Notes on THREE HISTORIC BUILDINGS AND/OR SITES by Joy Lumsden
1. WAREIKA - the origin of the name
A recent query from a member of the Society sent me on a most interesting search for further information. ‘Wareika Hill’ or ‘Wareika Hills‘ are familiar terms to residents of Kingston, even though they are likely to connote a rather dangerous area of the city from the point of view of crime. Earlier generations had perhaps known of a house on Wareika Hill which could be the objective of a pleasant hike. Another time I will, may be, write about a very distressing suicide that took place at or near the house in the early decades of this century. However, the current query was whether we had any knowledge of the origin of the name Wareika; those I consulted seemed to have the impression that it was an Arawak (or Taino) name. It was intriguing, therefore, from our member’s correspondent in New Zealand, to discover the true source of the name, WAREIKA, or more correctly apparently, ‘WAIREKA’.
A recent query from a member of the Society sent me on a most interesting search for further information. ‘Wareika Hill’ or ‘Wareika Hills‘ are familiar terms to residents of Kingston, even though they are likely to connote a rather dangerous area of the city from the point of view of crime. Earlier generations had perhaps known of a house on Wareika Hill which could be the objective of a pleasant hike. Another time I will, may be, write about a very distressing suicide that took place at or near the house in the early decades of this century. However, the current query was whether we had any knowledge of the origin of the name Wareika; those I consulted seemed to have the impression that it was an Arawak (or Taino) name. It was intriguing, therefore, from our member’s correspondent in New Zealand, to discover the true source of the name, WAREIKA, or more correctly apparently, ‘WAIREKA’.
Following the clues offered by Dr Hayton, of New Zealand, I have been able to sort out the route by which the name became established. In 1863 Commodore Peter Cracroft was appointed the senior officer of the West Indies station and was based at Port Royal. He served in this capacity until his death on August 2, 1865. He was buried in the St Andrew Parish Church yard, and Philip Wright, in Monumental Inscriptions of Jamaica, records the inscription on a memorial tablet in the church. This tablet, and the newspaper accounts of his funeral, mention his participation in an engagement during the Maori wars, at Waireka Pah. The newspaper accounts refer to his ‘residence in the hills’ which was named ‘Wayreka’ after the place where he had served with distinction.
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In the summer of 1865 Commodore Cracroft, who had been ill with some type of fever, was staying at Waireka in the hopes of regaining his health, but he had a relapse and was brought down to Port Royal, to his official residence in Her Majesty’s Jamaica Dock Yard, where he died. He received an official funeral, attended by the Governor, Edward John Eyre; a nine-gun salute was fired at Port Royal. His wife, Caroline, who had accompanied him on much of his service it appears, placed the memorial in the church. She left Jamaica a few days after the funeral.
I have not followed up, so far, the further history of the house, ‘Waireka’, but I will now keep a lookout for mention of it. I hope that members of the Society also can help with recollections of the house or the name; our Editor remembers visiting the house. I have to assume that, with the passage of time, the name of the house became transferred to the hill on which it stood, and that the spelling was also modified. At the time of the suicide case, in 1916, the terms ‘Wareika Hills’ and ‘the Wareika house’ were used; interestingly, in one report, the name was spelled ‘Waireka’, the correct New Zealand version, but it is not clear if this was merely a typographical error, or a genuine survival of the original spelling. A current street map of Kingston marks Wareika Hill, 1,490 feet, but does not give the name Wareika Hills to an area, at the end of Long Mountain, which I think many of us might expect.
I did some further research about Commodore Cracroft, and, in relation to Jamaica, the main interest would have been his potential role in the events of October 1865. I was not able to find mention of his arrival here, as the source I was using, the Colonial Standard, unfortunately has a gap in the run which covers the period of his service here, up to June 1864, and I have not tried to track down any other newspaper sources. However, from the evidence before the Jamaica Royal Commission of 1866, enquiring into the events in Morant Bay in October 1865, it is clear that but for his premature death, Cracroft would have been the officer responsible for sending the Wolverine and other vessels on various trips to the eastern end of the island. Already in late July Cracroft had, at Eyre’s request, begun to send ships to the western end of the island to forestall feared unrest in Black River, Savannah-la-Mar, Lucea and Montego Bay. The influence of the Underhill Meetings was expected to produce demonstrations around August 1. On the day before Cracroft’s death, his second-in-command, Captain Algernon De Horsey, began to carry out Eyre’s orders, and it was he who was in acting command during the Morant Bay troubles. There is, however, no indication that events would have taken any different course if Cracroft had still been in command.
