Charles Philip Lazarus
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I have been interested in the career of Charles Philip Lazarus since the late 1970s when I first encountered his name on the lists of Black men who should be J.P.s, drawn up by Dr Robert Love in the late 1890s. As I have found more information - and I am still finding it - I have come to see in him the personification of the initiative, ability, determination and social conscience of so many Jamaicans of all ethnicities, but especially of Black Jamaicans, in the 19th century. Because of limited research into the lives of 'ordinary' Jamaicans, especially after 1865, we know all too little about those lives, which have often been assumed to be far more restricted and constrained than they actually were. The idea that Jamaicans might just accept limitations and constrictions for a couple of generations without doing anything much about it, just doesn't accord with what is known of Jamaican character. It was the lives of men, and women, like Lazarus, and his mother, and so many, many others, that laid the foundations for the possibilities of an independent Jamaica.
Some references online to C. P. Lazarus follow the unfortunate phraseology used by Enid Shields in Devon House Families where she writes - "Charles' father was a Lebanese and his mother was of French descent, his grandmother having escaped from Haiti during the revolution." I wish Mrs Shields had checked with me, a fellow member of the Jamaican Historical Society, on that topic, because I am pretty sure that even in 1990 I could have given her more accurate information on C. P. Lazarus' background! Like George Stiebel, Charles Philip Lazarus had a Jewish father, Abraham Lazarus, a member of a Jamaican-Jewish family, who was a local property owner; there were few, if any, Lebanese in Jamaica in the 1830s! His maternal grandmother had indeed come from Haiti, but was, like her daughter, apparently of pure African ancestry; that daughter, Charles Philip's mother, Marie, was born in Jamaica around 1809. He himself was born in Jamaica in 1836 and, apparently, never left the island even once during his long life - quite literally 'a Jamaican of Jamaicans.'
Some references online to C. P. Lazarus follow the unfortunate phraseology used by Enid Shields in Devon House Families where she writes - "Charles' father was a Lebanese and his mother was of French descent, his grandmother having escaped from Haiti during the revolution." I wish Mrs Shields had checked with me, a fellow member of the Jamaican Historical Society, on that topic, because I am pretty sure that even in 1990 I could have given her more accurate information on C. P. Lazarus' background! Like George Stiebel, Charles Philip Lazarus had a Jewish father, Abraham Lazarus, a member of a Jamaican-Jewish family, who was a local property owner; there were few, if any, Lebanese in Jamaica in the 1830s! His maternal grandmother had indeed come from Haiti, but was, like her daughter, apparently of pure African ancestry; that daughter, Charles Philip's mother, Marie, was born in Jamaica around 1809. He himself was born in Jamaica in 1836 and, apparently, never left the island even once during his long life - quite literally 'a Jamaican of Jamaicans.'
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The life of Charles Philip Lazarus spanned the decades from the Apprenticeship period (1834-8) to the First World War (1914-8). His career epitomises the struggle of ordinary Jamaicans to improve their lives and achieve some level of success in the difficult times when a free society was developing in Jamaica. 19th century Jamaica saw great economic problems and hardships, as the sugar industry lost its assured role in the world, and few viable economic alternatives emerged to take its place. Most Jamaicans remained working on the land, and many left the island to seek better fortune in other parts of the Caribbean world. There were some, however, who remained in the island, and, through hard work and determination, were able to shape out for themselves a life of achievement in skilled occupations in an urban setting -- such a one was Charles Philip Lazarus.
As a young teenager, Charles Lazarus took his mother's advice and decided to make his career in the trades of plumber and then iron-founder, rather than seeking to move into the more 'respectable' occupation of clerk, in an office or store. His West End Foundry which he set up before he was twenty became the best known and most successful foundry in Kingston. He was involved in some of the most significant construction and engineering work during that period. He achieved a standing in the community which would have allowed him to find political success, but he only made limited forays into that arena. But he did concern himself with events and developments in his homeland, and his opinions were much respected. He is one of the almost forgotten generation of Jamaicans who laid solid foundations for the future development of their country into the 20th century.
Charles Philip Lazarus was born in Kingston on May 1, 1836, and was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. The record of his baptism names his father as Abraham Lazarus and his mother as Marie Francis. Abraham Lazarus is recorded as owning 72 acres of land at Mount Pleasant, St Andrew in 1840, and his name also appears in local Jewish records. His mother, born in Jamaica, about 1809, was the daughter of a Black woman from Haiti.
