago de la Vega was meant, probably the latter.

On June 18 it was resolved that “Their Majesties’ house at St. Jago de la Vega being extremely out of repair and almost ruinous so it is in no manner fit for the reception of His Excellency, it was decided by the Board if His Excellency would be pleased to let it be ordered, and it is hereby ordered that the rent of the house where His Excellency now lives be paid out of their Majesties’ revenue for the island till the other be so repaired or built, that it may be fit for his reception.”

On December 18, 1690, it was “ordered that £600 be allowed for building an addition to the King’s House on Port Royal to be paid out of their Majesties’ revenue for this island.”

On January 28, 1691–2, just after the death of Lord Inchiquin, the Council wrote home to the Lords of Trade and Plantations: “We beg that the Governor’s residence may be fixed at St. Jago de la Vega, which is the most convenient place.”

At a Council meeting on March 15, 1691–2, it was ordered that £250 be paid to Samuel Bernard for “rent of the house the Earl of Inchiquin, late Governor, lived in at the Towne of St. Jago de la Vega.”

On May 9, 1692, just after the earthquake, the Council made an “Order for agreement as to the goods belonging to the late Governor at King’s House, for the accommodation of the next Governor,” and on June 24, they passed an “Order for material for rebuilding King’s House.” This presumably refers to St. Jago de la Vega.

On July 8 of that year the Lords of Trade and Plantations at a meeting at which Beeston, who was then agent for Jamaica in England, and was soon to be appointed lieutenant-governor, was in attendance, resolved that the “King’s House at St. Jago de la Vega should be sold, and the proceeds devoted to the purchase of another house”—at the very time that it was probably being rebuilt.

On the Earl of Inchiquin’s death, the Government bought of Lady Inchiquin for the use of the Government, goods to the value of £90. These included the “King and Queen’s picture” valued at £20. Where is that picture now?

It is interesting to note that in the contemporary manuscript Council Minutes the name Inchiquin is always spelt phonetically Insiquin.

=Sir Hans Sloane= studied botany, materia medica, and pharmacy, in England and France. It is said that, before consenting to accompany Albemarle, the newly appointed governor, to Jamaica in 1687, he consulted Sydenham on the subject, and that the father of English medicine told him that he had better drown himself in Rosamond’s Pond, a sheet of water in St. James’s Park, which was then a fashionable resort for intending suicides. He, however, decided to come. While in Jamaica he attended, in addition to the duke’s “numerous family,” many people professionally, including the whilom buccaneering governor, Morgan; making in his reports very frank references to their mode of life.

In fifteen months he collected 800 plants, most of which were new specimens; of these he published, in 1696, his “Catalogus Plantarum.” On April 16, 1691, Evelyn writes: “I went to see Dr. Sloane’s curiosities, being a universal collection of the natural productions of Jamaica, consisting of plants, fruits, corals, minerals, stones, earth, shells, animals and insects, collected with great judgement; several folios of dried plants, and one which had about eighty several sorts of ferns and another of grasses; the Jamaica pepper in branch, leaves, flower, fruit, &c. This collection, with his Journal, and other philosophical and natural discourses and observations, indeed very copious and extraordinary, sufficient to furnish a history of that island, to which I encouraged him.” In 1707 and 1725 Sloane issued two large volumes entitled, “A Voyage to the Islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, St. Christopher and Jamaica, with the Natural History ... of the last of those Islands,” with many engravings from crayon drawings. The work was parodied by the clever but drunken Dr. William King, under the title “The Present State of Physic in the Island of Cajami.”

Sloane’s wife, whom he married in 1695 and who died in 1724, was Elizabeth, daughter of Alderman Langley and widow of Ffulk Rose, of St. Catherine, who from 1675 to 1693 represented first St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, and afterwards St. John, in the House of Assembly.

Soon after the death of his patron, the Duke of Albemarle, Sloane returned to England. In 1693 he was secretary to the Royal Society, of which he edited the transactions for twenty years, contributing twenty-two papers. Of these one was an account of the earthquake of 1692 which destroyed Port Royal, already alluded to. Meantime he practised with great success as a physician. In 1716 he was created a baronet, being the first physician so honoured, and made physician-general to the army; from 1719 to 1735 he was president of the College of Physicians; and in 1727 president of the Royal Society. He bequeathed his books, manuscripts, prints and curiosities (including his Jamaica collections) to the nation, on condition that £20,000 (or less than half of what they had cost him) was paid to his executors. The collection formed the basis of the British Museum. He gave to the Apothecaries Company the freehold of the physic garden at Chelsea, and he assisted to start the Foundling Hospital.

Tradition points to a house (now No. 14), in what has been known as Nugent Street, Spanish Town, for upwards of a century, as the residence of Sloane.