Nevertheless, one wonders what the Commodore’s reaction would have been to the Morant Bay uprising. He had taken part in a small but important engagement in the Maori Wars in New Zealand as recently as 1860. He and 60 sailors and marines had gone to the aid of a beleaguered group of militia at Wareika pa (a pa was a fortified earthwork, or trenchwork), and in a surprise attack had inflicted a costly and telling defeat on the Maori force. Or so the tradition went, and Cracroft and his men had received a rousing welcome from the colonial settlers and authorities. Even at the time, however, there were those on the spot who downplayed the significance of the episode; was it a surprise attack, or hadn’t Cracroft fired some 24-lb rockets into the pa just before he attacked? Had up to 150 Maoris been killed, or only two - or maybe none at all? It all depended whose version you believed. In his books The New Zealand Wars and the Victorian Interpretation of Racial Conflict, James Belich discusses this particular engagement in some detail, and as the title indicates, investigates the topic of conflicts between British troops and the inhabitants of territories which the British were in the process of colonising. The Morant Bay Rebellion was not exactly that type of conflict, but could raise many of the same issues. It is perhaps legitimate to wonder what Cracroft would have made of it, and how he would have acted, had he lived. Would he have whole-heartedly continued to support Eyre’s actions, or would he have raised queries about the legality of using navy ships to transfer prisoners from an area not under martial law, to one where drum-head courts martial were taking place? De Horsey was not apparently worried by such concerns, or if he was, did not raise them with Eyre. As a more senior officer, with greater experience of command, Cracroft might have voiced some concerns about Eyre’s actions. Certainly his successor, Commodore Sir Leopold McClintock, was probably the first official to make a report on the suppression of the revolt, albeit rather highly coloured, which raised questions about the measures which had been taken by the authorities in Jamaica.
2. BABBIN’S CHURCH
I have no idea how many times I have driven through the junction of Old Hope Road and Lady Musgrave Road in nearly forty years of living in Kingston, mostly in the Cross Roads and Liguanea areas, but for many of those years I certainly expected to pass what was familiarly known as ‘Babbin’s Church’ standing on ‘Babbin’s Corner’. It was only when the Church, correctly called Christ Church, was falling into ruin, and then finally disappeared that I found out anything about its history.
I already knew the name of Francis Bavin from my work on the career of Robert Love; Bavin had been one of the small group of white men who had been involved with Love’s People’s Convention around 1900. I also knew that Bavin had been elected by an easy margin to the Legislative Council for St Catherine in 1901. However, it was largely by chance, while looking for other information, that I picked up the references to the origin of the church he established just north of Cross Roads.
The Reverend Francis Bavin was a minister of the United Methodist Free Churches in England for 25 years, and came to Jamaica in 1898 as General Superintendent of that church here. In 1900 he decided to build a church in the area just north of Cross Roads for a population of some 200 to 300 people, and children in addition, who were not being served by a church. The foundation stones of the new building were laid on December 20, 1900, by Major Roxburgh, Captain Ogilvie, Mr Kingdon and ‘little Miss Dottie Bavin’, the minister’s daughter. Three of these stones are still visible on the site and you can see the name ‘Dotfie’ clearly inscribed on one of them as you drive up Old Hope Road past the corner and the site.
A notice of the first services in the church, to be held on February 3, 1901, included a description of the original church. It is described as being built ‘at the angle of Hope Road and King’s House Road’ (perhaps some member of the Society can explain those road names, which differ from the present ones); it was built in the Gothic style, of framed brick construction on a concrete foundation. It had cement plastered walls inside and out, painted in imitation of stone blocks. In front was a handsome porch, with a belfry above. The roof is described as being made of ‘pitch-pine bevelled battens arranged diagonally, in order to give the best appearance’. The windows in the chancel and at the front, as well as the Gothic tops of the others, were of stained glass. The neat, comfortable benches were of pitch-pine, and there were a substantial desk and communion table. All the work had been done by local labour. The church was designed to accommodate about 200 people.
I have established from a reference in the Daily Gleaner on February 26, 1907, that Christ Church, of the United Free Methodist Churches, was among buildings destroyed in the earthquake of January 1907. I have not so far followed up the history of the church building at Bavin’s Corner beyond this point; we can presume that it was rebuilt at some stage, but whether the church rebuilt after 1907 was the same one that was recently demolished, I do not know, as it may have suffered other disasters in subsequent hurricanes.
From the Who’s Who in Jamaica for 1921-4, we know that Francis Bavin resigned from his position as Superintendent of the United Methodist Free Churches in Jamaica in 1906 because of ill health; he resigned his position on the Board of Education at the same time.
He remained active in church work, and was involved with the Jamaica Agricultural Society. His chief area of interest seems to have been Freemasonry; he was Deputy District Grand Master, and Past Grand Chaplain of Craft and Mark Free Masons for Jamaica. He maintained a home in Jamaica, called Bavington, in Stony Hill, but seems to have travelled widely in Europe and the Americas. His home in the United Kingdom was at King’s Broom, Alcester, in Warwickshire. Since he was born in 1853, he was by this time in his seventies, but I have no information as to when he died or whether he died in Jamaica. It is interesting that although his connection with Christ Church only lasted for about five years, it was his name that became firmly attached to the church and the corner, so that even today, nearly a century later, the name still lingers.
In the 1930s the various churches of the Wesleyan Methodist tradition in Jamaica were united, and Bavin’s church continued to serve under the new arrangements. The congregation of the church was forced to find a new home after hurricane Gilbert severely damaged the building in 1988. Attempts to raise Ja$3 million to restore the church, under the aegis of Providence Methodist Church, where the Christ Church congregation had found refuge, had little success. As the building was deteriorating and being vandalised, it was decided to demolish it. This Society has offered assistance in removing, and so preserving, the remaining foundation stones, in the hope that at some future date, when the new use for the site has been decided by the Methodist Church, a suitable marker can be put up, incorporating these relics of the original church. If this is done, this corner may still be known as Babbin’s Corner in 2095!
I have no idea how many times I have driven through the junction of Old Hope Road and Lady Musgrave Road in nearly forty years of living in Kingston, mostly in the Cross Roads and Liguanea areas, but for many of those years I certainly expected to pass what was familiarly known as ‘Babbin’s Church’ standing on ‘Babbin’s Corner’. It was only when the Church, correctly called Christ Church, was falling into ruin, and then finally disappeared that I found out anything about its history.
I already knew the name of Francis Bavin from my work on the career of Robert Love; Bavin had been one of the small group of white men who had been involved with Love’s People’s Convention around 1900. I also knew that Bavin had been elected by an easy margin to the Legislative Council for St Catherine in 1901. However, it was largely by chance, while looking for other information, that I picked up the references to the origin of the church he established just north of Cross Roads.
The Reverend Francis Bavin was a minister of the United Methodist Free Churches in England for 25 years, and came to Jamaica in 1898 as General Superintendent of that church here. In 1900 he decided to build a church in the area just north of Cross Roads for a population of some 200 to 300 people, and children in addition, who were not being served by a church. The foundation stones of the new building were laid on December 20, 1900, by Major Roxburgh, Captain Ogilvie, Mr Kingdon and ‘little Miss Dottie Bavin’, the minister’s daughter. Three of these stones are still visible on the site and you can see the name ‘Dotfie’ clearly inscribed on one of them as you drive up Old Hope Road past the corner and the site.
A notice of the first services in the church, to be held on February 3, 1901, included a description of the original church. It is described as being built ‘at the angle of Hope Road and King’s House Road’ (perhaps some member of the Society can explain those road names, which differ from the present ones); it was built in the Gothic style, of framed brick construction on a concrete foundation. It had cement plastered walls inside and out, painted in imitation of stone blocks. In front was a handsome porch, with a belfry above. The roof is described as being made of ‘pitch-pine bevelled battens arranged diagonally, in order to give the best appearance’. The windows in the chancel and at the front, as well as the Gothic tops of the others, were of stained glass. The neat, comfortable benches were of pitch-pine, and there were a substantial desk and communion table. All the work had been done by local labour. The church was designed to accommodate about 200 people.
I have established from a reference in the Daily Gleaner on February 26, 1907, that Christ Church, of the United Free Methodist Churches, was among buildings destroyed in the earthquake of January 1907. I have not so far followed up the history of the church building at Bavin’s Corner beyond this point; we can presume that it was rebuilt at some stage, but whether the church rebuilt after 1907 was the same one that was recently demolished, I do not know, as it may have suffered other disasters in subsequent hurricanes.
From the Who’s Who in Jamaica for 1921-4, we know that Francis Bavin resigned from his position as Superintendent of the United Methodist Free Churches in Jamaica in 1906 because of ill health; he resigned his position on the Board of Education at the same time.
He remained active in church work, and was involved with the Jamaica Agricultural Society. His chief area of interest seems to have been Freemasonry; he was Deputy District Grand Master, and Past Grand Chaplain of Craft and Mark Free Masons for Jamaica. He maintained a home in Jamaica, called Bavington, in Stony Hill, but seems to have travelled widely in Europe and the Americas. His home in the United Kingdom was at King’s Broom, Alcester, in Warwickshire. Since he was born in 1853, he was by this time in his seventies, but I have no information as to when he died or whether he died in Jamaica. It is interesting that although his connection with Christ Church only lasted for about five years, it was his name that became firmly attached to the church and the corner, so that even today, nearly a century later, the name still lingers.
In the 1930s the various churches of the Wesleyan Methodist tradition in Jamaica were united, and Bavin’s church continued to serve under the new arrangements. The congregation of the church was forced to find a new home after hurricane Gilbert severely damaged the building in 1988. Attempts to raise Ja$3 million to restore the church, under the aegis of Providence Methodist Church, where the Christ Church congregation had found refuge, had little success. As the building was deteriorating and being vandalised, it was decided to demolish it. This Society has offered assistance in removing, and so preserving, the remaining foundation stones, in the hope that at some future date, when the new use for the site has been decided by the Methodist Church, a suitable marker can be put up, incorporating these relics of the original church. If this is done, this corner may still be known as Babbin’s Corner in 2095!
Images of 'Babbin's Church' -- a reconstruction of what it once looked like
-- and how it looked after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.
-- and how it looked after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988.
3. COLBECK CASTLE: ‘a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma’ After reading the articles on Colbeck Castle in Vol. 6 of the Society’s Bulletin, the above heading is about as close as I can get to a suitable sub-title for a comment on this building. Unfortunately, no-one had been alerted to prepare an introduction to Colbeck Castle for our trip there in July, and a quick survey of the Vol. 6 articles did not help much in providing a snappy summary of their contents. The most conspicuous fact about the Castle seems to be that very little is known about it. It was first mentioned by the name ‘Colbeck Castle’ only in 1896 in an advertisement for the sale of the property at that time. Before that, although the Colbeck property is mentioned, and at least one house is mentioned, no-one seems to have recorded the existence of a building as substantial and distinctive as that whose ruins we can now visit.
In Vol. 6 there are articles about the castle by B. Machado, then Editor, and S. A. G. Taylor, and references to research by Geoffrey Yates, Tom Concannon and H. P. Jacobs; there are also reproductions of pictures/photos of the castle (those opposite p. 201 do not get a mention in the Index, and I only found them by accident). All this material only serves to create confusion in the mind of the reader. The writers disagree as to the possible time of the building of the castle, which apparently could have taken place at a variety of times in the late 17th century, or in the 18th century. It is also not known who built it or why, though it seems unlikely that it was built as a defensive position. It is not clear whether it was ever completed, and if it was, it was almost certainly never inhabited. It may have been damaged by hurricanes and by fire, but if so, the fire was probably minor, and comparatively recent. One certainty seems to be that it has been vandalised in the past and that it continues to deteriorate, as nothing much seems to be being done at present to preserve and maintain it.
It is a most impressive structure; having never seen it before I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw it loom up over the acres of surrounding scrub. Tom Concannon described its external appearance as being a copy of a 17th century Italian villa, and I expect he knew what he was talking about, but how or why such a structure came to be built in Jamaica, whenever it was built, seems permanently hidden from us. I wonder if a survey of existing knowledge, and further research, might throw more light on its origins. Even if we cannot find out anything more, we ought to be able to maintain it better, and make it a site fit to be visited; I’ve certainly visited ruins in England which are less impressive and with almost as little history, which still manage to attract the visiting tourist.
Perhaps some member of the Society might wish to take the following extract from a currently available guide book (published 1993) as the starting point for a reappraisal of the castle and its history: ‘Colbeck Castle is located two miles north of Old Harbour on a side road. Once perhaps the largest building in the Caribbean, it is generally thought to have been built in the late 17th century by an English settler named Coll. John Colbeck, as protection against Maroon attacks and possible invasion by the French. The main walls of this huge brick mansion are still erect, although the roof and floors are gone. Beam slots in the higher walls give an idea of the size of beams used in the construction. Four underground slave quarters can be seen at each corner of the castle. The building is in the midst of what is now a large tobacco farm.’ Alternatively, the Editor might wish to announce a contest for contributions to the Bulletin listing the largest number of queries about statements in this passage! I will offer a copy of Robin Blackburn’s The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848, (London, 1988) as a prize for the most comprehensive list. [This offer no longer applies; my grandchildren long since took over my second copy of Blackburn!]
In Vol. 6 there are articles about the castle by B. Machado, then Editor, and S. A. G. Taylor, and references to research by Geoffrey Yates, Tom Concannon and H. P. Jacobs; there are also reproductions of pictures/photos of the castle (those opposite p. 201 do not get a mention in the Index, and I only found them by accident). All this material only serves to create confusion in the mind of the reader. The writers disagree as to the possible time of the building of the castle, which apparently could have taken place at a variety of times in the late 17th century, or in the 18th century. It is also not known who built it or why, though it seems unlikely that it was built as a defensive position. It is not clear whether it was ever completed, and if it was, it was almost certainly never inhabited. It may have been damaged by hurricanes and by fire, but if so, the fire was probably minor, and comparatively recent. One certainty seems to be that it has been vandalised in the past and that it continues to deteriorate, as nothing much seems to be being done at present to preserve and maintain it.
It is a most impressive structure; having never seen it before I could scarcely believe my eyes when I saw it loom up over the acres of surrounding scrub. Tom Concannon described its external appearance as being a copy of a 17th century Italian villa, and I expect he knew what he was talking about, but how or why such a structure came to be built in Jamaica, whenever it was built, seems permanently hidden from us. I wonder if a survey of existing knowledge, and further research, might throw more light on its origins. Even if we cannot find out anything more, we ought to be able to maintain it better, and make it a site fit to be visited; I’ve certainly visited ruins in England which are less impressive and with almost as little history, which still manage to attract the visiting tourist.
Perhaps some member of the Society might wish to take the following extract from a currently available guide book (published 1993) as the starting point for a reappraisal of the castle and its history: ‘Colbeck Castle is located two miles north of Old Harbour on a side road. Once perhaps the largest building in the Caribbean, it is generally thought to have been built in the late 17th century by an English settler named Coll. John Colbeck, as protection against Maroon attacks and possible invasion by the French. The main walls of this huge brick mansion are still erect, although the roof and floors are gone. Beam slots in the higher walls give an idea of the size of beams used in the construction. Four underground slave quarters can be seen at each corner of the castle. The building is in the midst of what is now a large tobacco farm.’ Alternatively, the Editor might wish to announce a contest for contributions to the Bulletin listing the largest number of queries about statements in this passage! I will offer a copy of Robin Blackburn’s The Overthrow of Colonial Slavery, 1776-1848, (London, 1988) as a prize for the most comprehensive list. [This offer no longer applies; my grandchildren long since took over my second copy of Blackburn!]
References:
JHS Bulletin, Vol 6, 1973-1976 pp 53-61, 132-142; opp 201,; 296-7.
Insight Guides: Jamaica, Boston, 1993, pp 187-8.
JHS Bulletin, Vol 6, 1973-1976 pp 53-61, 132-142; opp 201,; 296-7.
Insight Guides: Jamaica, Boston, 1993, pp 187-8.
Jamaican Historical Society Bulletin October 1995 Vol 10 No 12 pp130-3