Part 6
Bridges tells us that “in the year 1695 Sir Nicolas Lawes bequeathed his estate, in default of heirs, to found a free school for the benefit of the parishes of Kingston and St. Andrew. A school was consequently incorporated, with a seal, bearing the founder’s arms, but it failed for want of sufficient means, and the land was attached to the rectory. Twelve years afterwards Zacariah Gaulton left £80 per annum to pay a master and £500 to build a schoolhouse, and in 1721 Benjamin Cotman bequeathed his estate for the same purpose.” As a matter of fact Sir Nicholas Lawes’s will is dated August 21, 1730, and the bequest was not to _establish_ a school, but “unto the Governors of the Free School of St. Andrews in the Island of Jamaica for the time being, and in case there be no Governors at that time as the Law directs then to such Governors as the Chancellor or Commander-in-Chief of the said Island shall direct and appoint Governors of the said Free School then I say I give to such Governors of the said Free School and their successors for ever the estate and premisses aforesaid for and towards the maintenance of the Masters Teachers and other Officers of the said Free School the repairing and making new Buildings more fitt and comodious large house or houses on the land at Halfway Tree which I formerly gave for that use finishing and furnishing the same and for and towards the maintenance support education and learning of so many Scholars (native youths of Jamaica) as the said Governors of the said School or the major part of them shall from time to time think fitt to admit to that benefit and the said bequest can support and maintain.”
But this bequest never took effect, for all his children who were living when he made his will—his sons James and Temple and his daughter Judith Maria—survived him.
Roger Elletson, Speaker of the House of Assembly, and Chief Justice, in the year 1690 gave £20 towards the foundation of a school in St. Andrew. Edward Harrison, in 1695, and Charles Delacree, in the succeeding year, each bequeathed £10 per annum for the same purpose. The bequests, however, were allowed to lie dormant until the year 1789, when the principal and interest were estimated at £14,710, no part of which was, however, recovered.
John Mills, in 1711, after several entails, left money to establish a free school in St. Elizabeth, but no such institution ever existed.
In the year 1736, Edward Pennant left £200 for a school and books, in Clarendon; and a school was founded in Old Woman’s Savannah, aided by subscriptions to the amount of £2000. It flourished about the year 1758, when, by some ill-management, it failed; the premises were vested in trustees for sale, and the institution vanished.
By the end of the seventeenth century the need of education for the sons and daughters of the colonists must have become pressing. The plan usually adopted by those who could afford it was to send their children (often the illegitimate as well as the legitimate) home; and so it continued in the main till the end of the following century, and indeed far into the nineteenth. Many a son of Jamaica acquired a good education in England, and not a few graduated at the universities. A manuscript “Catalogue of Men born in the Island of Jamaica who matriculated at Oxford 1689–1885 extracted from Alumni Oxonienses. (To which I have added a few stray names of men connected with the island.) By William Cowper, M.A.,” in the Library of the Institute of Jamaica, contains 268 names of men known to have matriculated at Oxford. Peter Beckford, who matriculated in 1688, and afterwards became lieutenant-governor of Jamaica, is the first on the list which includes other well-known names, such as Garbrand, Dawkins, Nedham, Ellis, Price, Gale, Gregory, Haughton, Morant, Barham, Lawrence, Lewis, Clarke, Barrett, East, Dallas, Dwarris and Scarlett.