Lazarus himself recorded that his father did nothing for him after he was 12 years old, and he attributed all his later success to his mother, of whom he wrote: She ‘was a black woman not possessing education, but she was very wise and extremely industrious. Her character was strong and determined and she had great self-respect. The counsel, advice and direction that she gave me from the very beginning of my life were of inestimable value to me. She was very shrewd. She would say to me, “my son don’t trouble to go as clerk although it may seem more attractive at first. Learn a trade and master it well; they will need you; they must have you”. She encouraged me to make myself thorough, and reliable, to use my time to the best advantage, to improve my mind.’
At five he went to the Wesleyan school, then later to the Roman Catholic School at Sutton Street. Afterwards he was a Wolmer’s boy. He left school at 13 and had to begin work at once. He was indentured to learn the trade of a plumber in December 1849.
Lazarus himself recorded that his father did nothing for him after he was 12 years old, and he attributed all his later success to his mother, of whom he wrote: She ‘was a black woman not possessing education, but she was very wise and extremely industrious. Her character was strong and determined and she had great self-respect. The counsel, advice and direction that she gave me from the very beginning of my life were of inestimable value to me. She was very shrewd. She would say to me, “my son don’t trouble to go as clerk although it may seem more attractive at first. Learn a trade and master it well; they will need you; they must have you”. She encouraged me to make myself thorough, and reliable, to use my time to the best advantage, to improve my mind.’
At five he went to the Wesleyan school, then later to the Roman Catholic School at Sutton Street. Afterwards he was a Wolmer’s boy. He left school at 13 and had to begin work at once. He was indentured to learn the trade of a plumber in December 1849.
At nineteen he started his own business, establishing his famous foundry in West Kingston in 1855. For over 60 years the West End Foundry was constantly employed in important work, especially for the sugar estates, and through it passed more than one thousand young men whom he trained. In 1870, when the ocean telegraph cable was being laid, Lazarus assisted with the operations and was recognised for the high quality of his work. The following year he cast a monster water-wheel for Savoy Estate in Clarendon. The Governor, Sir John Peter Grant, was among those who paid a special visit to the Foundry when the great wheel was completed to see it before it was dispatched to its destination.
After the terrible fire which destroyed the commercial area of Kingston in December 1882, Lazarus was one of the most prominent builders involved in the reconstruction of the city. An important Kingston building which he constructed was the synagogue on Duke Street, in 1888 (the present building is that reconstructed after the 1907 earthquake.)
Lazarus involved himself in various public activities, including service on the Kingston City Council, and was made a J.P. near the end of his life. Robert Love recognised his stature as a public figure and worked with him throughout his career. When he died in 1917, ‘Tom Redcam’, then editor of the Jamaica Times, wrote of him:
After the terrible fire which destroyed the commercial area of Kingston in December 1882, Lazarus was one of the most prominent builders involved in the reconstruction of the city. An important Kingston building which he constructed was the synagogue on Duke Street, in 1888 (the present building is that reconstructed after the 1907 earthquake.)
Lazarus involved himself in various public activities, including service on the Kingston City Council, and was made a J.P. near the end of his life. Robert Love recognised his stature as a public figure and worked with him throughout his career. When he died in 1917, ‘Tom Redcam’, then editor of the Jamaica Times, wrote of him:
- ‘Charles P. Lazarus was a personality of strong and distinctive character, cast in some respects on antique lines, which recalled at times a combination of the Roman and Puritan outlook on life. He was an original and stimulating thinker, possessing great powers of reflection, a luminous native wit and a large store of sound practical wisdom. With the spirit of thoroughness and efficiency he was imbued through and through, and his unerring instinct for essentials was a remarkable trait.’
Lazarus' mother died in 1893, when the notice of her death gave her name as Rachael Francis, and revealed that she was also the mother of another prominent Kingston business man, John Cassis.
From Jamaica Times, August Special Number, Saturday 16, 1913, page 11
BY THE ROAD OF HARD WORK, MR. C. P. LAZARUS’S IRON FOUNDRY,
ITS WORK PAST AND PRESENT.
