Part 18

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.

The records of the parish church of Kingston extant unfortunately only go as far back as the year 1722, the date of the first “Christening” recorded. The marriages at that time were by licence, or _Bannis tribus vicibus promulgatis_. By recent legislation one calling of the banns is sufficient. It is curious to note the large number of widows amongst the brides and of mariners amongst the bridegrooms. One of the best kept registers is that of baptisms, commenced in 1785 by the Rev. Thomas Rees. The first entry is:

Joseph Fennell Brookbank, the son of Mary Fennell, a free mulatto woman, by George Brookbank, was born April 12, 1779, Bapt. Jany. 1, 1785.

The next entry, _more Jamaicense_, records the baptism of “Jamima Beaumont, the daughter of Mary Fennell, by James Beaumont.” Two out of the first seven entries in this register are of children of married women, which unfortunately would not be, according to the Registrar-General’s returns, a bad record even for to-day. On Christmas Day, 1786, the rector baptized twelve of his own slaves _en bloc_.

Those who were baptized are described as black, or negro; mulatto; sambo; quadroon; mestee, or mustee; brown; of colour; Indian (these were probably from the Mosquito Coast); and slave, or property of; and free. The old African names of Quashie, Quasheba and the like were replaced by ordinary Christian names, with a partiality for Biblical ones, with here and there a classic designation. The names on one page, taken at random, of the register for 1797 are: John, Sarah, Richard, Lucretia, Susanna, Margaret, Hannah, Jeremiah, James, William, Edward, Cilly (_sic_), Juno, Mary, Eleanor, Joseph. These, in the main, simple names are preferable to the Thomasina, Justina, Rosina, and so on, affected to-day.

In 1745 Cornelius Lilly, “of the parish of Kingston, mariner,” was married to Jane Macky of the same parish. One wonders whether he was a relation of Colonel Christian Lilly who had laid out the town. The first burial recorded is under date March 27, 1741, “Ralph Greathead, belonging to the _Sheldon_, Capt. Read, Command.” The ship _Sheldon_ possibly belonged to the owner of Sheldon, a property in the Blue Mountains. The baptism in 1797 of “Dorothy Morgan Mahony, a negro woman slave of Thomas Mahony, aged forty years,” recalls Dolly Mahony’s Gap in the St. Andrew Mountains.

The following particulars of the baptisms solemnised in the parish church in the year 1828 may be of interest:

White 10 Coloured 164 Black 54 No memo made of colour 53 ——— 281 Slaves—Coloured 40 Black 276 ——— 316 ——— 597

From its position of principal church in the chief town of the island, Kingston parish church is frequently chosen for the holding of state and other important services rather than the cathedral of Spanish Town, which now finds itself left by the stream of time in a civic backwater.

With the exception of the cathedral at Spanish Town more celebrated personages have been buried within the walls of Kingston parish church than in those of any other church in the island.

Of the memorials, the most interesting is the tomb of Benbow, of dark blue slate, in the chancel, the inscription on which is curiously inaccurate. He was not, we learn in his life in the “Dictionary of National Biography,” an admiral of the white, but vice-admiral of the blue. He was not fifty-one years old at his death, but forty-nine; and the arms carved on it are not his. The arms are: Palewise, two bent bows between two sheaves of arrows; the crest, on an esquire’s helmet, a harpy. The following is the inscription:

Here Lyeth Interred the Body of John Benbow Esq: Admiral of the White: a true Pattern of English Courage who Lost his life In Defence of his Queene & Country, November ye 4th 1702 In the 52nd year of his age by a wound In his Legg, Receeiu’d In an Engagement with Monsr. du Casse, Being Much Lamented.

