Chapter D: O. M (3)

The records of the House of Assembly contain many references to the grants made in aid of roads, their management and the like. It may be interesting to take the history of the Spanish Town road, which until the advent of the railway was the principal, as typical of the rest.

“An Act for the Highways,” passed in 1681 (the third Act passed by the legislature of the colony) provides “That the Highways be sixty foot wide in standing Wood, forty foot where the Wood is only on one side, and twenty-four foot in open ground.”

The early “Act for the Highways” is alluded to in a slightly later Act (passed before 1695): “For making and Clearing a Publick Road from St. Mary’s and St. George’s into the Parish of St. Andrew’s.”

In 1698 Parker was brought before the House for collecting toll at the Ferry although the law had expired. A Committee to whom the matter was referred, reported that they had

examined the business referred to them by the House, concerning the
Ferry between St. Catherine’s and St. Andrews and upon perusal of the
Patent granted anno 1682, the whole Committee came to this resolution,
viz. That the patent was void and the law expired:

Whereupon the said letters patent and the law being read in the house,
it was put to the vote, whether the House would concur to the report
of the committee of grievances;

Carried in the affirmative.

Michael Holdsworth and John Moone, esquires, ordered to wait on the
Governor and acquaint him of the resolution of the House about the
ferry, who returning, reported the delivery of the message, and that
the Governor said that he hoped the house would take care to make a
law that the benefit of the ferry should go to the two parishes, but
that he thought it reasonable that the parish of St. Andrew shall have
somewhat the more of the benefit, in regard that the road on the other
side the ferry is to be maintained by them, which will be chargeable.

Whereupon Michael Holdsworth, Usher Tyrrell, John Walters, John Dove,
Emanuel Moreton, William Hall, Jervis Sleigh, and John James,
esquires, were appointed a committee to bring in a bill for that
purpose.

And in the following year an Act was passed “to oblige the parishes of St. Catherine and St. Andrew to build a bridge over the Rio Cobre.” The bridge was to be at least twelve foot wide.

In October 1723 a Committee of the Assembly, appointed to consider the most effectual means for repairing the public roads, reported:

1. That although the road leading from Spanish-Town to the Parish of
St. Andrew were repaired according to the Act of this island directing
the repairing the public roads, yet it would be of no effect, unless
the Rio Cobre were first cleared.

To which the House agreed....

And a committee was appointed to bring in a bill for repairing the road leading from St. Jago de la Vega to the town of Kingston. The committee was, five days later, ordered to insert a clause for cutting a new channel for the Rio Cobre.

By 1745 the road was known as the Ferry Road, and in that year a Committee of the Assembly was appointed to enquire into matters respecting it.

In 1748 the Assembly again considered the state of the Ferry Road, and passed “An Act to empower Commissioners to keep the Ferry, and erect a toll-gate or turnpike, between St. Catherine’s and St. Andrew’s, to commence at the expiration of an Act entitled An Act for empowering William Peete, Esquire to keep the Ferry, and erect a toll-gate or turnpike between St. Catherine’s and St. Andrew’s, and taking up runaway negroes.”

In 1758 an Act was passed for “Vesting in Trustees a toll to keep the ferry, and erect a toll-gate or turnpike between St. Catherine’s and St. Andrew’s ...” and a similar Act was passed in 1761.

In 1777 a Committee reported:

4. On consideration of the motion for £4000 to be applied towards
carrying on the road from the church in Spanish Town to the church in
Kingston, it appears to your Committee, from accounts solemnly
attested and rendered in, and also from vouchers produced, that the
sum of £2000 granted last session of Assembly, for carrying on the new
road from the town of St. Jago de la Vega to the Ferry, in the parish
of St. Catherine, and of £2000 for carrying on the new road from the
Ferry, in the parish of St. Andrew, to the Town of Kingston, have been
all expended on the said roads; your Committee were therefore of
opinion, the sum of £4000 now applied for, should be granted: Your
Committee have come to two resolutions respecting this road:

1st. _Resolved_: It is the opinion of this Committee that the road
between Spanish Town and Kingston is laid out on too large a scale;
that therefore, it ought to be contracted that thirty feet in the
centre well paved and gravelled (except in the Salina which ought to
be paved forty feet) would answer every purpose to the public, and
save a considerable expense.

2nd. _Resolved_: It is the opinion of this Committee that the salaries
allowed to the Superintendent, and his assistants, amounting to about
£900 per annum, are too large; and that, in future, they ought to be
reduced.

In 1778 an Act was passed “for explaining and amending the several Highway Laws now in force, and rendering the said Laws more effectual.” It was repealed and expired by 1792.

In 1799 an Act “for continuing the Act commonly called the Highways Act for a certain time longer,” was passed, but expired in 1812.

In 1801 a Highway law was passed, but was repealed in 1805.

In 1802 a law was passed “for rendering more effectual the several laws relating to the public road from the church in the town of Saint Jago de la Vega to the church in Kingston,” and “the Trustees of the Ferry Road” were thereby appointed.

In 1815 an Act was passed giving “fuller powers to the Trustees of the Ferry Road,” as it was found that “the present state of the Ferry Road requires that their powers shall be extended, and that prompt and efficacious means should be used to repair and keep the same in good order especially by causing it to be frequently examined.”

The oldest tablet in the =Church of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale= at Linstead is that of one Elizabeth Burton, who died in 1742. At the time of the threatened invasion by the French in 1805 the Records of the island were removed to this church, and were protected by a militia guard. The said church was blown down by a hurricane in March 1822, and was shortly afterwards rebuilt. A tower was added to the church in 1830.