(JAMAICA TIMES SPECIAL)
Strength, strength of character, strength of body and a will direct and powerful, of these things you think instinctively when you talk to Mr. Charles P. Lazarus the man who has built up the Iron Foundry, Kingston, which lies a little to the west of the car line as it turns northward from the Railway. You find it difficult to believe that this is a man who has passed the age of three score years and ten, passed it by seven years. But that is fact, for he was born in Kingston the on the 1st of May, 1836. That was one year before Queen Victoria ascended the throne. See him in his Foundry, among his workers, with the steady whirr, whirr, of revolving machinery and the slip, slip of the leather belts that toil down and up and round, and so on again, linking various parts of the machinery with the revolving shaft above, and the idea of age does not come into the picture.
Talk to him. You get thoughts not merely words. Ideas spring up and jostle their way to you over the threshold of speech. His language strikes off picture after picture, vivid, impressive. He does not stay to polish but the pictures live. His thought takes hold of essentials. He is impatient with fools and with humbugs, but otherwise he has a broad strong tolerance for the variety that human nature shows. He is a believer in work and not in words, a man who would sooner receive a buffet and a bruise from Truth, than be anointed with the oily sweetness of conventional lies.
I went down to the Foundry last week to see Mr. Lazarus. The visit inspired me. This wide space with its machinery, its buildings now erected and the plans for the erection of other workshops, the varied energy which I saw at work, all had sprung up from the personality, the brain and labour of this man who at the age of 77 is still able to do a turn of work which leaves younger men wearied out.
To do all this face to face with the special difficulties which have to be conquered in Jamaica, here is a stimulus, and an example of what the Jamaicans can do in Jamaica.
In one place I saw workmen busy putting the last touches to a dough machine which was being furnished to a local bakery. I watched the iron rollers and the wood-work fitted, the large yellow painted fly wheel removed and a necessary hole drilled in it by machinery that cut the hard iron as if it had been cedar and then I saw the last touches given and the work passed as complete. I noted the keen faces intent on the job, the terse clear directions of the man in charge. It was a picture that could well have been labelled “The Toilers.”
Turning aside from this I came upon work of a different kind, namely, a bell which had been cast for one of our churches. The work was complete and the bell ready for delivery.
RECORD JOBS.
A remarkable job has quite recently been accomplished in the Foundry. One of our coastal steamers broke her large iron hawsepipe. Mr. Lazarus undertook to replace it. The job had been completed and placed on board the vessel, but I saw the model and the mould and I saw also the huge broken pipe. The accomplishment of such a bit of work is not only a feather in the cap of the country, but it is, I understand, such work as has never before been done in this Island.
Readers of THE JAMAICA TIMES will recall other such achievements to the credit of Mr. Lazarus.
In 1870 Sir Charles Bright was here laying the ocean cable and when he had to leave suddenly for America for a month it was to Mr. Lazarus that he confided the task of continuing certain work in his absence guided by his drawings and instructions. That work was done to the satisfaction of Sir Charles and his engineer and Mr. Lazarus received £800 as a fee.
Later Sir Charles again requisitioned Mr. Lazarus’s services in connection with devising means for grappling the broken ends of the cable. Once again the work was so will done that the distinguished engineer not only presented Mr. Lazarus with a cheque for 80 guineas but made it a point to pay him the personal compliment of entertaining him on board his vessel to lunch.
THE BIG WATER WHEEL
Another outstanding job in the history of the Foundry was the casting of a monster water-wheel for Savoy Estate in Clarendon. The wheel was 20 feet in diameter, 4 feet wide above and 2 feet below. The only part imported was the shaft. All the work was done by native born Jamaicans and with two exceptions, all the workers had been trained by Mr. Lazarus. The Governor of the day,Sir John Peter Grant, K.C.M.G., was among those who paid a special visit to the Foundry when the great wheel was completed to see it ere it was dispatched to its destination.
When Mr Lazarus did his big job for Sir Charles Bright he was only 34.
Those are some only of the record jobs which stand to the credit of our veteran Iron Master.
WORK I SAW AT THE FOUNDRY
Reference to some iron railings cast for a grave suggested another variety of work undertaken at the foundry. Then I came to something still more interesting. The Education Department, with commendable common sense, is obtaining locally-made desks for our elementary schools. I found these being manufactured by Mr. Lazarus. I saw the raw iron, then the iron work ready to be fitted to the woodwork, then the woodwork, and finally, the completed desks, strong, serviceable articles. That is certainly a bit of all right, and it is a fact which does credit to both the Government Department and this Jamaica Foundry.
