Chapter D: O. M (5)

“On May 21, 1842,” says Sir John William Kaye, in his life of Metcalfe, “Sir Charles Metcalfe once again embarked for England. The scene will never be forgotten by those who witnessed it. From even the most distant places crowds of people of all classes had come to see for the last time, and to say God-speed to, the Governor whose public and private virtues they so loved and revered. The old island militiamen, who had not been called out for years, volunteered to form his escort. The ‘coloured population knelt to bless him.’ Many present on that occasion, at once so gratifying and so painful to the departing statesman, felt that they had lost a friend who could never be replaced. All classes of society and all sects of Christians sorrowed for his departure; and the Jews set an example of Christian love by praying for him in their synagogues.

“He went—but the statue voted by the Island, and erected in the public square of Spanish Town, is not a more enduring record of his residence in Jamaica than the monument which he has made for himself in the hearts of a grateful people.”

In 1843–45 he was governor-general of Canada, a post of extreme difficulty at that time, and held by him with considerable tact and firmness while he himself was practically dying. He displayed much patience under the greatest provocation. He had there the support of that empire-builder Wakefield, who said of him that God had made him greater than the Colonial Office. In 1845 he was created Baron Metcalfe. In the securing of this honour the valuable services which he rendered in connection with Jamaica played an important part. In fact it may fairly be said that had the Whigs and not the Tories been in power when he left that island the peerage would have been conferred on him then. He never took his seat in the House of Lords, and the title died with him the following year, the baronetcy going to his younger brother. During the latter part of his life he had borne great suffering with heroic patience.

He was short in stature and somewhat homely in appearance; but he had an intelligent countenance and an habitually sweet smile. He was of a most lovable disposition. Though intensely hospitable he really disliked society and preferred the companionship of a few friends, but he lived continually in harness either social or official. He was at all times of his life a poor horseman; he had tried in vain to learn in India, and travelling in the hilly parts of Jamaica must have been a painful task for him. He writes: “I have got some steady horses and ponies which suit me pretty well. Any but steady ones would soon tumble me over a precipice.”

Of his country residence, Highgate, to which he retreated from Spanish Town whenever the calls of office permitted, he wrote, “If climate were everything I should prefer living on this spot to any other that I know in the world.”

Liberal and generous by disposition, he yet succeeded in saving from his official salaries and the interest of his investments a sufficient fortune to have maintained with credit the peerage which had been bestowed upon him.

On his quitting Jamaica the Assembly voted £3000 for the statue, which for many years looked down King street, Kingston, to which spot it had been removed from Spanish Town, where it was originally erected on the site of the present court house, opposite Rodney’s statue. It was originally intended to have a temple and colonnade like Rodney’s, but the funds did not prove sufficient and the scheme was abandoned. In 1898 the statue was removed to make way for a statue of Queen Victoria, when it was placed at the foot of King street, on the pedestal which had for some years supported Bacon’s statue of Rodney during its temporary absence from Spanish Town.

Metcalfe’s statue has proved more enduring than the parish which, formed from parts of St. George and St. Mary and named after him in 1841, was merged into St. Mary in 1867 by Grant’s reduction of the parishes from twenty-two to fourteen. The statue is by Edward Hodges Baily, R.A., a pupil of Flaxman, and a sculptor of high aims and pure ideals, by whom there is also a bust of Metcalfe in the Metcalfe Hall, Calcutta.

He is represented bare-headed, and wearing the insignia of the Bath. The statue on its double pedestal stands too high to be well seen. On the front of the original pedestal is the following inscription, now almost illegible from the ground, partly because of its great height and partly because the painting has worn off the letters:

THIS STATUE
IS ERECTED IN HONOR OF
THE RT. HON. SIR CHARLES THEOPHILUS METCALFE, BART, K.C.B.
NOW BARON METCALFE
BY THE GRATEFUL INHABITANTS OF JAMAICA
IN COMMEMORATION
OF THE BENEFITS DERIVED FROM
HIS WISE, JUST AND BENEFICIAL ADMINISTRATION
OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE ISLAND
A.D. 1845.

On the west face are the arms of Jamaica (on which the cross is tricked _or_ instead of _gules_, and the crest is placed on an esquire’s helmet); on the east those of Metcalfe. On the back is an emblematic design with figures of Justice and Mercy on either side of an altar on which rests an anchor.

On the lower pedestal, erected originally to receive Rodney’s statue, is placed an earthenware tablet (similar to those erected by the Royal Society of Arts in London) which was put up by the Institute of Jamaica in 1892 to record the fact that:

12 FEET WEST OF THE
CENTRE OF THE PEDESTAL,
COMMANDER GREEN,
U.S.N. IN 1875 ERECTED THE
LONGITUDE STATION OF
KINGSTON AND FOUND IT TO BE
5h. 7m. 10·65 s. (76° 47′ 39·8″)
WEST OF GREENWICH.
I.J.

The great weight of this lower pedestal enabled the statue to stand the earthquake of 1907 unmoved; while every other statue in Kingston was either thrown down or slued round on its base.

“Selections from the Papers of Lord Metcalfe” contain papers from Jamaica, dealing with such divers subjects as the Conditions of the Island; the Social Condition of the People; the Labour Question; the Stipendiary Magistrate; the Governor’s Salary; Reforms of the Judicial System; Advantages of Conciliation; Prison Discipline; the Health of the Troops, and Answers to Addresses from the parishes of St. Catherine, St. Ann and St. Thomas; the Missionary Presbytery and the St. George’s Agricultural Society. The “Addresses” themselves, to the number of thirty-nine from all sections of the community, were published in Jamaica in 1842.