Of the monuments, there are only four of artistic merit—three by John Bacon, all similar in style, figures carved in high relief against a pyramidal background of marble; and one without the sculptor’s name, in the north wall of the inner north transept, to Edward Maiming. It consists of a bust in mezzo-relievo. If executed shortly after Manning’s death in 1756, it is too early for a work by Bacon. It is a good example of English sculpture of that time, and it is possibly by Roubiliac, by whom there is a monument of the year 1754 to Lieutenant Stapleton in Port Royal church, or more probably by John Cheere (brother of Sir Henry Cheere, Roubiliac’s instructor for some time), by whom there is a monument of the year 1733 to the Hon. James Lawes (eldest son of Sir Nicholas Lawes) in Halfway-Tree church. Cheere’s work resembles more closely the Manning bust than does that of the more florid Roubiliac. As was the case with Bacon, one commission for Jamaica sometimes led to others. The arms on the Manning monument are wrongly blazoned in Lawrence-Archer’s “Monumental Inscriptions of the British Indies.” They are: Gules, a cross fleurie [not moline] or between four [not three] trefoils slipped or.

Of the monuments by Bacon, that to Malcolm Laing and his wife (1794) represents a female figure seated, emblematic of grief; the phœnix, of which Bacon was fond, is introduced in the background.

The monument to Dr. Fortunatus Dwarris, member of the House of Assembly for St. George (which is now merged in Portland), and his stepdaughter (1792), represents a recumbent female figure resting on an urn, gazing at an angel conducting the soul of the departed upwards. In it the poetry on the urn descriptive of the scene represented is hardly equal to Bacon’s art:

Ascend to Bliss ye gentle Spirits Where yon Angel soars above: Their Virtue her Reward Inherits Crowne’d with Heav’n’s eternal love.

Sir Fortunatus William Lilley Dwarris (d. 1860), the lawyer and antiquary, eldest son of William Dwarris, of Warwick, England, and Golden Grove, Jamaica, of which he was a native, was a member of the same family.

The monument to John Wolmer (1789) is on the west wall of the outer north aisle. Of the three monuments by Bacon this is the best. Erected just sixty years after Wolmer’s death, it represents a seated figure of Liberality, carved in high relief, holding a medallion, on which the crest of the school, the sun of Learning breaking through a cloud of Ignorance, is represented. On the supporting brackets are scholastic emblems—a quill pen, a book, parchment, scientific instruments and the like.

Besides the three monuments in this church already mentioned, there is another monument to Mary, daughter of Dawkins Carr (who died in 1798). It is in the usual pyramidal form, and represents a classic urn on a pedestal. It is signed “J. Bacon, sct., London, 1799,” and must have been one of the last works sent out of his studio in his lifetime, for he died in that year.

Some monuments make one wish that the admirers of the worthies represented had followed the Erewhonian plan of paying the sculptor on condition that he did not make the statue, letting into the pavement a small inscription where it would have stood, as was the case in that delectable country. The tribute of respect would have been paid to the deceased, and the rest of the public would have suffered no inconvenience.

Other tombs of interest in the church are those to Smart Pennant (wife of the rector, William May), who “was kill’d in ye 23rd year of her age by ye fall of an house in ye great storm, August ye 28th, A.D. 1722” (when her husband’s leg was also broken; he was commissary to the Bishop of London); to Susanna, wife of Colonel William Gordon (d. 1731), of the family which gave its name to Gordon Town; to Captain Charles Brown (d. 1747), who is evidently the Commodore Brown who was described in a pamphlet published in 1740 as living in Kingston, “and entertain’d the gentlemen and Ladies about Ligunea once a fortnight with an Assembly”; to Captain Samuel Phillips (died in 1757, aged 54), who, as the inscription tells us, “Commanded the _Alexander_, Private Ship of War, out of Bristoll, and Cut His Majesties Ship _Solebay_ out of St. Martin’s Road the 10th of April, 1746, for which he had the honour to kis His Majesties hand and Received a Gold Medal and Chain. _Alexander_ 140 Men and _Solebay_ 220 men”; to John Jaques (d. 1815), first mayor of Kingston; to Hon. George Kinghorne (1823), custos of Kingston; to Hon. Joseph Barnes (d. 1829), mayor and custos of Kingston, whose memory lives in Barnes Gully; to Virginia Fairfax, wife of Peter Alexander Espeut, and daughter of Colonel Robert Munroe Harrison, consul-general of the United States of America for Jamaica; to Lieut.-Colonel Sir Alexander Leith, Bt.; to William James Stevenson, receiver-general; to Ebenezer Reid (d. 1843), headmaster of Wolmer’s school for twenty-eight years (the monument was erected by his pupils); to William Augustus Hunt (d. 1852), another headmaster of Wolmer’s school, a member of the family of Barbadian Hunts of which Leigh Hunt was one; to Bartholomew Owen Williams (d. 1830), founder of the Sussex Lodge of Freemasons; to Colonel Hill (d. 1819), who took part in the engagements of Vimiera and Vittoria; and to Dr. Edward Nathaniel Bancroft (d. 1842), deputy inspector-general of Army Hospitals.