There were a great many other things that interested me, but I need not go into further detail. What I have said will suffice. This Foundry with its thousands of pounds of stock and plant has been built up by the hard work and the ability of one man. It was established in 1863. During the great days of sugar it was permanently the workshop for the estates, and did a large amount of work.
It has to its credit such work as no other establishment in this island can claim. It has held its own through all difficulties, and amid all the reverses of fortune that have come to the Island. It remains to-day an object lesson of what Jamaica and Jamaicans can do. It is something to be proud of. Nor has the man who built it up lived a life completed [sic] immersed in his own line of business. He has always taken a living interest in public affairs. He has his part in discussing them. He has served in the City Council and he is to-day a member of an important public Board. His mind is alert and is keenly interested in most of the great public questions and issues which agitate this country and the great world beyond.
“I am interested in Life. I like to live” Mr. Lazarus will say in his naive way. It is the simple truth. At 77 he still takes a simple and joyous interest in the multitudinous activities of the human drama. What are some of the secrets of his success, of his conquest of life in the best sense of the term?
He will tell you that one of his secrets has been living life simply. He has that antique strength of soul to which softness and luxury do not appeal. That man gives many hostages to fortune who accustoms himself to need many things. Mr Lazarus has accustomed himself to need but few things, and simple things, simple food, simple amusements. His warning words to the young generations are full of wisdom. He would have its members keep their eye on essential virtues. Learn to think and not only to feel. Deny themselves the idle joys of fine dress and luxurious food and choose instead the slope of hard toil and unfailing endeavour.
BY THE ROAD OF HARD WORK, MR. C. P. LAZARUS’S IRON FOUNDRY,
ITS WORK PAST AND PRESENT.
(JAMAICA TIMES SPECIAL)
Strength, strength of character, strength of body and a will direct and powerful, of these things you think instinctively when you talk to Mr. Charles P. Lazarus the man who has built up the Iron Foundry, Kingston, which lies a little to the west of the car line as it turns northward from the Railway. You find it difficult to believe that this is a man who has passed the age of three score years and ten, passed it by seven years. But that is fact, for he was born in Kingston the on the 1st of May, 1836. That was one year before Queen Victoria ascended the throne. See him in his Foundry, among his workers, with the steady whirr, whirr, of revolving machinery and the slip, slip of the leather belts that toil down and up and round, and so on again, linking various parts of the machinery with the revolving shaft above, and the idea of age does not come into the picture.
Talk to him. You get thoughts not merely words. Ideas spring up and jostle their way to you over the threshold of speech. His language strikes off picture after picture, vivid, impressive. He does not stay to polish but the pictures live. His thought takes hold of essentials. He is impatient with fools and with humbugs, but otherwise he has a broad strong tolerance for the variety that human nature shows. He is a believer in work and not in words, a man who would sooner receive a buffet and a bruise from Truth, than be anointed with the oily sweetness of conventional lies.
I went down to the Foundry last week to see Mr. Lazarus. The visit inspired me. This wide space with its machinery, its buildings now erected and the plans for the erection of other workshops, the varied energy which I saw at work, all had sprung up from the personality, the brain and labour of this man who at the age of 77 is still able to do a turn of work which leaves younger men wearied out.
To do all this face to face with the special difficulties which have to be conquered in Jamaica, here is a stimulus, and an example of what the Jamaicans can do in Jamaica.
In one place I saw workmen busy putting the last touches to a dough machine which was being furnished to a local bakery. I watched the iron rollers and the wood-work fitted, the large yellow painted fly wheel removed and a necessary hole drilled in it by machinery that cut the hard iron as if it had been cedar and then I saw the last touches given and the work passed as complete. I noted the keen faces intent on the job, the terse clear directions of the man in charge. It was a picture that could well have been labelled “The Toilers.”
Turning aside from this I came upon work of a different kind, namely, a bell which had been cast for one of our churches. The work was complete and the bell ready for delivery.
RECORD JOBS.
A remarkable job has quite recently been accomplished in the Foundry. One of our coastal steamers broke her large iron hawsepipe. Mr. Lazarus undertook to replace it. The job had been completed and placed on board the vessel, but I saw the model and the mould and I saw also the huge broken pipe. The accomplishment of such a bit of work is not only a feather in the cap of the country, but it is, I understand, such work as has never before been done in this Island.
Readers of THE JAMAICA TIMES will recall other such achievements to the credit of Mr. Lazarus.