From this volume we learn that the first proposal to erect a statue to Metcalfe in St. Jago de la Vega was made and adopted at a meeting of the inhabitants of St. Catherine held on March 17, 1842, and this was supported by meetings held in many of the parishes. There was, however, a counter proposal to have a statue in Kingston. St. Jago de la Vega won then, but time has brought revenge to Kingston. In 1847 £200 was paid by the Assembly for a temple for the statue of Metcalfe, and they voted “£1500 for its removal and erection” in front of the Assembly Room and Library.

When Colonel Christian Lilly laid out the town of Kingston in 1692, he left in the centre a plaza or square after the Spanish method of colonial town-planning. In the eighteenth century barracks were erected to the north-west corner of this square, and the space to the south was for many years utilised as a parade-ground, as shown in Adolphe Duperly’s view in his “Daguerian Excursions in Jamaica,” published about 1844. Later on the barracks were abandoned by the troops, and they are now utilised for police-court purposes. The ornamental gardens were laid out in 1870 in the centre of the old military parade, whence they became known as the Parade Gardens; a wide space being left as roadway to the south.

At the instance of a Committee appointed to report on the most suitable way to celebrate the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, £800 was voted by the Legislature in March 1897 for a =Statue to Queen Victoria= in addition to £700 for local rejoicings.

It was originally intended to place the statue at the front of the block of buildings which was in contemplation; but, as retrenchment then interfered with the project, the statue was erected at the top of King’s street, on the base erected for the statue of Lord Metcalfe when it was removed from Spanish Town. Owing to its small size it is to be regretted that the statue was not placed somewhere indoors, or at all events not on so high a pedestal.

QUEEN VICTORIA’S STATUE
]

It is a replica of a statue erected in the hall of the Colonial Office at Singapore in connection with the Jubilee of 1887, by E. Edward Geflowski, who exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1867 to 1872.

The statue cost in all about £800. A plaster cast that was used for the unveiling, in connection with the Jubilee rejoicings, is now at King’s House, Spanish Town. Another copy is in the Imperial Institute, London.

In February of 1914 the Victoria League of Jamaica asked the Mayor and Council of Kingston to consider the desirability of re-naming the Parade Gardens the Victoria Park, and suggested that, if they approved, occasion should be taken of the presence of Her Highness Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein, the granddaughter of Queen Victoria, on February 4, to ask her Highness to perform the ceremony, as it was felt that it would be well if the memory of Queen Victoria should be perpetuated in the centre of the principal town of the Colony, the more especially as it was in close proximity to the statue of her late Majesty. The Mayor and Council fell in with the suggestion, the consent of the Governor was obtained, and Her Highness the Princess renamed the Gardens on February 4. Although the Gardens have been fittingly named after Queen Victoria, dear to the hearts of all Jamaicans, it is to be hoped the surrounding buildings will still retain the name of Parade, and thus help to recall the days when the central part was made gay by many a military uniform.

On the eastern side of the Gardens stands a full-length statue by R. G. Miller, R.A., of =Edward Jordan=, C.B., “who through a long series of years and in times of danger, fearlessly stood forward as the champion of Emancipation and for the removal of civil disabilities,” erected by public subscription. The statue of another distinguished Jamaican, =Dr. Lewis Quier Bowerbank=, was erected in the year 1881, on the northern side, by his numerous friends and admirers; but a third statue, that of =Father Dupont=, a Roman Catholic priest who for many years laboured among the poor of the city, erected at the north-east corner, was destroyed by the earthquake of 1907.

Other monuments of interest in Kingston are a bust portrait of the =Rev. John Radcliffe= (preacher and poet), in the Scotch church, by Sir Thomas Brock, R.A., erected by public subscription in 1896, which, though buried under the ruins of the porch, escaped serious injury in the earthquake of 1907, and a memorial tablet to the =Rev. William James Gardner= (Congregational minister and historian) in the Congregational church, North street, erected after his death, which occurred in 1874.

Amongst disused burial-grounds are the Stranger’s Burial-Ground (earliest tomb is dated 1753) and the Spring Path Burial-Ground, both by the Railway Station (earliest tomb is dated 1794); the Baptist Ground, in the Windward Road (earliest tomb dated 1801); the Wesleyan Methodist Cemetery at the corner of Windward Road and Elletson Road (earliest tomb dated 1791); the Jewish Cemetery in Elletson Road (the earliest tomb dated 1797); the Jewish Cemeteries at the south-east and south-west corners of Church and North streets (in the former the earliest tomb dated 1719), all contain monuments of historic interest.

In view of recent interest evinced in the question of wharf accommodation it may be well to republish a “List and Situation of the Public Wharves in Kingston, running East and West,” which appeared in the “Columbian Magazine” (Kingston) in 1800—one hundred and fifteen years ago.

I. Welsh & Son’s: bottom of John’s Lane.

I. Harriot’s: between John’s Lane and Duke Street.

G. Douglas & Co., and I. Sewell’s: bottom of Duke Street.

John Davidson’s: between Duke Street and Mark Lane.

Donaldson & Heron, and M’Bean & Bagnold’s: bottom of Mark Lane.

Jaques, Laing, & Ewing’s: between Mark Lane and Church Street.

Duncomb & Pownal, and Bogle & Cathcart’s: bottom of Church Street.

Thomas Hyne’s: between Church Street and Temple Lane.

Kinkhead & Sproull; and Hardy, Pennock & Brittan’s: bottom of Temple
Lane.

John West & Co.’s: between Temple Lane and King Street.

Willis & Waterhouse; and Bogle, Jopp & Co.’s: bottom of King Street.

Joseph Teasdale; and I. Robertson & Co.’s: bottom of Peter’s Lane.

Burnett, Stirling & Co.; and W. Cleland’s: bottom of Orange Street.