A review of the state of education in the middle of the eighteenth century is given by Leslie in his “New History of Jamaica” (1740). He says:
“Learning is here at the lowest Ebb; there is no publick School in the whole Island, neither do they seem fond of the thing; several large Donations have been made for such Uses, but have never taken Effect. The Office of a Teacher is looked upon as contemptible and no Gentleman keeps Company with one of that Character; to read, write and cast Accounts, is all the Education they desire, and even these are but scurvily taught. A Man of any Parts or Learning, that would employ himself in that Business, would be despised and starve. The Gentlemen whose Fortunes can allow it, send their Children to _Great Britain_, where they have the Advantage of a polite generous Education; but others are spoil’d, and make such an inconsiderable Figure ever after, that they are the common Butt in every Conversation. Mr. _Beckford_[3] has lately bequeathed £2000 _sterling_, for a Free-School: It is doubtful whether this Gentleman’s Intentions will be answered by the Managers; for by their way of proceeding there is small Appearance they design to encourage Men of Merit to take upon them such an Office. Several have lately offered themselves who were every way qualified for the Undertaking; and some promised themselves Success, from the good Disposition they perceived in many to encourage their Design; but after a Trial were of Necessity obliged to quit it. ’Tis Pity, in a Place like this, where the Means could be so easily afforded, something of a publick Nature should not be done for the Advantage of Posterity; but when such a Spirit will appear, is hard to determine. There are indeed several Gentlemen who are well acquainted with Learning, in some of its most valuable Branches: but these are few; and the Generality seem to have a greater Affection for the moodish Vice of Gaming than the _Belles Lettres_, and love a Pack of Cards better than the Bible. To talk of a _Homer_, or a _Virgil_, of a _Tully_, or a _Demosthenes_, is quite unpolite; and it cannot be otherwise; for a Boy, till the Age of Seven or Eight, diverts himself with the Negroes, acquires their broken way of talking, their Manners of Behaviour, and all the Vices which these unthinking Creatures can teach: Then perhaps he goes to School; but young Master must not be corrected; if he learns, ’tis well; if not, it can’t be helped. After a little Knowledge of reading, he goes to the Dancing-school, and commences Beau, learns the common Topicks of Discourse, and visits and rakes with his Equals. This is their Method; and how can it be supposed one of such a Turn can entertain any generous Notions, distinguish the Beauties of Virtue, act for the Good of his Country, or appear in any Station of Life, so as to deserve Applause? Some of the Ladies read, they all dance a great deal, coquet much, dress for Admirers; and at last, for the most part, run away with the most insignificant of their humble Servants. Their Education consists intirely in acquiring these little Arts. ’Tis a thousand Pities they do not improve their Minds, as well as their Bodies; they would then be charming Creatures indeed.”
Footnote 3:
Peter Beckford, the grandfather of William Beckford of Fonthill, who behaved badly with respect to the Drax property.
That the object of those few who, amongst a community indifferent to such matters, wished to benefit education in Jamaica, had been in the main disregarded during the eighteenth century, is evident from a report of a Committee of the Assembly presented in November 1791 by Bryan Edwards, the historian. The Committee had been appointed to “enquire into and prepare an account of the several charities and donations that have been made and devised from time to time, by well disposed persons for the establishment of free-schools in the different parts of this Island, and which have not been carried into effect agreeably to the intention of the donors; and further to report a state of the landed and other real property, funds, and securities for money, which, in the judgment of the Committee, are at this time subject and liable to such donations; and their opinion what steps are proper to be taken for the recovery and establishment thereof for the purposes intended.”
They reported “that the committee, limiting their enquiries to such charities or donations only, in the recovery whereof there appears at this time any visible property to which resort can be had, confine themselves to the several Parishes of St. Ann, St. Andrew, Vere, and Westmoreland: In each of these parishes donations have been made for the purpose in the resolution of the House mentioned; some of which donations have not been carried into full effect, and others have remained wholly unapplied and unaccounted for by the several devisees, executors, purchasers, or possessors, under the original granters or donors of such estates or properties as were specially charged with such donations.”
That matters had not much improved by the beginning of the nineteenth century is evident from “An Account of Jamaica and its Inhabitants,” published in 1808. “Literature,” the author says, “is little cultivated in Jamaica, nor is reading a very favorite amusement. There is a circulating Library in Kingston, and, in one or two other places a paltry attempt at such a thing, these collections of books not being of that choice and miscellaneous nature which they ought to be, but usually composed of a few good novels mixed with a much larger proportion of these ephemeral ones which are daily springing up, and which are a disgrace to literature, and an insult to common sense.”