In 1870 Sir Charles Bright was here laying the ocean cable and when he had to leave suddenly for America for a month it was to Mr. Lazarus that he confided the task of continuing certain work in his absence guided by his drawings and instructions. That work was done to the satisfaction of Sir Charles and his engineer and Mr. Lazarus received £800 as a fee.
Later Sir Charles again requisitioned Mr. Lazarus’s services in connection with devising means for grappling the broken ends of the cable. Once again the work was so will done that the distinguished engineer not only presented Mr. Lazarus with a cheque for 80 guineas but made it a point to pay him the personal compliment of entertaining him on board his vessel to lunch.
THE BIG WATER WHEEL
Another outstanding job in the history of the Foundry was the casting of a monster water-wheel for Savoy Estate in Clarendon. The wheel was 20 feet in diameter, 4 feet wide above and 2 feet below. The only part imported was the shaft. All the work was done by native born Jamaicans and with two exceptions, all the workers had been trained by Mr. Lazarus. The Governor of the day,Sir John Peter Grant, K.C.M.G., was among those who paid a special visit to the Foundry when the great wheel was completed to see it ere it was dispatched to its destination.
When Mr Lazarus did his big job for Sir Charles Bright he was only 34.
Those are some only of the record jobs which stand to the credit of our veteran Iron Master.
WORK I SAW AT THE FOUNDRY
Reference to some iron railings cast for a grave suggested another variety of work undertaken at the foundry. Then I came to something still more interesting. The Education Department, with commendable common sense, is obtaining locally-made desks for our elementary schools. I found these being manufactured by Mr. Lazarus. I saw the raw iron, then the iron work ready to be fitted to the woodwork, then the woodwork, and finally, the completed desks, strong, serviceable articles. That is certainly a bit of all right, and it is a fact which does credit to both the Government Department and this Jamaica Foundry.
There were a great many other things that interested me, but I need not go into further detail. What I have said will suffice. This Foundry with its thousands of pounds of stock and plant has been built up by the hard work and the ability of one man. It was established in 1863. During the great days of sugar it was permanently the workshop for the estates, and did a large amount of work.
It has to its credit such work as no other establishment in this island can claim. It has held its own through all difficulties, and amid all the reverses of fortune that have come to the Island. It remains to-day an object lesson of what Jamaica and Jamaicans can do. It is something to be proud of. Nor has the man who built it up lived a life completed [sic] immersed in his own line of business. He has always taken a living interest in public affairs. He has his part in discussing them. He has served in the City Council and he is to-day a member of an important public Board. His mind is alert and is keenly interested in most of the great public questions and issues which agitate this country and the great world beyond.
“I am interested in Life. I like to live” Mr. Lazarus will say in his naive way. It is the simple truth. At 77 he still takes a simple and joyous interest in the multitudinous activities of the human drama. What are some of the secrets of his success, of his conquest of life in the best sense of the term?
He will tell you that one of his secrets has been living life simply. He has that antique strength of soul to which softness and luxury do not appeal. That man gives many hostages to fortune who accustoms himself to need many things. Mr Lazarus has accustomed himself to need but few things, and simple things, simple food, simple amusements. His warning words to the young generations are full of wisdom. He would have its members keep their eye on essential virtues. Learn to think and not only to feel. Deny themselves the idle joys of fine dress and luxurious food and choose instead the slope of hard toil and unfailing endeavour.
Daily Gleaner, May 1, 1917, p 2
MR. C. P. LAZARUS J. P. ………. WILL BE 81 YEARS OF AGE TO-DAY. To-day Mr. C. P. Lazarus J. P. will be eighty-one years old, and thus has not only completed the days of man’s life set down by the Psalmist, but has exceeded it by eleven years. The Gleaner takes great pleasure in congratulating this veteran in the engineering world on reaching this good old age, which has been accompanied by the reward spoken of by Shakespeare:-- “Honour, love, obedience, troops of friends.” Mr. Lazarus is one of our grand old men - men among whom we count such a redoubtable political champion as the Hon. D. Aurelius Corinaldi and that wise and able authority on educational matters the Rev. Dr. Gillies. Mr. Lazarus’ interest in public matters is still keen, and conversing with him a short time ago he told a Gleaner representative that he thought the present water rates too high and that they bore heavily on the poor. He also approved of the present sugar extension scheme. Mr. Lazarus has always been a fine specimen of a man physically and mentally, and indeed worthily represents, “The nobility of labour The long pedigree of toil.” |