Cowgill & Co.’s; between Orange Street and Luke Lane.

Henry West & Co.; and Donaldson, Forbes, Grant & Stewart’s: bottom of
Luke Lane.

Dick, McCall & Co.’s: between Luke Lane and Princess Street.

Shaw, Holy & Co.; and Lindo & Brothers’: bottom of Princess Street.

Ordnance; and R. Sutherland & Co.’s: bottom of Matthew’s Lane.

W. B. Bryan & Co.; and Fairclough & Barnes’s: bottom of West Street.

Dick, McCall & Co.’s Lumber Wharf: next on the Westward; and further
on.

Liddle & Rennie’s.

IV
ST. ANDREW

The parish of St. Andrew was originally called Liguanea, and the name still lingers round the plain. It now consists of what before the passing of law 20 of 1867 comprised the parish of Port Royal and the parish of St. Andrew, less the parts known as Smith’s Village, Hannah’s Town, Fletcher’s Town, and the town of Port Royal. There are no towns in St. Andrew; the principal villages being Halfway Tree, Gordon Town and Stony Hill.

The earliest known reference to Halfway Tree on record occurs in the minutes of the Council of January 4, 1696, when “the Governor acquainted the Board that he had been informed that Mr. Redman Maccragh, Mr. Henry Archbold, and others had assembled together att halfeway tree in the parish of St. Andrews and had obleiged severall of His Majesty’s subjects passing that way to drink a health to the late K. James, which was lookt upon by the Board to be a great misdemeanour,” and it was ordered that all persons concerned should appear before the Board the next Council day; but this apparently they discreetly abstained from doing.

It derives its name from a cotton tree dating from the conquest, which existed as late as 1866. Richard Hill, in an article which was published posthumously in the “Victoria Quarterly” in 1890, said:

“I visited Halfway Tree on Sunday the 25th November, 1866. When I
first saw the cotton tree at the junction of the four roads through
the plain of Liguanea from which Halfway Tree receives its name, it
had nearly lived out its time. It is of that lofty straight-stemmed
variety of Eriondendron which originally growing among some clustering
trees had overtopped them and had spread its horizontal arms out above
them at about some fifty or sixty feet in elevation from the root.
Four or five of these arms yet remained with a few scattering stems on
which a few straggling leaves vegetated. An age of surface rains
rushing to the sea three miles away had removed all the soluble earth
from the platform roots, so that they made arched resting places,
where the marketers coming from the mountains would rest themselves in
groups for they had reached the Halfway Tree.... At the time of the
conquest of the island 200 years ago, the Halfway Tree was one of
those tall and solitary cotton trees of the Liguanea Plain.”

It is to be regretted that no illustration exists of this interesting tree, which has perished since Hill wrote. It stood near the present church, where the original road (now known as the old Pound Road) going from Passage Fort, the landing-place from Port Royal, direct towards the mountains, was cut by the road that went from Spanish Town to the plain of St. Andrew.

Long the historian says: “The village of Halfway Tree is situated ... at the intersection of the three roads which lead to Spanish Town, St. Mary, and St. George,” and this probably is the origin of the name.

The ascription of the name to the half-way position for the troops between Greenwich on the Harbour and Stony Hill is evidently wrong, as the troops were not placed at Stony Hill till 1799.

The =Old Burial-Ground, Halfway Tree=, is the name usually given to the disused graveyard on the road between King’s House and the Constant Spring road, where the Waterloo road crosses it on its way to the foot of the hills. Standing on land falling away towards Sandy Gully, it is said to be the site of the first church erected by the English in St. Andrew, one of the seven parishes into which the island was originally divided by Sir Thomas Modyford in 1664; but there are now no evidences of the foundations to be seen.

In 1682 Sir Thomas Lynch sent home to the Bishop of London a detailed account of “this infant church” in Jamaica. Of Halfway Tree he wrote: “On the north side of Port Royal harbour lies St. Andrews, where Mr. Cellier, a Swiss, is minister. It is the pleasantest part of the Island, with an ordinary church and a pretty parsonage house. The minister has £100 a year, he is an honest man and well beloved. Colonel Beeston can tell you about him.”

The second church was erected near where the present fabric stands; the foundation stone being laid on January 12, 1686, according to the following extract from the early vestry minutes:—“1686, January 12, Prayers at the old church and a sermon from Gen. ch. 28, v. 16, 17. The first brick of the new church laid by the Rev. Mr. Zeller, the second by Col. Sam. Barry.” The building of this church had evidently been contemplated for some time, a previous entry, under date July 28, 1684, reading “Agree about building the new intended Church.” James Zellers, a Swiss by birth, came out to Jamaica in 1664 and was at once appointed to St. Andrew, which parish he served for thirty-six years. Colonel Barry, who owned Cavaliers, was one of the largest landowners in the parish. The second church was destroyed by the earthquake of 1692. In “The Truest and Largest Account of the Late Earthquake in Jamaica ... written by a Reverend Divine there ... London, 1693,” it is thus referred to: “From thence it is but a short way to _Ligania_, the first and principal place for Planting, (whereunto my own parish is immediately the next) which for the most part imitating, if not Exceeding the stateliness of Port Royal, is now, together with its fine New Built and not yet finished Church, buried in the same Ruines with the Houses.” This old ground was used for interment long after the present church was built; in fact, as late as 1862.

The registers of the church of St. Andrew at Halfway Tree, dating back to 1666, are the oldest in the island. They contain many records of interest. Unfortunately, the entries for the early years are only a transcript of about the middle of the eighteenth century, the same handwriting extending to the year 1741. The first entry of baptism extant is that of Grace, daughter of Edward Onion, under date June 10, 1666. The earliest marriage is that of John Wilson and Anne Zeale on June 7, 1666; and the first death Arabella Joanes, on July 4, 1666.

