Part 21

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.

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.”

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.