The church was destroyed by earthquake on January 14, 1907, and was rebuilt of reinforced concrete with eternit roofing at a total cost of £950 and was consecrated in 1911.

Although the parish of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale dates from 1675, when the author of “The Present State of Jamaica” (published in 1683) wrote his work, its church was not one of the seven churches in the island; the nearest church then being St. John’s, Guanaboa Vale, which had been in existence since 1669. The earliest rector recorded was the Rev. Thomas Garbrand, appointed in 1705. In “The Early English Colonies” (1908), by Mr. Sadler Phillips, is given “A List of the Parishes, Churches and Ministers in Jamaica, April 18th, 1715,” in which is included “St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, a church blown down, Mr. Reinolds.” The Rev. James Reynolds had come out in 1709, sent by the Bishop of London, who since 1702 had had ecclesiastical jurisdiction over Jamaica. In 1798 the rector was the Rev. William Williamson. In 1820 and for some years after the rector was the Rev. William Buston.

=Williamsfield=, in St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, on the road between St. Mary and Spanish Town, was first settled by Needham, a large proprietor, but was soon purchased by one Harvey from Barbados, who in turn sold it to Daniel Lascelles, brother to the first Baron Harewood. It remained in the Lascelles’ hands for many years. In 1743, Henry Lascelles went to London from Barbados, and being a wealthy man purchased the Harewood estate, carried on business in London as West India merchants with George Maxwell. His son Edwin was created Baron Harewood in 1790.

At a Council meeting held on July 11, 1692, at St. Jago de la Vega (the first held there after the earthquake) it was “ordered that the Councill meet on Wednesday next at Musqueto Point to view and consider of a place in order to the Building a fortification for to secure the Channell.”

And on August 8 it was “ordered that a fortification be made at Mosquito Point, of the ground &c. fitt to erect the same and that Charles Bouchier, Esq. goe and veiw the same and draw out Plott thereof and the same Returne to this Board.” This was the origin of =Fort Augusta=.

Long gives the following account of the fort in his time. He makes a strong attack on the policy of fortifying a place which he designates a “still unfinished battery stuck into a quagmire at the entrance of Kingston Harbour,” and says that the immense charges incurred on its behalf had by 1757 helped to cripple the island financially. He says:

This fort mounts eighty-six large guns, kept in excellent order. It
contains a large magazine, a house for the commandant, barracks to
contain three hundred soldiers, with all convenient offices, and
casemates. It was projected to mount one hundred and sixteen guns; but
it is not yet compleated. The walls and bastions are built upon piles
of the palmeto or thatch-pole tree, which is endued with the property
of lasting in water without being liable to erosion by the worm. These
were driven down through the loose land, until they reached a firm
bed. If the same precaution had been used in constructing the houses
of Port Royal, it is probable that the greater part of the town would
have survived the earthquake. This fort contains an hospital, besides
habitations for the officers, and is looked upon to be an healthy
garrison. The neck of sand which joins it to the main is not above
fifty or sixty feet wide in most places, and so low, that an enemy
could not carry on approaches, on account of the water rising near the
surface; and it is flanked by a lagoon, or inlet of water from the
harbour, of some extent; for these reasons, and because the ships, in
passing up the channel towards Kingston, must come within point-blank
shot of a whole line of guns, a governor of this island pronounced it
impregnable both by land and sea.

During a storm in 1744 a new fort begun at Mosquito Point was entirely destroyed.

The present fort was erected on Mosquito Point in Kingston Harbour in 1753. On September 13, 1782, the magazine, with three hundred barrels of powder, blew up. Amongst the military tombs is that to Major John Sankey Darley, 2nd W.I.R., who was killed in a mutiny of the West India Regiment there in May 1808. Recruits of the 2nd West India Regiment, Chamba and Koromantyn negroes, mutinied on parade, aided by some of the older men. The Lieutenant and Adjutant Ellis was killed on the spot, and Darley died of the wounds he received. The general officer commanding, Carmichael, got into conflict with the House of Assembly by directing his officers not to answer any questions that that body might put to them with reference to the occurrence. Darley was brother to Alderman Darley of Dublin, of Orange notoriety. Carmichael died in 1813 while governor of British Guiana.

=Rodney’s Look-out= on the Heathshire Hills was shaken down by the earthquake of 1907. It was erected by Rodney while he was admiral on the Jamaica station, (1771–74), for the purpose of keeping a look-out to windward. =Port Henderson= hard by, is named after a former owner, John Henderson, colonel of militia, who was presented at Court in February 1784. He died at his estate in Scotland in 1811. It was founded in opposition to Passage Fort, as it afforded better accommodation for ships.

Towards the close of the nineteenth century it was the site of a temporary laboratory of marine zoology for students of the Johns Hopkins University.

=Lawrencefield= is said to have been the residence of Sir Henry Morgan, governor of Jamaica (1673–82). =St. Jago Farm= is said to be the site of the residence of Sasi, the last of the Spanish Governors. =Government Pen= was the residence of former governors, and is frequently mentioned in Lady Nugent’s “Journal.” At Caymanas is an Arawâk kitchen-midden·, at Mountain River, St. John’s, some Arawâk rock-carvings, and at Goat Island (in Old Harbour Bay) is a cave with Arawâk remains. At Point Hill are some old barracks which are now used as a police station.

=Keith Hall= is probably named after Sir Basil Keath, governor in 1774–77, and =Sligoville= after Peter, Marquis of Sligo, governor in 1834–36.