Amongst those who lie in the old burial-ground are George Bennett, of Dorsetshire family, “who came here a soldier under General Venables”; Henry Dakins, who died in 1683; Major Samuel Guy, who died in 1736; and “Edward, the soven (_sic_) of William and Anne Beeston, who dyed this 5th day of August, 1678, being above the age of ... months,” and “Henry the sonne of William and Anne Beeston who dyed the first day of May, 1677, being about the age of 14 months.”

HALFWAY-TREE CHURCH IN 1906
]

Sir William Beeston was governor of Jamaica from 1693 to 1701. His daughter Jane married firstly Sir Thomas Modyford, the fifth and last baronet, and secondly, Charles Long, of Longville, son of Samuel Long who came out with Penn and Venables as secretary to Cromwell’s Commission, and rose to fame. With his friend Beeston, Samuel Long was sent home a prisoner by the Earl of Carlisle, but they successfully vindicated the privileges of Jamaica. Edward Long, the historian of Jamaica, was grandson of Charles and Jane Long.

The wall of the churchyard no doubt dates from early in the eighteenth century, as appears by a further extract from the vestry minutes, under date “1706, February”: “Ordered that both these churchyards [the new and the old] be walled in.”

The vestry minutes are copied from a reference in the “Morning Journal” of June 18, 1858, contributed by Mr. Livingston.

The =Parish Church of St. Andrew=, commonly known as Halfway Tree church, is, after the cathedral at Spanish Town, the most interesting, from an historic point of view, of all the churches in the colony.

The vestry lost no time in rebuilding after the earthquake had destroyed the first church, for we learn from the vestry minutes, under date July 5, 1692; “Ordered that a new church be forthwith built on the church land at Halfway Tree of the figure of the late new church, and a house for the Minister 50 feet front from out to out, 16 feet wide from in to in, 9 feet high a brick and half thick.”

The building was apparently so far completed as to receive monuments on its walls by the following March, for that is the date of the one which records the death of Frances, wife of Sir Nicholas Lawes, a successful planter, and a wise and beneficent governor in times of great misfortune. Lawes himself was buried in the church of the parish, the interests of which he did much to further, but his tomb is not now to be found. His name still lives in Laws street, Kingston.

The following further extracts from the vestry minutes are interesting: “1697, order for building a Vestry room and hanging the Bell”; “1699, April 29, Bargain about a Steeple”; “... December 22, Order for pewing the Church.”

The church was finally completed in 1700. In 1701 Sir William Beeston and his wife gave, as we have seen, a site in Kingston for the erection of a church in that town, and in the year following, namely, on January 13, 1702, the Vestry of St. Andrew ordered “That the benches belonging to the church be given to Kingston for the use of their church.” On October 25, 1703, it was ordered “that the tyles be taken off the roof of the church, and that it be covered with shingles instead thereof”; and in 1705 that the ceiling, &c., be plaistered. Richard Hill is probably in error in saying that “the then existing church shattered and blown down in the hurricane of 1712 and 1722 was succeeded by the present edifice,” but one’s later day experience of hurricane and earthquake have shown that these and the work of “restorers” make sad havoc of the historic evidence offered by monumental inscriptions. In 1685 it was decided to order a communion service from England, but the oldest chalice and flagon in the church bear the date 1700, and the mark, B.O., of John Boddington (who made a communion flagon which is at North Cerney in Gloucestershire).

On June 9, 1741, the churchwardens were ordered to send to Great Britain for a “Pulpit Cloth with Cushions and other necessary ornaments for the Pulpit, Reading Desk, and Communion Table, of crimson, with a plain gold fringe, and six dozen hassocks.” The edifice was somewhat damaged in the hurricane of October 20, 1744; and on November 3 following the churchwardens were ordered to agree with workmen to put the church immediately in repair and secure the windows with substantial shutters on the outside. In 1760 orders were given for the importation of an organ, and on July 1, 1762, Messrs. Freeman and Dixper were employed to take down the old organ and to put up and tune the new one for £80.

For many years the church remained, as it was built, a plain unattractive structure, by men who had the fear of earthquake and hurricane before them. In 1879–80 extensive restorations were carried out; the Campbell memorial chancel was added, extensions were made to the north and south ends of the transept, and at the west end so as to connect nave and tower, and the ceiling was removed.

In 1904, in order to provide extra accommodation, a south chancel aisle, designed with deep-mullioned, unglazed window-openings, so as to exclude sunlight and yet admit fresh air, was added in memory of the late rector, the Rev. H. H. Isaacs. And in 1909 extensive repairs, involving the pulling down of the shattered tower, the space occupied by which was thrown into the nave, were rendered necessary by the earthquake of 1907.

The first rector, James Zellers, was appointed to St. Andrew on June 9, 1664, and since that date the parish has been served by but sixteen rectors, giving an average of upwards of fifteen years for each incumbent—not a bad record for a “pestilential climate,” as that of Jamaica was formerly called.

In this connection it is of interest to note that a recent member of the congregation worshipped in the church for upwards of seventy years, for a large part of which time he was verger. Stephen Dale, who was born in the parish of Manchester in or about 1806, came to St. Andrew as a slave on Cassia Park, a property near the church, when a young man, and lived in Halfway Tree till his death. Though pensioned as verger in 1896, he still, to the advanced age of 106, in 1912, played his part in collecting the offertory at the Sunday services, and performed other duties in connection with the church. He remembered that he was thirty-two years of age at the time of Emancipation.