John Rippingham, the author of “Jamaica considered in its Present State, Political, Financial, and Philosophical” (1817), presented a memorial to the Assembly, setting forth that “there is no establishment provided by this Island for the education of sons of gentlemen, that he had had considerable experience in the higher departments of education, and had published several works upon intellectual improvement, and that he offered his abilities, acquirements, and assiduity to supply the deficiency and craved the aid of the house.” The matter was referred to a Committee and the House agreed, on their report, that they did not consider it expedient to adopt any measure on the subject. Whether the House thought higher education was not necessary or doubted Rippingham’s ability to give it, is not stated.
Bridges, writing in his “Annals,” gives some account of the educational efforts of the past. He reports “no endowments of any kind” in the parishes of Trelawny, Manchester, St. Dorothy (now part of St. Catherine), St. Thomas-in-the-Vale, and St. Thomas-in-the-East or in St. James, although the Legislature had early in the eighteenth century appropriated £1400 per annum for the purpose.
In 1843 the Charity Commissioners of England reported on the schools of Jamaica:
“With this view, then, we may be permitted to observe that almost all the schools in question have been greatly modified by, and that many owe their very existence, or their increased income to, acts of the Legislature. The original bequest to the Jamaica Free School would probably have been lost to that institution, but for the interference of the Legislature, and a great part of its present funds was derived from a grant of the Crown. So at Vere, the Act 2 Geo. 4, c. 19, recites that the school was failing for want of scholars, and its original constitution was accordingly varied, by throwing it open for the reception of children from the adjoining and other parishes. Grants have, from time to time, been made to each of these schools for temporary purposes, _e.g._ repairs, etc., and a permanent rate of interest amounting to no less than 8 per cent. is paid by the Receiver General to both. It is not, therefore, we think, too much to say that the Legislature has thus acquired (even if it did not necessarily possess it) a right to deal with the funds of these institutions, in such manner as it may deem expedient. Least of all can this be denied where the object is not to divert them from, but to apply them more usefully to the great purpose of education, for which they were originally intended. More especially does this remark apply to the Jamaica Free School, which appears by the Act 18, Geo. 3, c. 25, s. 5, to have been expressly intended to fulfil this end, and was even permitted to incorporate with its own funds those of any other charitable institution, which were either unappropriated, or which parties were willing to transfer to it, with a view to carry out this very object.”
Of the condition of education in the middle of the nineteenth century, Gardner, in his “History” (1873), states:
“Another Commission, first appointed in 1843, was also discharging the duty of enquiring into the extent and management of the different charities of the island, and quietly preparing the way for some wholesome reforms. Many painful facts were brought to light relative to the culpable alienation of benevolent bequests from their intended purpose; and other facts equally discreditable, in reference to the mode in which existing charities were managed.”
Robson, in “The Story of our Jamaica Mission” (1894), says:
“In 1855 the Governor, Sir Henry Barkly, in a despatch to the Colonial Secretary, said: ‘By far the most creditable institution in the island is the Presbyterian Academy, principally intended for training young men of the ministry or the scholastic profession. It still held a foremost place and was accomplishing excellent work; there were twenty-four missionary students and fifty-six public scholars in attendance. But the expense to the Home Church, amounting to nearly £500 a year, appeared to call for some more economical scheme.’”
In a chapter in his “History” devoted to “Religion, Education, and Social Progress, from 1839 to 1865,” Gardner makes no reference to Secondary Education, unless the foundation of Calabar College in 1843 for the training of a native Baptist Ministry can be so considered.
In 1865 an Act (28 Vic., c. 23) was passed by which the Government appropriated the sums of money deposited from time to time in the Public Treasury by various charities and institutions at varying rates of interest, and became responsible for the payment of perpetual annuities in lieu thereof, thereby preventing for the future so far as those funds were concerned any of that misapplication alluded to in the reports of the Committee of 1791.