III
KINGSTON

That there was a collection of houses on or near the spot where Kingston now stands, some years before its formation into a town and parish, is evident, but it is also evident that Gardner’s application of the name to “the little village of Kingston” in 1673 is based on imagination. In the map of Jamaica in “The English Pilot” of 1689 in the inset of “the draft of the Harbor of Port Royal” is marked Liganea, with seven small houses and one larger one where Kingston now is, and one larger one half-way to The Rock.

In the “Present State of Jamaica,” published in 1683, occurs the following description of the village:—“At Liguania, the inside of the harbour, opposite to Port Royal, about two leagues, is several houses, some of them very handsome, and well built, which place in time is like to become a pretty town.”

On the map which accompanies the “State of Jamaica under Sir Thomas Lynch” (included in the “Laws of Jamaica,” published in London in 1684) the place where Kingston now stands is marked “Beeston.” The original owner of the land was Colonel Samuel Barry, who patented it in 1664 and later sold it to (Sir) William Beeston, who, coming to Jamaica in 1660, represented Port Royal in the first House of Assembly, and was lieutenant-governor of the island from 1693 to 1700, and Governor till 1702: but there is on the map a mark for a “towne” on the harbour to the west, between “Beeston” and Hunt’s Bay, where Greenwich now is.

The site of Kingston was not the first chosen by the English for the commercial capital of the island. Port Royal, as we have seen, flourished as such until 1692, in which year occurred the great earthquake which destroyed that place and caused the death of 3000 of its inhabitants. That dealt it a fearful blow.

On June 24, 1692, a little more than a fortnight after the earthquake which destroyed Port Royal, the Council ordered a “survey of 200 acres of Colonel Beeston’s land in St. Andrews where the Council have resolved to build a new town,” and four days later the Council ordered that £1000 should be paid to Beeston, who was at the moment in England, for the 200 acres: but this was apparently _ultra vires_ on the Council’s part, as they had no power to originate money votes. The first traceable reference to the place by name occurs in the Council minutes of July 21, 1692, when regulations for building “the new town of Kingston in St. Andrews” were drawn up, and it was resolved that every purchaser should within three years build a house worth £50 on forfeiture of that sum. Such forfeiture, it was later decided, should go towards founding a hospital.

The following occurs in the Council minutes for August 9, 1692:

Ordered that no freeholder of Port Royall have laid out for him above
one lott by the sea side.

Ordered that none of the Inhabitants of Port Royall have laid out for
him above one lott.

Ordered that all the freeholders of Port Royall have laid out for them
in the said Towne the same quantity they had on Port Royall provided
it Exceed not three lotts.

Ordered that all the freeholders that had land bounding upon the North
sea side on Port Royall be Preferred to the sea side land and that
their lotts be first cast.

Ordered that all the lotts for the Towne of Kingston be cast on once
and that if Claimers doe not appear for all the said land that then
blankes be cast to Coll^{ll} Peter Beckford and Coll^{ll} Nicholas
Laws or be disposed of by them to the next Pretenders.

Ordered that for every lott of land there be reserved to their
Maj^{ties} Tenn Shillings a year as an anuall Quitt Rent.

Ordered that the chiefe Justice be desired to order the Drawing of
Conveyances for the severall parcells of land laid out in the said
Towne.

Ordered that the forfeiture of fifty pounds for not building a house
upon the Premises of the Value of fifty Pounds within the time
appointed by this Board shall be applied to the building of an
Hospital in the said Towne.

Ordered that the Councill meet at the house of Mr. Ann. Lowder in the
Towne of Kingston on Tuesday next to Receive the claims of the
freeholders and Inhabitants of Po^t Royall & all others that are
Desireous to Erect and build in the said Towne & that notice be given
thereof accordingly.

After the Calamity of the Earthquake we had appointed a place for y^e
building of a Towne w^{ch} we then thought by its Scituation would
have been equall if not Exceeding Port Royall where we had ordered all
ships and vessells arriveing here to unlade and also ordered the
severall offices to settle there for Enterey of the same—

But may it pleas y^r Lordships Since to o^r no small greif we are made
sensible of the unhealthyness of the place. By the great Mortality
that there happened & finding a Greater difficulty then we Expected in
fortifying the harbour Have been forst to order the withdrawing of
those offices to the Remains of Port Royall where there is firme Rock
enough left for fortifying that neither the Earthquake nor the sea
hath distroyed or made Unhabitable.

On August 16 the Council itself met at Kingston. Orders were given for the erection of a market to be held daily, Edward Yeamans to be clerk. Thomas Clarke was provisionally appointed naval officer and collector of customs, and Deodatus Stanley was appointed bellman of Kingston. Kingston was not represented in Sir William Beeston’s first Assembly, which met in 1693; of his second, which met in the following year, the names of the members are not recorded; so it is impossible to give the names of those who probably represented the new town for the first time. But in Beeston’s third Assembly, which met on March 5, 1694–5, Kingston was represented by Josiah Hethcott, James Bradshaw and Samuel Foxley. Of these Bradshaw was a relative (probably son) of the regicide of that name. According to a document in Fulham Palace, recently quoted by Mr. N. Darnell Davis in “Notes and Queries,” “in 1723–4 Bradshaw, the son of President Bradshaw, came frequently to Liguania and received the sacrament there.”

A letter, dated Port Royal, July 3, 1693, quoted by Sir Hans Sloane in his account of the great earthquake already alluded to, contains the following information about Kingston:

Others went to the place called Kingston (or by others Killcown) where
from the first clearing of the Ground, and from bad Accommodations,
then Hutts built with Boughs, and not sufficient to keep out Rain,
which in great and an unusual manner followed the Earthquake, lying
wet, and wanting Medicines, and all Conveniences, etc., they died
miserably in heaps. Indeed there was a general sickness (supposed to
proceed from the hurtful Vapours belch’d from the many openings of the
Earth) all over the Island so general that few escaped being sick; and
’tis thought it swept away in all Parts of the Island 3000 Souls; the
greatest part from Kingston only, yet an unhealthy Place.