Of the monuments by far the most interesting from an art point of view is that formerly on the south wall of the chancel, now on the north wall of the nave, to =James Lawes=. One of the best pieces of iconic sculpture in the island, it is by John Cheere (miscalled Sheere by Lawrence-Archer), the brother of Sir Henry Cheere (b. 1703, d. 1781), at first a pupil of Sheemakers, and afterwards employer and instructor of Roubiliac.

Sir Henry Cheere was the chief of the statuaries of his time, working in marble, bronze, and lead to meet the demand for garden decoration. He executed numerous monuments for Westminster Abbey. In 1760 he was chosen by the County of Middlesex to present a congratulatory address to the King on his accession. Knighted on that occasion, he was created a baronet six years later. In 1755 he drew up the first proposals for the formation of the Royal Academy. All we are told of John Cheere is that he was “also a statuary and probably a partner in his brother’s works.”

Of James Lawes almost all there is to tell is stated in Latin on his handsome monument. He was baptized in 1697, married in 1720, and was member of the house of Assembly for St. Andrew in 1721, and for Vere in 1722. He was called up to the council in 1725. He died in 1733. He had a dormant commission, but never acted as governor. His widow re-married, in 1742, William Home, eighth Earl of Home, governor of Gibraltar. His epitaph, translated, runs as follows:

In this neighbourhood lie the remains of the Hon. James Lawes: he was
the first-born son of Sir Nicholas Lawes, the Governor of this island,
by his wife Susanna Temple: he married Elizabeth, the only daughter
and heiress of William Gibbon, Esquire: then in early manhood, when
barely thirty-six years of age, he obtained almost the highest
position of distinction amongst his countrymen, being appointed
Lieutenant-Governor by royal warrant; but before he entered on his
duties, in the prime of life—alas!—he died on the 29th day of
December, A.D. 1733.

In him we lose an upright and honoured citizen, a faithful and
industrious friend, a most affectionate husband, a man who was just
and kind to all, and distinguished by the lustre of genuine religion.
His wife who survived him had this tomb erected to perpetuate the
memory of a beloved husband.

His arms are painted on the monument: “Or, on a chief azure, three estoiles of eight points or. On an escutcheon of pretence, or, a lion rampant sable debruised of a bend gules charged with three escallops, or.”

He was probably born at Temple Hall, where his father, governor of the colony from 1718 till 1722, introduced towards the close of his life, in 1728, the coffee plant into the island. His mother was a daughter of Thomas Temple, of Francton, Warwickshire, and Temple Hall, in St. Andrew, sister of “La Belle Temple,” of de Grammont (wife of Sir Charles Lyttelton, governor of Jamaica), and widow of Samuel Bernard, speaker of the Assembly. She was the fourth of Sir Nicholas Lawes’s five wives, all widows when he married them.

Other interesting monuments in the church are those to Zachary Bayly, uncle and patron of Bryan Edwards, the historian, who wrote his flowery epitaph typical of the time; to Admiral Davers, who was one of the principal actors in the quarrel between Sir Chaloner Ogle and the governor, Trelawny, an echo of the jealousy of Wentworth and Vernon, which was a factor in their deplorable failure at Cartagena; and to General Villettes (by Sir Richard Westmacott), commander of the forces and lieutenant-governor, to whom there is a mural tablet in Westminster Abbey; and in the churchyard is the monument of Christopher Lipscomb, first bishop of Jamaica.

The earliest dated tomb is that to Edward Harrison, of the year 1695. The latest monuments of importance erected in the church are those in memory of Sir James Fergusson, who was killed in Kingston by the earthquake of 1907, and lies buried in the churchyard; and a brass tablet to the memory of Sir Anthony Musgrave, a former governor.

The number of naval men buried here is somewhat remarkable for an inland church: Admiral Davers (d. 1746), Dr. Charles Mackglashan, R.N. (d. 1834), Commodores Pring (d. 1846), Peter McQuhae (d. 1853) and Cracroft (d. 1865), Admiral Holmes (d. 1761), Captains Renton (d. 1747–8), Shortland (d. 1827) and Morrish (d. 1861).

Amongst military men are General William Anne Villettes (d. 1808), Lieut.-Col. Augustus Frederick Ellis (d. 1841), Lieut.-Col. Charles Markham (d. 1842), and Major-General Lambert (d. 1848).

The old chandelier, at the west end, dating from the year 1706, the gift of Nicholas Lawes, is a good example of English brass work of that period. The copy of the royal arms, also at the west end, dates from the time of Queen Anne, as the initials A. R. testify. The tattered flags of the 3rd West India Regiment told of a time when there were more battalions than there are now. Laid up on the disbandment of the regiment in 1870, they were on July 31, 1912, removed from the church to the recently erected garrison chapel at Up-Park Camp.

The registers contain many records of interest. In the early years occur the well-known names of Brayne, Beeston, Barry, Elletson and Lawes.

Between 1671 and 1691 Colonel Samuel Barry had four children baptized; Colonel William Beeston, five; and Roger Elletson (who married Anne Hope on May 6, 1680), six.

The Robert Beckford who, on June 6, 1688, married Anne Prenyard, must have been a member of the well-known family, possibly a brother of Colonel Peter Beckford, the president of the council.

Amongst the baptisms are recorded those of Robert Charles Dallas, the author of “The History of the Maroons,” on Christmas day, 1756; of William, son of Lieut.-Col. John Dalling, afterwards governor of the island, in 1771; and of Marie Antoinette, daughter of Maria Despouches and Sir Hyde Parker, vice-admiral of the red, in 1797.

Slaves were often baptized _en bloc_. In 1780 four negroes “the property of the Dutchess of Chandos” were baptized on February 8. On May 5, 1790, five slaves, the property of Simon Taylor, the wealthiest man of his time, were baptized; and on September 9, 1803, eighteen slaves on Mona estate; and on July 15, 1815, twenty-nine male adults, twenty-seven female adults, eight male and nine female children slaves were baptized on Fair Hill plantation.

The good people of Kingston not infrequently came to St. Andrew to be married, _e.g._, on September 12, 1792, Robert Hibbert, Esq., Jun., of the parish of Kingston, married Elizabeth Jane Nembhard, of the same parish. Another interesting marriage that took place in St. Andrew was that of Philip Livingston of Kingston, merchant (the eldest son of Philip Livingston, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence of the United States in 1776), to Sarah Johnson, of the parish of St. Andrew, on June 29, 1768. Apparently, also, sometimes burial services were conducted in St. Andrew prior to entombment elsewhere. Under date November 5, 1702, is recorded the death of “Admiral John Bembo,” whose tombstone is in Kingston parish church. He had died at Port Royal on November 4. There is an old tradition that Benbow was buried at Greenwich, then a naval station on the harbour to the west of Kingston. This would be compatible with the entry in the Halfway Tree register, as Greenwich was and is in the parish of St. Andrew; but James Knight, who was member for Kingston in 1722 and following years, says, in a manuscript history of Jamaica in the British Museum, “He was buried the day following [his death] in the church at Kingston, greatly lamented by all ranks of people.” It is strange, therefore, that his burial should be recorded in the register of St. Andrew. It may be that when two rectors took part in the burial service each recorded it.

Amongst other interesting items in the burials we read: “1772, Nov. 6, Mrs. Clies, mother-in-law to Sir George Bridges Rodney, Bart.” She was the mother of Rodney’s second wife, Henrietta. Her husband was John Clies, of Lisbon.

The following is a complete list of the rectors of the parish:

July 1664 to 25th May 1700 Rev. James Zellers
1700 to 5th July 1710 Rev. John Moodie
1710 to 22nd Oct. 1714 Rev. George Wright
1714 to 25th March 1738 Rev. John Carey
1738 to 26th April 1747 Rev. Alexander Inglis
1747 to 25th Oct. 1760 Rev. George Eccles
1760 to 13th April 1768 Rev. Gideon Castelfranc
1768 to 1782 Rev. John Pool, LL.B.
1782 to May 1813 Rev. John Campbell
1813 to 8th Dec. 1858 Rev. Alexander Campbell, M.A.
1858 to 1860 Ven. Archdeacon Richard Panton, D.D.
January 1861 to 1870 Rev. William Mayhew, M.A.
October 1870 to August 1872 Rev. George Taylor Braine, B.A.
August 1872 to Oct. 1878 Ven. Archdeacon Duncan Houston
Campbell, M.A.
March 1879 to 22nd Sept. 1900 Rev. Hubert Headland Isaacs M.A.
January 1901 Rev. Edward Jocelyn Wortley

KING EDWARD’S CLOCK TOWER
]

Amongst interesting houses are =Lundie’s Pen=, Halfway Tree, a typical eighteenth-century Jamaica house, but altered after the earthquake of 1907—it bears date September 3, 1767. =King’s House=, which was formerly the residence of the Bishop of Jamaica, was purchased for £5000 as an official residence of the governor, on the removal of the seat of government to Kingston in 1872. A dining-hall and ballroom were added later. It was wrecked by the earthquake of 1907, and was rebuilt in 1909 from designs by Sir Charles Nicholson. In it are two full-length portraits by Sir Joshua Reynolds of George III and Queen Charlotte, copies of the portraits which were painted in 1779 and for which Reynolds received £420. Reynolds made it a condition of his acceptance of the presidentship of the Royal Academy that he should be allowed to paint portraits of the king and queen. The portraits were presented to the Royal Academy by the king. Thirteen pairs of copies were painted. Copies are in the possession of the Earl of Malmesbury at Heron Court; at the Viceregal Lodge, Dublin; at Hatfield House; at Cobham Hall; at Knole; the Senior United Service Club, London; and the Cutlers’ Company; and the pair mentioned above at Jamaica. The king is seated in his robes, with the sceptre in his right hand; in the background are a canopy and the aisles of Westminster Abbey. The queen is seated on a throne, with a sceptre on a cushion in front. She is clad in a gold-embroidered dress, with lace sleeves, and ermine train and robe.

At Halfway is =King Edward’s Clock Tower=, erected as a memorial by public subscription in 1913.

The =Stony Hill Barracks= (dating from 1799) are now used as an Industrial School. In 1844 they were unoccupied, and the Assembly suggested that they should form a lodging for the convicts which, it was proposed, should tunnel Stony Hill. Amongst the tombs is one to the memory of an officer of the York Chasseurs who fell in a duel in 1818.

During the latter years of the eighteenth century the Jamaica naval station was one of very great importance to the British Empire. The North American (with which it was later united) was then considered a fine station for making prize-money, but the West Indies was, to use Nelson’s own words, “the station for honour.” Earlier in the century, however, riches had been added to honour for those who held command at Jamaica.

In addition to the naval station at Port Royal (where the commodore on the station till recently resided at Admiralty house), there were for many years to the west of Kingston a dockyard at Greenwich (with a depot for military stores, and a hospital, as well as a cemetery attached) which was the point of embarkation for the naval authorities; and a pen residence for the commander-in-chief near Kingston, known as =Admiral’s Pen=. At times the admiral on the station had a house in the hills, and there was at one period a naval convalescent hospital (now called The Cottage) in the St. Andrew mountains.

The earliest record of a suggestion for a permanent residence for the admiral on the station is to be found in the will of Zachary Bayly (the uncle of Bryan Edwards the historian) who offered Greenwich Park, situated between Admiral’s Pen and Greenwich, near Kingston, to the government “for the use and residence of a Governor, or of the Commander-in-chief for the time being, of His Majesty’s ships of war employed or kept upon this station,” at a reduction of £1000 sterling on a just valuation. This offer, which Bryan Edwards, as executor, made to the House of Assembly in 1770, was not accepted.