In a MS. scrap book called “The Omnibus, or Jamaica Scrap Book,” in the West India Library of the Institute of Jamaica, dating from about 1840, there is an account of Sir Hans Sloane, wherein it states: “This celebrated naturalist during his stay in Jamaica resided in the old Spanish fronted building which was till about the year 1828 to be discerned in the lane at the back of the King’s House in Spanish Town, and which about that period came by purchase into the hands of a tradesman, who, without any respect to its former possessor, razed it to the ground and erected upon the site a blacksmith’s shop and other tradesmen’s offices, at which period some of his etchings, were discovered in a ruined outhouse.” The present building is of a type that has existed in the colony “from time.”

Previous to the building of a _King’s House_, the governors of Jamaica apparently lived in whatever house they chose. From the following entry in the Council Minutes of June 16, 1684, it would appear that there were in 1683 two King’s Houses, one at Port Royal and one at Spanish Town: “Ordered that His Excellency’s order shall be sufficient warrant for issuing money for the fortifications, repair of the King’s Houses, &c., according to the Act of this country”; and this is confirmed by the accounts of the Receiver-General for 1684–85, which contains references to the “King’s House at Town” [Spanish Town] and the King’s House at Port Royal. In July 1689 it was reported that in the Duke of Albemarle’s time (December 1687 to October 1688) the King’s House at Port Royal had been appointed for a Popish priest, Thomas Churchill, to say Mass in.

In June 1689 Colonel Hender Molesworth, who did not live to take up his position as governor for a second term of office, suggested, in his proposals as to the government of Jamaica, that “it would be well to sell the old King’s House [presumably at Port Royal], and build a new one at Spanish Town”; but in January 1690 it was ordered, as we have seen, that a house should be built in Port Royal, and provision made for the reception of Lord Inchiquin. There was, however, a King’s House at Spanish Town in Beeston’s time. On July 8, 1692, it was decided by the Lords of Trade and Plantations that “the King’s House at St. Jago de la Vega should be sold, and the proceeds devoted to the purchase of another house”; but on July 27, 1693, Beeston wrote home: “I hope also to get them to raise money to put King’s House at St. Jago (where I live) in order, for at present it only protects me from the sun and rain, having no convenience for horses or servants, nor room for but few in a family, and being as common as the highway. Nevertheless, my cost of living, for the honour of the Government, is more than double what I am allowed, nor is there money nor like to be yet awhile, to pay me what I am allowed by their Majesty’s.”

In October 1700 he wrote home: “I am also enlarging to more than double the King’s House, which was too little for any indifferent family, and have taken in all the land belonging to it with a bricke wall, and have made aditions of out houses for the reception of servants and for offices, all which will bee finished in a short time, and will be very comodious and useful, tho’ not so beautyfull, being built not one entire fabricke, but by peices.”

There was a Queen’s House when Lord Archibald Hamilton arrived in 1711, but it was in a “ruinous condition” and “could not be made tenable under £2000,” which was voted. The Duke of Portland (1724–6) expended £1544 0_s._ 1¾_d._ over the £4000 voted on the then King’s House, but this sum was not refunded to his widow although a committee of the Assembly recommended it.

The original residence of the governors consisted partly of the old Spanish edifice and partly of irregular additions made from time to time by Sir William Beeston and other governors. The Spanish hall of audience was demolished in 1761 to make way for the present building. Of it Long says:

Nothing of art or elegance graced the inside of this hall: it was
lined throughout with boards, or rather planks, unequally hewn with an
adze, none of them appearing to have undergone the embellishment of
the plane; these were rudely nailed to upright posts, which supported
the roof. The posts were for the most part crooked, not even squared,
and many of them had some remnant of their bark, but they retained for
the most part their primitive solidity. The whole of the woodwork,
indeed, seemed to have passed through no other hands than those of a
clumsy ship-carpenter.

This description might almost apply to the dwellings of the native Arawâks.

The former official residence of the governors of Jamaica, or King’s House, as it is called, stands on the west side of the square. The plan was designed by Craskell, the engineer of the island, and approved during the administration of Lieutenant-Governor Henry Moore in 1759–62; but the building was not completed until the arrival of Governor William Henry Lyttelton in 1762.

The expense of building and furnishing amounted to nearly £30,000 currency (or £21,428 sterling), and in Long’s time (_circa_ 1774) it was “thought to be the noblest and best edifice of the kind, either in North America or any of the British colonies in the West Indies.” The façade is about 200 feet long; the freestone used in the construction came from the Hope river course in St. Andrew. The columns supporting the portico are of Portland stone, the pavement of white marble, of which much came out, as ballast, from time to time in the old sugar ships, and is still seen in many a great house and town dwelling. The following is taken from Long’s description of the interior: