that which is now in the history gallery of the Institute, whither it
was transferred from the supreme court office some years ago.
No mention of the purse has hitherto been found in any of the histories:
it is not even mentioned by Lady Nugent, who makes frequent references
to her husband, Sir George Nugent, sitting as chancellor. Bryan Edwards
says, “The Governor or Commander-in-chief is chancellor of his office,
and presides solely in that high department, which is administered with
great form and solemnity.”
It would seem evident that a new purse was not supplied each year. In
fact there is no evidence that any later purse than this dating from the
time of George III has ever been in use in the colony.
In form and character and size it is just like the purses used in
England. Like them, it measures 1 ft. 6 in. by 1 ft. 4 in., and is made
of red velvet. The arms of Jamaica (with the cross gules, be it
observed) are in the centre, and are surmounted by the arms of England
at the time of George III. At the base are two cornucopias, and on each
side is a decorative border of roses and other flowers. It is
embroidered with gold and silver thread and coloured silk, ornamented
with beads. It has suffered by wear and neglect.
The mace was evidently the property of the governor, and was probably
used when the council met.
The council is known to have sat on the fatal June 7, 1692; and in the
Journals of the house of Assembly is this entry:
June 7, 1692.—This day happened the great earthquake which destroyed
Port Royal, and did great injury throughout the island: The Council
had previously met in that town, and it is probable were sitting when
it commenced, as no adjournment is entered that day in the Journal.
This is not correct, as the president was with the rector.
The next record we find of a mace is on December 1, 1763, when the house
of Assembly resolved: “That the Receiver-General do send to his
correspondent in England, to purchase a silver mace gilt, of the same
size, for the use of the Speaker of the House, as that used by the
Speaker of the House of Commons; and that this or any future Assembly
will make the same good.”
The older of the two maces at present in the Institute was possibly
imported as the result of this resolution. It is silver-gilt, measures 5
ft. 6 in. high and weighs 297 oz. 5 dwt., and is thus both higher and
heavier than the mace of the House of Commons. It is surmounted by a
royal crown, on the base of which are the British coat-of-arms as used
from 1714 to 1801, and the letters G. R. (Georgius Rex). Round the head,
in panels divided by caryatides, are the emblems of England and
Scotland, Ireland and France, and the arms of Jamaica. It bears the
London hall marks and date letter of the year 1753, and the initials M.
F. of the maker, Mordecai Fox of London.
The other mace evidently came as the result of the resolution of the
Assembly of December 22, 1786: “That the Receiver-General do immediately
remit to the agent the sum of £300 to be by him laid out in the purchase
of robes for the Speaker, and a mace.” Four years later they voted £200
for a coach to be obtained from England. The mace is similar in
appearance, but of a little later date, measures also 5 ft. 6 in. high,
and is also surmounted by a royal crown on the base of which is the same
form of the British coat-of-arms; and round the head are the same
emblems of England and Scotland, France and Ireland, and the arms of
Jamaica. It bears the London hall marks and date letter of the year
1787, and the initials H. G. of the maker, Henry Green of London, whose
initials are on a piece bearing the mark of the same year in the hall of
the Clothworkers Company, London, and who also made the Grenada mace,
which dates from 1781, and which is almost as massive as the Jamaica
mace of 1753. The Barbados mace, which dates from 1812, is 4 ft. 4 in.
high. The head of the Jamaica 1787 mace has at some time been bent by a
blow, and should stand up in the same manner as that of the older one.
This is not to be wondered at when we read of the stormy meetings held
in the last century by the house of assembly.
These two maces were used, the one at the meetings of the house of
Assembly, the other at those of the legislative council. One or other of
them was used at the meetings of the privy council until some time in
Sir John Peter Grant’s administration, when its use was discontinued.
They were both deposited in the Institute of Jamaica in 1879, and were
shown at the exhibition in 1891.
Of the public monuments in Kingston the principal is the =Statue of Sir
Charles Metcalfe=.
High on a list of those governors who have left their mark on Jamaica
history stands the name of Metcalfe, the only governor to whom the
colony has erected a statue. Without seeking it, Metcalfe gained
everywhere where his work lay such popular esteem as finds expression in
statues and addresses, while he received the sincere regard of those
with whom he came in close contact. Coming in September, 1839, when
relations between the planters and the British government on the one
hand and the emancipated slaves on the other had become very strained
over questions arising out of the recent abolition of slavery, he, by
the same tactful manner which he had employed in India with marked
success, did much to reconcile the differences; and when he left Jamaica
three years later it was amidst the genuine regret of all classes of the
community.
Charles Theophilus Metcalfe, the son of a major in the Bengal army, who
later became a director of the East India company, was born at Calcutta
in 1785. He was one of a family of six; the boys all had, in addition to
another, the name Theophilus, the girls Theophila. After spending five
years at Eton, where he did much “sapping,” he, to his own regret at
having to leave, entered the East India service at the early age of
fifteen. By the time he was nineteen he was earning £1000 a year; and
after working in several important branches of the service as special
commissioner, and as president at Delhi, and at Hyderabad, where he
incurred the displeasure of the governor-general by his fearless methods
of pressing reforms, he became in 1827 a member of the supreme council,
on which he sat for nearly seven years. In 1832 he succeeded his brother
in the baronetcy which had been bestowed upon his father, and in 1836 he
received the Grand Cross of the Bath in reward for his distinguished
services. In 1835–36 he held provisionally the post of governor-general
of India, at which he had confidently aimed from almost the commencement
of his career, and he only lost the actual position, to which he was
nominated by the court of directors, because the ministry did not
consider it advisable to appoint one so experienced as Metcalfe in
Indian affairs to that high office, which they wished to bestow on their
own nominee.
[Illustration:
STATUE OF SIR CHARLES METCALFE
]
Always a Liberal in politics and wide in his sympathies, he during his
tenure of office gave offence to the directors of the company by his
action in removing the restrictions on the liberty of the press, and
this led ultimately to his resignation from the company’s service.
After a period of rest in England from official labours, he was in 1839
made governor of Jamaica, two former governors of which colony—Sir
Alured Clarke and Sir George Nugent—he had incidentally met in India. He
was made a privy councillor “as a mark of consideration for his past
services and a tribute to the importance of the office he was about to
assume.”
The sending of an East Indian official as governor to the West Indies
was then an unusual occurrence, but the undoubted success achieved by
Metcalfe led to greater frequency in the custom. Somewhat tired of
administrative work, a lover of a quiet life and with some parliamentary
ambition, he only accepted the office because he knew that the affairs
of the colony were in disorder, and he looked upon it as a duty to his
country to be at the call of the Colonial Office.
The few years that had elapsed since Emancipation had not proved
sufficient in Jamaica to efface differences of opinion and produce
harmony where conflicting interests were rife. The apprenticeship system
had broken down the year before, and total abolition had come into
effect. Trouble had arisen between the Assembly and the Home Government.
The Assembly considered the passing of the West India Prisons bill an
aggression on their rights, and declined to perform any legislative
functions not absolutely necessary, until those rights were restored.
The British Government retorted by threatening to suspend the
constitution of Jamaica, and a measure was ultimately passed which
increased the powers possessed by the governor. Metcalfe was selected as
a possibly popular governor to tide over a critical period of great
anxiety.
On his arrival he saw that the existence of the stipendiary magistrates,
which body had been formed with a view to counteracting the alleged lack
of justice on the part of the local magistracy composed chiefly of the
planters and their attorneys, was a means of keeping alive the ill-will
between the planters and the emancipated slaves and their well-wishers;
and he therefore decided to let the scheme gradually die out, by
abstaining from filling up vacancies as they arose.
In his work of conciliation Metcalfe did not hesitate to controvert the
opinions of the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and to point out to
him the error of his views in certain cases.
He achieved the at that time difficult task of gaining the esteem alike
of the white and the black population, and he did much to remove the
mutual mistrust existing between them. The only sect in sympathy with
whom he found it difficult to work was the Baptist community, who wished
him to be hostile to the planters and were displeased by his absolute
impartiality.
In November 1841 he considered that the purpose of his visit had been
achieved, and he resigned his office. By his honesty of purpose and the
conciliatory nature of his methods of work he had endeared himself to
almost all.
As his mission had been one of smoothing over difficulties arising from
a recent legal and social upheaval, it obviously was not a time for
great administrative changes; but while he was in Jamaica the judicial
system and the criminal code were amended, the military cantonment at
Newcastle was established, and the salary of the governor was put on a
more satisfactory and permanent basis.
Metcalfe had his portrait painted twice in Jamaica—once by a Danish
artist, a full-size, half-length, which he sent home to his aunt, Mrs.
Manson: the other, a full-length, by another artist, “was intended for
the town hall of our principal city Kingston.” Where is that portrait
now? There is a portrait of him, by a very mediocre painter, in the
court house at Old Harbour, and a full-length standing painting, dated
1846, and signed by A. Bradish, in the Town Hall at Falmouth. The
portrait of him by F. R. Say in the Oriental Club, a copy of the
engraving after which by F. E. Lewis is in the Jamaica history gallery
in the Institute, was painted between his return to England from Jamaica
and his going to Canada. Another portrait in the same gallery is a
mezzotint engraving by William Warner of Philadelphia, after a painting
by A. Bradish, executed in 1844, representing him half-length seated.
This print, published at Montreal, was dedicated to Sir Robert Peel. It
shows the left side of the face, the right having by that time been
disfigured by the sad malady which caused his death.
Metcalfe on leaving Jamaica received addresses.
“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.
[Illustration:
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.