Under that able organizer, Sir John Peter Grant (1866–1874), elementary education was put on a sound basis of encouragement and support; by him was also founded the too ambitious and short-lived College at Spanish Town which aimed at providing a university education for a community that was not yet ready for it.
During the governorship of Sir Anthony Musgrave the needs of Secondary Education—which was defined as being the encouragement of education of a higher grade “among those classes of the community who would value it, if placed within their reach, but whose means do not enable them to send their children to Europe for the purpose of obtaining it”—received full consideration.
By the creation in 1879 of the Jamaica Schools Commission, which exercises over endowed schools in Jamaica the same sort of supervision formerly exercised by the Charity Commissioners in England over English schools, means were afforded for placing the old endowed schools of the island under suitable management. The Jamaica High School was established, the Jamaica Scholarship was started, and the Cambridge Local Examinations were held for the first time in 1882; and later in 1891 the University of London was induced to hold its examinations in the colony.
The Wesleyan Church started their High School at York Castle, in St. Ann, in 1876; and the Institute of Jamaica for the encouragement of Literature, Science and Art was founded by the Government in 1879.
In 1892 a Secondary Education Law (32 of 1892) was passed, empowering the Governor in Privy Council on the recommendation of the Board of Education—a Board formed with the main object of advising on elementary education—to declare any important centre of population to be without adequate provision for secondary education and to establish a school there, to be managed by a local committee of management under the supervision of the Board. A subsequent act of the Legislature transferred the duty of supervision of all such schools from the Board of Education to the Jamaica Schools Commission. In 1911 the secondary schools of the island were first inspected and reported on by an English school inspector.
Taverns must have existed in Jamaica from early times. They are mentioned in the Deficiency law, by which one white hired or indentured servant had to be kept for every tavern or retail shop; and White’s Tavern in Kingston is referred to in the Journals of the Assembly in 1730. That there was a tavern at Dry Harbour in 1769 is evident from a rare view published in that year entitled “Dry Harbour in the Parish of St. Ann’s, Jamaica, taken from the West end of the Tavern, with the Fort and Barracks, now in Ruins.”
But when one considers the large amount of travelling by road that was done in Jamaica in the past, there were, comparatively speaking, few taverns or posting houses, the truth being that planters and even strangers relied in the main on the proverbial hospitality of the inhabitants. Of “the Permanent natives, or Creole men,” Long tells us in his history (written in 1774), “their hospitality is unlimited; they having lodging and entertainment always at the service of transient strangers and travellers; and receive in the most friendly manner those, with whose character and circumstances they are often utterly unacquainted.” And he adds as a footnote: “One obvious proof of this is, that there is scarcely one tolerable inn throughout the whole Island, except at a great distance from any settlement.” He refers to Knockpatrick, now in Manchester, and “two good taverns” at Lacovia in St. Elizabeth. He says: “The Tavern at Knockpatrick (belonging also to Mr. W—stn—y), the next settlement we come to, stands very commodiously, and enjoys a most excellent climate. The English beans, pease, and other culinary vegetables of Europe grow here in most seasons of the year, to the utmost perfection. A gentleman who supped here could not help remarking, that the victuals were literally brought smoaking-hot to table, a phenomenon seldom observed in the low lands, where the air is so much more rarefied.” Elsewhere he states that “Mr. W—stn—y” is said to be a natural son of the late “Duke of L—ds.”
Bryan Edwards in 1806 says: “As Mr. Long has remarked, there is not one tolerable inn throughout all the West Indies.” He then goes on to contrast the general plenty and magnificence of the Jamaica planter’s table and the meanness of their houses and apartments: “it being no uncommon thing to find, at the country habitations of the planters, a splendid sideboard loaded with plate and the choicest wines, a table covered with the finest damask, and a dinner of perhaps sixteen or twenty covers; and all this in a hovel not superior to an English barn.”