Many people remained at Port Royal, but most of the survivors removed to the lower part of Liguanea. The Council paid Beeston on June 28, £1000. A plan for the town was drawn up by Colonel Christian Lilly, “Her Majesty’s engineer-general,” under the direction of the Government.

In his plan Lilly adopted the chessboard fashion of all Spanish cities in the New World—a plan which is at least as old as the Romans. If one omits the lanes, the plan of Kingston as laid down by Lilly in the seventeenth century is precisely the same as that of the recently unearthed Roman city of Calleva (Silchester) of thirteen centuries earlier, with its insulæ, prototypes of the American blocks. Kingston consisted then of a parallelogram one mile in length from north to south, and half a mile in breadth, regularly traversed by streets and lanes, alternately crossing each other at right angles. When Long wrote it contained “sixteen hundred and fifty-five houses, besides negro houses and warehouses; so that the whole number of its buildings, including every sort, may be computed at between two and three thousand, and thirty-five spacious streets and sixteen lanes.” At present there are in Kingston 171 streets and sixty-nine lanes and about 9000 houses.

HARBOUR STREET, KINGSTON, IN 1820

From a coloured engraving in Hakewill’s “Picturesque Tour of Jamaica”
]

Unfortunately Lilly when he planned Kingston, when land was cheap, omitted to leave room for lines of trees down each principal street. Had this been done, shade would have been afforded to drivers and pedestrians alike, and a picturesque feature would have been assured for the town. Moreover, the chessboard plan of laying out a town, naturally from its regularity dear to the heart of an engineer, is fatal in the interests of picturesqueness, however suitable it may be for progression.

There was not at first much progress in its settlement, the recollection of the former wealth and greatness of Port Royal giving the colonists a continued preference for that place; but the fire of 1703 completely destroyed the favourite town, and the disheartened inhabitants went in large numbers to Kingston, which the Assembly caused to be divided into lots and given to those who had lost their houses. A law was also passed directing the slave-owners in the parish of St. Andrew to send one out of every twenty of their slaves to build temporary huts for the refugees, and, as an encouragement for the early settlement of the new town, every house built within the year (1703) was exempted from taxes for seven years. Soon after this another law was passed declaring Kingston to be “the chief seat of trade and head port of entry” of the island.

From this time the prosperity of the town was assured, and in the year 1713 it was declared by law that the place should “for ever be taken and esteemed as an entire and distinct parish, with all the powers of any other parish,” and, further, that it should “have the right of sending three representatives to the Assembly.”

So rapidly had the town grown that in 1716 it was thus described by a historian of the time:

Within the harbour and about six miles from the town of Port Royal
lies the town of Kingston, first laid out and partially settled after
the great earthquake.... It is now become greatly increased in houses,
stores, wharves and other conveniences for trade and business, so that
it is by much the largest town in the island; and if the island shall
increase in people and new settlements (the consequences of trade and
riches) it is likely to be much the fairest town in all the Indies for
’tis most commodiously laid out, happily and beautifully situated, has
many spacious houses in it, and more are daily building, is the
residence of the greatest merchants and traders, and has resorting to
it most of the ships or vessels that come to the island, and in it is
managed the greatest part of the trade of Jamaica.

In 1721 an Act was passed empowering the inhabitants to erect a court house and exchange; and for nearly half a century the town continued to grow in size and opulence, and so important had it become in 1755 that the attempt was then made to constitute it the seat of government. The Governor (Admiral Knowles) twice proposed and the Assembly twice rejected a bill for that purpose; but at length the Assembly gave way and a law was passed giving effect to the arrangement. Soon after the public archives were removed to Kingston and the superior courts were established there. But the change was unpopular throughout the island, and numerous petitions against it were sent to the King. On October 3, 1758 (after Knowles had left), the disallowance of the law was proclaimed and the records were returned to Spanish Town, escorted by “a considerable body of military.”

In 1780, and again in 1782, the town was severely stricken by a fire. In the former year the large and closely built portion of the town lying between King and Orange streets was burnt down, the destruction of property being estimated at £30,000. But the town soon recovered from the effects of the conflagrations, and prospered to such an extent that in 1802 it was granted a corporation under the style of “The Mayor, Aldermen and Common Council of the City and Parish of Kingston.” The Court of Common Council was given a seal and empowered to make and ordain bylaws, ordinances and regulations for the good order of the city, not repugnant to prerogative or to the laws of the island. The following is a description of the city seal: On the obverse the island arms, crest, supporters and mottoes. Legend, _Sigi Commune Civit: Kingston in Jamaica_. Reverse, Britannia, in the dress of Minerva, holding a trident in one hand, and in the other a mirror, reflecting the rays of the benign influence of Heaven on the produce of the island; behind her the British Lion, supporting her shield, a conch shell at her feet, and at a distance a ship under sail. Legend, _Hos fovet, hos curat, servatque, Britannia Mater_.

In 1843 another great fire devastated a large portion of the city. It began shortly before 10 A.M. on August 26, in a foundry situated at the east end of Harbour street and extended diagonally across the city until it reached the old Roman Catholic chapel at the corner of Duke street. Many of the best dwellings and much valuable property were consumed, and a large number of persons were left in utter destitution. The sum of £10,149 was distributed among the sufferers, of which £5000 was voted by the House of Assembly. At this period a great deal of the foreign trade of Kingston had disappeared in consequence of the establishing of direct steam communication between the European and Spanish-American states; still Kingston continued an important centre of commerce.