But in 1773 the House resolved “that a sum not exceeding £2500 (currency) be laid out in purchasing the house and pen in the parish of St. Andrew, where Sir William Burnaby, Admiral Keppel, and Admiral Parry formerly lived, to be annexed to the Government for the use of the Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty’s ships of war on this station.”

Admiral’s Pen was bought on January 13, 1774, by Jasper Hall, _et al._, commissioners for purchasing a pen for the admiral on the station, from John Dalling, _et ux._, for the sum of £2500 (currency). This was Lieut.-Colonel Dalling, who was then lieutenant-governor. Its purchase was no doubt due to Rodney, who was then the admiral on the station. As he left, however, in that year, Gayton, commodore at Jamaica in 1776–78, was probably the first admiral to inhabit it as an official residence. Gayton was followed by, amongst others, Sir Peter Parker, Joshua Rowley, Gardner, Affleck, Sir Hyde Parker, Lord Hugh Seymour, Sir J. T. Duckworth, Dacres, Cochrane, Douglas and Popham. In November 1829 Admiral Fleeming reported that Admiral’s Pen was “ruinous and uninhabitable.”

ADMIRAL’S PEN
]

On May 20, 1863, Thomas Cushnie, for the Executive Committee of the Government, bought it for £600 (sterling). It is now used as a Union Poorhouse for Kingston and St. Andrew. Its whitewashed walls and stones along the drive recall the coastguard stations of England, and keep alive the memory of its connection with the navy of Great Britain at a period of some of its brightest achievements.

To Admiral’s Pen in 1780 Nelson was brought, after a short sojourn at Port Royal, on his return from the San Juan expedition, and, weak from fever and dysentery, was tenderly nursed by Lady Parker and her housekeeper, Mrs. Yates, while even the admiral himself took his turn in sitting up with the patient. We are told that Nelson’s aversion from taking medicine was so great that they had to send it to him by the hand of the admiral’s youngest daughter. On June 11 Nelson went up to the admiral’s hill residence, or “Admiral’s Mountain,” as he calls it in a letter to his friend Hercules Ross.

Lady Nugent, in her “Journal of a Voyage to and Residence in the Island of Jamaica,” refers to the Admiral’s Pen more than once. On September 13, 1804, when Sir John Thomas Duckworth was admiral, she writes:

Breakfast at 8, as usual. Have at 11 a second breakfast of fruit,
wine, cake, etc., and at 12 all set off for the Admiral’s Penn; Lady
M[argaret Cameron, wife of the Governor of the Bahamas], her young
people, and myself, in the sociable, with our two black postillions in
scarlet liveries, but with black ancles peeping out of their
particulars, and altogether rather a novel sort of appearance, to
Europeans just arrived. General N. and Mr. Cameron in the curricle.
Aides-de-camp, servants, etc., in kittareens, and on horseback; and
all arrived in grand procession at the Admiral’s at about 3.
Refreshments were ready, and then we all creolized till 5 o’clock. A
large party, of the Navy chiefly, at dinner. Cards; and to bed soon
after ten.

The banquets and other ceremonies that have taken place within the walls of Admiral’s Pen must have been excelled in splendour only by those of King’s House, Spanish Town, in its palmiest days.

ROCK FORT
]

“Long before Kingston had been settled as a town,” says the late Mr. G. F. Judah in his “Rock Fort, Fort Castile, Fort Nugent” (Kingston, 1906), “Rock Fort, with its surroundings then lying in both the old parishes of Port Royal and St. Andrew, had acquired a name and reputation of its own.”

Though not one of the earliest spots to be defended in Jamaica under British rule, =Rock Fort=, at Harbour Head (not to be confounded with Rocky Fort on the Palisadoes), which commands the approach to Kingston from the east, or windward as it was commonly called in the days of sailing-ships, came into importance before the close of the seventeenth century. It was first fortified as a protection against the threatened French invasion from San Domingo, under Du Casse in 1694; and enlarged and strengthened from time to time. It was manned in 1865, when it was feared that the rising in St. Thomas would spread to Kingston. Near Rock Fort is the site of a =Naval Watering Place=, established by Admiral Vernon in 1739–42, where Rodney later added a conduit, still to be seen, for the conveyance of fresh water from the spring to the shore. Sir James Castile, a native of Barcelona but a naturalised Englishman, who had come to Jamaica as agent for the Assiento Company of Spain, which had the exclusive right to import slaves and other objects from Africa to the Spanish West Indies, and to which was joined the Royal African Company of England, received his letters of naturalisation in March, 1684–85; and in the July following he acquired land in Port Royal, where he established offices for his company, which he could not have done had he been an alien. In 1690 he purchased 300 acres of land in the old parish of Port Royal (now St. Andrew), near Harbour Head, and in the following year he acquired one hundred more in St. Andrew near by. In September 1693 letters patent were issued by the governor, Sir William Beeston, authorising Castile “to enclose his dwelling house at Three Rivers in the Parish of St. Andrews, with imbattled walls for the security and defence of his said house and plantation and negroes and the parts adjacent, against their Majesty’s Enemys”; and thus arose Fort Castile, about a mile and a quarter beyond Rock Fort. In the June following, under fear of French invasion, with the defences of Port Royal ruined by the recent earthquake, Colonel Lawes “drew lines and secured a narrow pass to the eastward of Kingston,” and this became Rock Port, and Du Casse was led to make his attack to the west of St. Jago de la Vega at Carlisle Bay. Sir James assisted not only at Rock Fort, but also at his own dwelling; “having garrisoned and provided his house, which was well walled and guarded for a defence, they built a regular fort on the parade.”