Monk Lewis, writing on his visits to the Island in 1816 and 1818, in his “Journal of a West India Proprietor,” alluded to a “solitary tavern called Blackheath” near Claremont, and to a lodging-house in St. Ann’s Bay where he found “an excellent breakfast at an inn quite in the English fashion;” to the “Wellington Hotel” at Rio Bueno in Trelawny; to “Judy James’s” in Montego Bay, in St. James; to “Miss Hetley’s” inn at Yallahs in St.-Thomas-in-the-East; to a “solitary tavern” at Bluefields in Westmoreland, where he met “the handsomest creole that I have ever seen,” Antonietta by name, of Spanish-African parentage; and to “West Tavern,” which must have been somewhere near Ewarton, as it was nineteen miles from Spanish Town on the north road. He also alludes to “The Gutturs” in St. Elizabeth, where they found “everything that travellers could wish.”
Lewis says: “All the inns upon this road [the western half of the north side] are excellent, with the solitary exception of the Blackheath Tavern, which I stopped at by mistake instead of that at Montague [an obvious misprint for Moneague].” While elsewhere he says: “Inns would be bowers of Paradise if they were all rented by mulatto ladies like Judy James.”
A strangely long time was allowed to elapse after the settling of the various islands in the West Indies before printing presses were established. Perhaps some of the governors thought like Berkeley of Virginia, who, in his report to the Lords of Trade in 1671, wrote: “But I thank God, _there are no free schools_, nor _printing_, and I hope we shall not have, these hundred years; for _learning_ has brought disobedience, and heresy and sects into the world, and _printing_ has divulged them, and libels against the best of government. God keep us from both.”
The earliest printing press in America was set up in Mexico before the middle of the sixteenth century.
The first printing press in English Colonies was set up in Massachusetts in 1638. In Jamaica it was established in 1721, sixty-six years after the acquisition of the colony by the British. The first almanac printed in the colonies was produced at Cambridge in 1639. Unfortunately no copy is known to exist: the earliest existing being one issued at Cambridge in 1646 in private possession. Printing was practised at Havanna, in Cuba, as early as 1729, and in Martinique as early as 1727; a Royal printing house was established in St. Domingo in 1750. The “Barbados Gazette,” published weekly, has been called the earliest British West Indian newspaper. Its first issue appeared on May 18, 1731, but Isaiah Thomas, in his “History of Printing,” says that the “Weekly Jamaica Courant” was published at Kingston as early as 1722.
The first Jamaica wall almanac and the earliest piece of Jamaica printing known to be extant dates from 1734, a copy of which is in the Library of the Institute of Jamaica. The earliest Jamaica-printed book known is the “Merchant’s Pocket Companion,” printed in Kingston—be it observed, not in Spanish Town, the then capital of the island—in 1751. The next oldest Jamaica-printed book known is a volume of Love Elegies by Peter Pindar of the year 1773. A copy of each is in the Institute Library. The best known of the early Jamaica newspapers was the “St. Jago de la Vega Gazette.” There may be early volumes of the “St. Jago de la Vega Gazette” (founded in 1756) in existence, but the earliest in the Institute Library bears date 1791, and the earliest of the “Royal Gazette” (founded in 1779) there bears date 1780. The earliest example of a Jamaica newspaper in the Library is an issue of “The St. Jago Intelligencer” of Kingston of the year 1757, possibly the earliest copy of a Jamaica newspaper extant.
In Hickeringill’s “Jamaica View’d,” published in the year 1661, appears what is probably the oldest English map of the island. With the exception of Guanaboa, The Seven Plantations, The Angels, and St. Jago de la Vega, only towns on the sea-board are mentioned in it, and there is no attempt to divide the island into parishes.
In a census taken in 1662 the Island was divided into ten districts, as follows: the Precincts of Port Moranto; Morant; Yealoth; and Legene; the town of Saint Angelo Delvega [St. Jago de la Vega]; Between Black River, Bower Savanna and thereabouts; In the Angles Quarter; In the Seven Plantations, Macaria, Quathebeca; In the Quarters Quanaboa and Quardelena; and Point Caugway.