In March 1862, another great fire occurred by which the commercial division of the city was devastated. Nineteen of the principal stores in Harbour and Port Royal streets, three wharves, and the extensive and well-built three-storied house in which the Commercial Hotel was kept, were burnt down at a loss of £30,000. The value of the merchandise, furniture, &c., destroyed was estimated at £60,830, making a total of £90,830. Of this £9400 was covered by insurances, leaving £81,530 as the total loss to the owners of the premises and stock.

Three years afterwards representative government was abandoned in Jamaica, and Kingston ceased to be a corporate city. All the powers and immunities of the common council were transferred to a nominated municipal board created by Law 8 of 1866, the privilege of making ordinances for the regulation of the city being transferred to the Governor in Privy Council. Since 1885 its affairs have been administered by a mayor and city council, elected every three years, similar to the parochial boards of the other parishes.

For many years it had become evident that the convenience of the Government and of the general public would be best served by a transfer of the seat of government from Spanish Town, and in 1872 Sir John Grant, with the approval of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, gave effect to the change.

A calamitous fire occurred in Kingston on December 11, 1882, by which a large section of the business portion of the city was destroyed. The total number of houses entirely destroyed was five hundred and seventy-seven, whilst twelve were partially destroyed. These places were inhabited by about six thousand persons. The total loss of house property was estimated at between £150,000 and £220,000.

On January 14, 1907, the city suffered great damage from the disastrous earthquake of that date and from fire. Much the same area as that devastated by fire in 1882 was destroyed in the fire of 1907, in addition to the havoc caused by the earthquake. The loss of life was variously estimated as between 1000 and 1500. The value of property destroyed amounted to between £1,000,000 and £1,500,000. A Mansion House fund for the relief of the sufferers amounted to £55,395, and a free Imperial grant was made by Parliament of £150,000 and a loan of £800,000 was authorised. The relief funds were distributed by a Relief Committee, afterwards the Assistance Committee, constituted by the Assistance Committee Law 20 of 1907. After considerable delay and much negotiations, and on the failure of an appeal in a test case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, the insurance companies agreed to pay the claims to the extent of 85 per cent. on the face values of the policies, and the money was distributed in 1909.

The Imperial Loan was administered by a Loan Board created by law. Up to March 31, 1914, loans had been made to the value of £326,000.

A fair number of the streets of Kingston have personal names. Those named after Governors: Beeston street, (Sir William Beeston, 1692–1701); Beckford street (Sir Peter Beckford, 1702); Heywood street (Peter Heywood, 1716–17); Laws (_sic_) street (Sir Nicholas Lawes, 1718–22); Elletson road (Roger Hope Elletson, 1766–67); Nugent lane (General Nugent, 1801–6); Manchester square (Duke of Manchester, 1808–27); Elgin street and Lord Elgin street (Earl of Elgin, 1842–16); Darling street (Captain Charles Darling, 1857–62); Musgrave avenue (Sir Anthony Musgrave, 1878–83); Norman road, Norman crescent and Norman range (Sir Henry Norman, 1883–89); and Blake road (Sir Henry Blake, 1889–98).

There was a Thomas Allman, clerk to the Agent Victuallers at Jamaica, who was wanted for forgery and embezzling £1283 in 1743: but Allman Town, which came into existence soon after Emancipation, was, so Mr. G. F. Judah stated, named after George Allman, who was either an officer in the army or the son of one.

Barry street reminds us of Colonel Samuel Barry, who was one of the first Council named in 1661, and owned the land on which Kingston was built. The land called Colonel Barry’s Hog Crawle was sold to Beeston, who had it laid out in lots for the building of Kingston. Byndloss lane bears the name of a family which in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries supplied seven members to the Assembly—the earliest being Colonel Robert Byndloss, member for Cagua in 1663. Barnes gully recalls Joseph Barnes, mayor, custos and representative in the Assembly of Kingston, who died in 1829. Bowrey road reminds us of a recent island chemist, from whose property the road was formed. Hibbert street also recalls a family closely connected with Jamaica in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, one member of which built Headquarters House, formerly known as Hibbert house. Marescaux road, north of Kingston, reminds us of the late manager of the Colonial Bank. Orange and Hanover streets refer to reigning houses of England.

It is probable that Pechon street was named after Major John Bonnet Pechon, who was assistant engineer on the military staff in 1809, and later island engineer. He died in 1815. Princess street is a corruption of Prince’s street, as it was called in Beeston’s time. It is called _Rue du Prince_ on a French translation of Lilly’s map. Sutton street was probably named after Colonel Thomas Sutton, who was speaker of the Assembly at the time of the earthquake of 1692. Temple lane in Kingston, as well as Temple Hall in St. Andrew, was named after Susanna Temple, the fourth wife of Sir Nicholas Lawes, sister of “la belle Temple” of de Grammont, the wife of Sir Charles Lyttelton. Whence Tower street obtained its name is not known. The following has been suggested as the origin. In the very early days of Kingston the town had a rector but no church. The rector lived in Tower street. It is thought that the rector’s house may have been used as a church and had a tower and bell.

Wildman street is named after James Wildman, a member of the Council in 1786, and later fellow member of Parliament for Hindon with Monk Lewis, another Jamaica proprietor.

Though they omitted for two centuries to dedicate their parish church to a patron saint, the people of Kingston named five of their lanes after the Apostles.