In 1702 Castile petitioned the House of Assembly in respect to the great charge he had been put to in building Fort Castile, and the House voted him £500 in compensation. He died in 1709, and in 1711 his widow petitioned for consideration in view of the fact that for five years the fort was occupied by her Majesty’s forces, “during which time it ran greatly to ruin.”

From that time nothing is recorded of Rock Fort till 1753, when £300 was voted for its defence (£7000 being voted for Mosquito Point, afterwards called Fort Augusta); and thence onwards it is frequently reported on by the various committees appointed from time to time to report to the Assembly on the state of the fortifications and barracks of the island; and in 1755 £5000 was voted to be expended on Rock Fort. The following account of it is given by Long:

FORT NUGENT IN 1908
]

It consists of two bastions, mounting twenty-one guns (twenty-four
pounders), and furnished with a small powder-magazine, and other
habiliments of war necessary for its defence. Upon the face of the
hill is a little battery of six guns, with traversed lines that lead
up to it. Outside the walls is a wet ditch, sunk lower than the
surface of the water in the harbour; so that it may be occasionally
filled. The fort is provided also with a drawbridge towards the
Eastern road; casemates for lodging the men; and a house for the
officers. It is too small to admit a garrison of more than seventy
men: nevertheless, governor Kn[o]l[e]s was so confident of its
strength, that he maintained that it was capable of standing a siege
against ten thousand. It defends the access towards the town from the
Eastward, and would undoubtedly prove a great security against an
attack from that quarter; for the only way leading to it is narrow,
and confined a considerable length in a straight direction, exposed to
the whole fire of the fort, without a possibility of annoying it: nor
could trenches be formed, to carry on a regular approach, as the road
is all the way a shallow sand close by the water’s edge. A guard of
soldiers is always kept here; but the fort is said to be very
unhealthy to the men and their officers. The cause of this has by some
been imputed to their drinking from a brackish stream which runs near
it. Others ascribe it to the extreme heat reverberated down upon them
from the hill, which rises like a wall above the fort. And some have
thought it proceeded from a lagoon, which lies near the mouth of
Mammee River, about three miles to the Eastward. To corroborate the
latter opinion, is alleged the instance, mentioned by Lind, of
Whydaw-castle, on the coast of Africa; which has been rendered more
unhealthy than the Negroe-town in its neighbourhood by a flight of
circumstance unattended to at first. It is built on a small spot of
ground, which the sea breezes cannot reach without passing over a
little, inconsiderable brook of water, which produces some aquatic
plants always covered with a putrid slime. It is certain, from
constant experience, that places adjacent to a foul shore, or stagnant
waters, near the coast in the West Indies, are invariably unhealthful.
But, whatever be the cause, it deserves a minute enquiry of gentlemen
of the faculty, in order to its discovery; to the end that, if it
arises from some local evil, that cannot be remedied, the men might be
lodged at night in convenient huts, erected for them upon the
hill-side; by which means all of them, except those on immediate duty
in the fort, might enjoy a purer air, especially in those hours when a
depraved air is found to be most pernicious; for this is a post of so
much importance to the Town, that the men stationed here ought neither
to be disheartened by apprehensions, nor disabled by sickness, from
doing their regular duty. The assembly having lately granted 1500l.
for erecting barracks at this fort to contain two hundred men; if the
situation be properly attended to, the result will shew, whether the
unhealthiness of the garrison has been owing to a pestilent quality in
the air, or some other cause.

It is interesting to read Long’s reference to the lagoon, having in view the unpleasant experiences which Kingston has had in recent years from the smell of the Yallahs ponds from time to time, notably in 1906.

In 1805 fear of French invasion was very real in Jamaica, martial law was proclaimed, and in December (before the news of Trafalgar reached the island) a law was passed for purchasing Castile Fort and certain lands (118 acres) surrounding it, for completing the works of that Fort, and for putting the same on the Island establishment under the name of =Fort Nugent=, in honour of Lieutenant-General George Nugent, then lieutenant-governor. The martello tower hard by must have been built about the same time. In 1865, owing to fear of a descent on Kingston by the rioters of Morant Bay, the fort was manned by volunteers.

The view of the old guns lying about in picturesque confusion, shown in the sketch (on the previous page) copied from a photograph taken in 1908, no longer exists, as the fort has since been reconstructed.

When the lands on the plain of Liguanea were divided amongst themselves by Cromwell’s army of occupation, that part on which the =Constant Spring= estate stands fell to the lot of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Archbould, a member of the first Council nominated in 1661. He married in 1668 (he was her third husband and she was his second wife) the mother of Sir Nicholas Lawes (afterwards governor of the colony), but died in the following year, she surviving him twenty years. His son, Colonel Henry Archbould, who had sat for St. George from 1680 to 1688, was elected member of the Assembly for St. Andrew in 1701–2. His wife, Joanna Wilhelmina, was sister to the wife and cousin of Sir Henry Morgan (buccaneer and governor of Jamaica) and sister to the wife of Colonel Robert Byndlos, chief justice. She obtained a patent of naturalisation in August 1685. The second Colonel Archbould died in 1709, and was buried in Halfway-Tree church. The first Colonel Archbould’s second son, Major William Archbould, was member for St. Andrew in 1688. James Archbould, the son of his second wife, was member for St. Andrew in 1702–4, but sat for St. David in 1713.

In 1759 a private Act was passed (we read in Feurtado’s “Official and other Personages of Jamaica,” 1896) for the sale of certain lands in Liguanea belonging to Henry Archbould, late of the said parish, deceased, for payment of £8000 with interest, devised by the will of the said Henry Archbould, to his daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Archbould, and for other purposes.