Of tombs of special biographical interest are those of Benbow, Rowley and Brown, sailors; May, Mann and Humberstone, clergymen; Campbell, an author; Higson, a botanist; Wolmer, a philanthropist; and Manning, Lawrence, Mitchell and Jordan, politicians.

At the principal entrance to the north transept was a large dark blue slate slab, foot-worn, but without an inscription.

“The story is,” says Lawrence-Archer, “that it is turned on its face, to conceal the epitaph of an early Rector of the parish, who was hanged for coining counterfeit doubloons in the vestry. It is said he was discovered in consequence of having issued one from his mint before it was quite cold. The story is most improbable.” In 1885 the slab was raised and turned, when it was found to be to the memory of James Ramadge, a merchant of Kingston, who died in 1755, aged thirty-three years. Why it had ever been placed face downwards is not known. But that there is some reason for the legend is proved by a reference to the “St. Jago de la Vega Gazette” for December 19, 1801, where we read:

A number of counterfeit Doubloons and Eight-Dollar pieces are now in circulation. The inscription on the face is Carol’s 3d., date 1761. The face does not by any means resemble any effigy given of him or any coins issued by Spanish Government during his reign. It is a perfect copy of the head of Ferdinand the 6th, which appears on the doubloons issued by him ten years before the accession of Charles the 3rd to the throne. The pieces now in circulation are said to have been coined by a Reverend Mr. Smith, who suffered for the crime many years ago on the Kingston Parade.

Can this have been the Hadden Smith who was curate of Kingston parish church in 1766?

The death of Peter Wagstaffe (who died in 1759) was curiously enough recorded on two tombstones, both lying in the north aisle.

In the churchyard are three interesting tombstones, those of Janet Scott, sister to Michael Scott (the author of the well-known “Tom Cringle’s Log”), who was two years her brother’s senior, and evidently came out with him and his bride in 1818, when he returned from Glasgow to Jamaica; to Robert Bogle, his brother-in-law, of the firm of Bogle, Harris & Co., of Glasgow; and to Robert Hamilton, who was planting attorney to Sir Edward Hyde East, the owner of Maryland, on which stands Raymond Hall, where “Tom Cringle’s Log” was written. Hamilton was a friend of Scott’s, and was portrayed as Aaron Bang in the Log. The Scotts and the Bogles were evidently old friends. A “Jennet Scott, the daughter of Robert Bogle and Margaret his wife,” was baptized on April 5, 1793. She was probably a sister of the Robert Bogle who was Scott’s brother-in-law. The following are the inscriptions on the three tombs:

Here lies Interr’d the remains of Mr. Robert Bogle, third son of Robert Bogle, Esqr., Merchant, Glasgow, formerly of this city Merchant who departed this life on 21st December 1819 aged 18 years.

Miss Janet Scott, fourth Daughter of Allan Scott, Esq., of Glasgow, departed this life on the 4th January 1819 aged 32 years.

In memory of Robert Hamilton, Esq., of the Parish of St. Andrews, who departed this life on the 30th day of October 1826, aged 68 years. His unbounded Hospitality and goodness of heart endeared him to all who knew him and his worth and amiable qualities will long live in the remembrance of his Family who pay this last tribute due to the Memory of a revered Father.

The Hamilton tomb is close to the south door. The Scott and Bogle tombs are side by side further south.

It is possible that the name of Murray Crymble, who was receiver-general in the middle of the eighteenth century, may have suggested to Scott the somewhat curious name of the hero of his novel. Crymble patented land in Grand Cayman in 1741.