Dr. Samuel Knight, who practised medicine in the island “magna cum laude” for thirty-four years, represented Kingston in the Assembly in 1698 and 1701; he lies buried in the church.

In 1694, when an Act was passed for raising money “to solicit in England the affairs of this Their Majesties’ island,” the parish of St. Andrew was taxed to the extent of £52 17_s._ 5_d._, St. Katherine £56 16_s._ 3_d._, and others in less amounts; Kingston only being called upon to contribute £19 5_s._: but soon after, on another tax being raised, Kingston was regarded as being on a par with Port Royal and St. Jago de la Vega.

It is interesting to note that in 1699 a law was passed uniting the precincts of St. Andrew and Kingston for the purpose of keeping their courts and sessions. This law was repealed in 1704, by which time the new town had become more prosperous.

The church has always been known as =Kingston Parish Church=, and there is no record of its ever having been dedicated to any saint until, at the time of the recent consecration of the new building (in 1911), it was decided to dedicate it to St. Thomas.

PARISH CHURCH, KINGSTON
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The first traceable documentary reference to the church occurs under date October 1701, when the land was sold to the churchwardens. In March 1702–3 it is recorded in the “Votes” in the house of Assembly, that the commissioners appointed to receive claims and make distributions of the lands, under the Act of that year, “to invest Her Majesty in land in Kingston, for the reception of the sufferers by the late dreadful fire at Port Royal, declaring Kingston to be the chief seat of trade and head port of entry, and fortifying West Chester,” gave notice that they would sit in the church at Kingston. But the Act was disallowed in the following year; and West Chester, wherever it may have been (probably the western part of the town), was never fortified. It is interesting to note that the only serious rival to Kingston in its claim to be made the chief seat of trade was Old Harbour. The use of the parish church for civic purposes was by no means unusual in those days in England: for instance, from 1576 (the date of the town receiving a charter) till 1794 the paroise (or priest’s chamber) over the porch of the parish church of Hythe was used as a town hall.

There were probably in Jamaica nine churches of older foundation than Kingston—those at Spanish Town, Port Royal, Halfway-Tree, St. John’s (in Guanaboa Vale), Port Morant, Yallahs, The Alley, Old Harbour and one other. Kingston, till an earlier year can be assigned, must rest content with 1699, the date of its oldest tomb—that to William Hall, a merchant of Kingston and member of Assembly for St. Andrew from 1694 to 1699 (one of the Halls of Lincolnshire)—although it was possibly erected in or about 1695. On the other hand, if the church was standing in 1701, it is odd that it is not mentioned in the deed conveying the land given by Sir William and Lady Beeston to the churchwardens.

The following is a copy of the register:

Lib. 33. Fol. 85. Beeston, Sir William et Ux.
Dated 13th October, 1701. to
Enrolled October 28th, 1701. The Churchwardens of
Kingston
Josiah Heathcote and
Peter Caillard.

All these two lotts or parcells of land with the appurtenance
thereunto belonging being part and parcell of the said five hundred
and thirty acres of land situate and lying and being in the said Towne
of Kingston both the said lots containing one hundred foot to the High
Street westward one hundred and fifty foot northward to the Parade one
hundred foot East to Temple Lane and one hundred and fifty foot South
to the land of the said Sir William Beeston.

It is probable that a temporary building was at first erected, and was served by the rectors of Halfway Tree and Port Royal pending the appointment of a rector; and that the permanent structure of the church was only commenced after the land had been given by Beeston.

In 1703 a sermon was “preached at King’s Town in Jamaica upon June 7, being the Anniversary Fast for that Dreadful Earthquake which happened there in the year 1692, by William Corbin.” This was “printed and sold by William Bradford at the Bible in New York, 1703.”

James Knight, whose manuscript history of Jamaica (dating from 1746) is in the British Museum, thus describes the Kingston of his day, which he represented in the Assembly from 1722 to 1735, with intervals:

“The plan of the town is three-fourths of a mile in length, N. and S.,
and half a mile in breadth, E. and W. Streets are Broad and are
Regularly laid out with a Parade in the centre. The South part is
built from one end to the other as high as the Parade and many
buildings are scattered in the North part so that there are now 1200
Houses and Storehouses, most of which are handsome Buildings, two
stories high besides garrets. They are covered with shingles, sashed
and glazed with Piazzas before every house so that a man may walk from
one end to the other without going in the sun but in crossing streets.
The church, which is a handsome building in form of a cross, is 120
feet in length and stands in the S.E. part of the Parade, the pulpit,
pews and wainscote about 8 feet in height are all neatly made with
cedar, and it has a very good organ in it. There is also in the town a
Quakers’ Meeting House and a Jews’ Synagogue, no other place of Public
Worship, though there are grounds to believe some Roman Catholics or
disguised Papists and Priests privately assemble and meet together.
There is also a very good Town Hall about 80 feet in length and 30 in
breadth on the South side and fronting of King Street, with a Piazza
round which is made use of as an exchange.... Kingston being the most
popular parish in the island, and a great number of strangers
resorting to it yearly, the Benefice is estimated at six hundred
pounds per annum currency.”

The anonymous author of an undated work, published in London in 1740, entitled “The importance of Jamaica to Great Britain, considered.... In a Letter to a Gentleman,” thus refers to the church:

There is a handsome neat church, which consists of four Isles; the
Pulpit-Cloth is red Velvet, with Gold Fringes; the Seats large,
uniform and airy; has a good Organ; but the Church has no steeple,
there is no Bell hung up in it, but ’tis supplied by a small one set
up on a Frame not far from it; a large one lies in readiness to be set
up when they think proper, or have a Conveniency to hold it. The
Churchyard is wall’d in, which has several Tombs in it; in the Church
under the Altar, lies the brave Admiral _Bembow_ (_sic_); and in
another burying-place is a Tomb, which bears the Arms and Name of one
of the noble Family of the _Talbots_.

From this it appears that the tower had probably been erected between 1740 and 1774, for Long, whose history was published in 1774—easily pleased in matters architectural—calls it “a large elegant building, of four aisles, which has a fine organ, a tower and spire, with a large clock. The tower is well-constructed, and a very great ornament to the town.” “The Rector’s stipend,” he adds, “as fixed by Law, is only £250; but the surplice-fees are so large, that his income is supposed at least to be £1000 per annum, Jamaica currency (£715 stirling).” His “four aisles” is a very free use of the term. The church was in his time an aisleless, cruciform building, but Greek rather than Latin in shape, a not uncommon custom in Jamaica in early days.

In 1808 the mayor and commonalty of Kingston petitioned the House of Assembly, _inter alia_, that “the resort of persons to the parish church of the parish of Kingston for public worship hath of late years so much increased that the said church cannot with convenience accommodate them.”

In the “Jamaica Magazine” for 1813 we read: “An ordinance was passed in Common Council of Kingston, the same day (15th) for punishing all persons conducting themselves in a manner offensive to public decorum in the church. It enacts a punishment on all white and free persons of £100 fine or three months imprisonment for such an offence, and on slaves thirty-nine stripes or three months imprisonment.”

“Monk Lewis,” who saw it in 1816, says:

The church is a large one, but it is going to be still further
extended, the negroes in Kingston and neighbourhood being (as the
Rector assured me) so anxious to obtain religious instruction, that on
Sundays not only the church but the churchyard is so completely
thronged with them, as to make it difficult to traverse the crowd; and
those who are fortunate enough to obtain seats for the morning
service, through fear of being excluded from the evening, never stir
out of the church the whole day. They also flock to be baptised in
great numbers, and many have lately come to be married; and their
burials and christenings are performed with great pomp and solemnity.

James Hakewill, the architect, who was here in 1820, in his “Picturesque Tour,” calls the church truly “a plain, convenient structure, but without any pretensions to architectural beauty.”

The Rev. R. Bickell, who had been naval chaplain at Port Royal and for some time curate of Kingston, wrote in his “West Indies as they are,” in 1825:

In the city and parish of Kingston, there is but one church, which
will hold nearly a thousand people; it is thronged every Sunday
morning, principally by free people of colour, and free blacks.
Indeed, had there been two or three churches more built in this
populous city, six or seven years ago, and zealous clergymen appointed
to them, I feel confident in saying, they would, ere now, have been
equally thronged; but, though there are eight or ten thousand slaves
in the place, and a greater number of free people, with several
thousand white inhabitants, an island curate has never been appointed
there, and consequently a chapel of ease has never been built: on this
account, seeing so good an opening, the Dissenters have been very
active, and have four or five places of worship, three of them built
within the last three years; the Scotch, and other Presbyterians, have
a very large kirk (built principally with Episcopalians’ money) which
is not half filled; but the Wesleyans have two large chapels, capable
of containing more than two thousand persons, and which are well
attended (even filled I have been told) morning and evening, chiefly
by negroes and people of colour. The Baptists have also a large and
handsome chapel well attended by Blacks and Browns, besides a smaller
one occasionally opened. There is also a Catholic chapel for the
French and other foreigners.

In the “Estimate of Contingencies for the City and Parish of Kingston for the year 1830” occur the following entries:

CHURCH £ _s._ _d._

Rector’s compensation money, 110_l._; house-rent,
200_l._; burying, 50_l._ 360 0 0

Clerk’s salary, 70_l._; taking care of plate, 15_l._;
palls, 10_l._ 95 0 0

Sexton’s salary, 70_l._; digging graves, 25_l._; ringing
the bell, 25_l._ 120 0 0

Keeper of the town clock salary, 40_l._; repairs to
organ, 120_l._ 160 0 0

Sundry repairs and alterations for the present year 200 0 0

Organist’s salary, 130_l._; beadle’s salary, 84_l._;
lighting up the church, 132_l._ 346 0 0

Amount required for the Chapel of Ease 300 0 0

————— ———— ————

£1581 0 0

This of course does not include the stipends of rector and curate, which were paid by the Government.

N. B. Dennys, who was here in 1861, writing in “An Account of the Cruise of the _St. George_” (1862), miscalls the church St. Andrews and describes it as a “small building, whose only point of interest seemed to be its extreme old age.”

Of the fabric of the church wrecked by the earthquake of 1907 nothing much need be said. It was a simple brick structure with concrete pillars and round-headed arches and window openings. Cruciform in shape, in accordance with English custom it was oriented with its altar at the east end. The pulpit and reading-desk originally stood, as was the case at Halfway Tree, Port Royal and Montego Bay, at the transept, almost in the centre of the building.

The present building was erected from a design by Mr. B. A. Raves at a cost of £6000, in reinforced concrete on the old foundations, and as nearly as possible similar in design, with the omission of the tower. The window openings differ from those of the old building; two of them being decidedly original in design. The new building was consecrated on January 17, 1911, by the Archbishop of the West Indies, assisted by the Bishops of St. Albans, North Carolina, Honduras and Antigua, the Coadjutor Bishop of Jamaica, and the Assistant Bishop of Toronto.

About the beginning of the nineteenth century, as “Monk Lewis” mentions, the church was extended in length and the renaissance baldachin, which was not replaced after the recent rebuilding, an unusual addition to an Anglican church, was, it is said, added by the then rector, the Rev. Isaac Mann. Some thought they saw in the floral device immediately beneath the crown over the centre of the baldachin, the monogram W.M., which they took to stand for William and Mary, but there are no grounds for the supposition, and the structure was probably of later date.

In Duperly’s view taken in about 1844 the old sash windows appear; and the old curved lead gargoyles, most of which were removed later, are very evident.

In 1883–85, during the incumbency of Archdeacon Downer, who held the living for thirty-five years and took part in the recent consecration service, the church, which in 1873 consisted of nave and transepts without side aisles, was considerably enlarged by G. Messiter, by the addition of two side aisles on each side, giving extra accommodation for 500 persons, making the building available for 1300 in all.

The aisles nearest the nave extended the full length of the fabric, while the exterior ones only ran east of the transepts. This, added to their apsidal form, gave, and gives, the church the appearance of a miniature cathedral in plan. Pieces of the original outside walls could, till the recent reconstruction, be seen _in situ_ in corners of the transept. The original windows were removed to the new outer walls and the mural monuments were taken down and replaced on the new walls, a process which had to be repeated in 1910. When some of the old walls were pulled down many massive beams of timber were found embedded in the masonry, placed in several directions. Some of them were ten or fifteen feet long, many inches in diameter and of bully-wood in perfectly sound condition. Some, including Messiter the architect, thought that these were put in to strengthen the walls in case of a repetition of the Port Royal earthquake of a few years before: and they certainly suggest the method of construction adopted by the Spaniards for that purpose and described in Long’s history. At the same time, when the foundation of the east wall was underpinned, a large vault under the altar was opened; and in it was found a coffin—covered with the remains of velvet and gilt ornaments, apparently of a most expensive character—thought to have been Admiral Benbow’s.

The oldest dated Communion plate is of the year 1707. Two patens were the gift of Mrs. Ann Plowman; and two other pieces, a chalice and flagon, were given by Mr. Elias Nezerau in that year. Mrs. Elizabeth Sillers gave in 1721 a flagon identical with that given by Mr. Nezerau fourteen years earlier. Both flagons bear the maker’s mark.

The clock dates from 1801, the organ from 1878, the lectern from 1886, the bell from 1890, the pulpit (of white stone, with marble columns) from 1891, when it was erected in memory of a former rector, Archdeacon Campbell, his brother Dr. Charles Campbell, and the doctor’s partner, Dr. Bowerbank.

The rose window in the north transept, representing the Good Samaritan, with medallions of St. John, St. Peter, St. Stephen, St. Andrew as deacon, and St. Stephen as martyr, was put up in 1888 to the memory of the Hon. H. F. Colthirst, a churchwarden, and his children. The corresponding window, of 1887, in the south transept, representing, in the centre, the Angel at the Sepulchre, surrounded by cherubs, is a memorial to Mr. C. A. Robinson and children. These two windows gave a good illustration of the manner in which concrete, even before the earthquake of 1907, was made to do duty for stone in Jamaica. Portions of the glass from these windows have, in the recent reconstruction, been scattered throughout various window openings. The window at the east end of the north aisle, heraldic and geometric in character, was erected to the Hon. Dr. Hamilton, District Grand Master of the Freemasons in Jamaica. The east window was erected in 1914 in memory of Archdeacon Downer.

The vestry was built in 1895, and in that year the old brick wall which formerly surrounded the churchyard was replaced by the present railing. The City Council contributed £50 towards the cost of the bell on the condition that it should be rung at nine o’clock every evening—a reminiscence of the English curfew which is still continued.

Beside the west door were hung the old colours of the 2nd Battalion of the West India Regiment, returned to the rebuilt garrison chapel at Up-Park Camp in 1912, and on either side are monumental brasses—one (1896) to the memory of officers and men of the 1st Battalion W.I.R. who fell in West Africa in various expeditions, and another (1898) to officers who died of fever on the West Coast of Africa and in this island; and there are marble tablets to the officers of the 1st and 3rd W.I.R. who died here and elsewhere in the West Indies of yellow fever in 1853.

The following is as perfect a list of the rectors of the parish as it has been found possible to compile:

1701–(?) 1714. Rev. William Collins.
1715————— Rev. — Skipp.
1722–1754. Rev. William May, M.A.
1729————— Rev. Charles Lambe, D.D.
1754–1765. Rev. Robert Atkins.
1766–1768. Rev. John Pool.
1768–1776. Rev. Thomas Coxeter.
1776–1784. Rev. William Morgan, D.D.
1784–1805. Rev. Thomas Rees.
1805–1813. Rev. Alexander Campbell, M.A.
1813–1828. Rev. Isaac Mann, M.A.
1829–1847. Ven. Archdeacon Edward Pope, D.D.
1848–1860. Ven. Archdeacon Thomas Stewart, D.D.
1861–1872. Ven. Archdeacon Duncan Houston Campbell, M.A.
1873–1908. Ven. Archdeacon George William Downer.
1908.————— Rev. R. J. Ripley.

It is difficult to understand how Lambe came to be rector during May’s tenure of office. It may have been an acting appointment during the incumbent’s illness. The authority for including Lambe in the list of rectors is the following entry in Foster’s “Alumni Oxonienses”:

Lambe, Charles. S. John [Dean of Ely]. Ch. Ch. Matric. 1697, aged 18
[or 13]; B.A. 1701, M.A. from King’s Coll., Cambridge, 1709. D.D.
Lambeth, 1722.... Chaplain to the Duke of Portland when Governor of
Jamaica, Rector of Kingston, Jamaica, 1729.