Jamaica's history - always something new to find out!
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    • in the churches >
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        • Rev. H. L. Phillips >
          • as an Episcopalian priest
        • Rev. C. C. Douce
        • Rev. A. Cole
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        • Rev. W. L. Brown
      • the Moravians >
        • Rev. W. V. Moses
    • in education >
      • brief lives >
        • Thomas Terence Sherlock
      • Francis Williams
      • ~ Woodlawn 1896
      • Matthew Josephs
      • T. B. Stephenson
      • Robert Lindsay
      • W Thomas Linton
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      • W. H. Plant
      • Sigismund C. Walker
      • Thomas I. Brown
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    • in legal professions >
      • Peter Moncrieffe
      • J. T. Palache
      • A. A. Fleming
      • H. R. Walters
      • H. A. Joseph
      • M. H. Spencer Joseph
      • J. L. King
    • in medical professions >
      • - doctors >
        • Sampson Altman
        • J. J. Edwards
        • A. J. Thomas
        • R. M. Stimpson
        • E. C. Kinkead
        • E. V. Smith
        • T. A. Dryden
        • Cicely Williams
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        • - in the U.S.A. >
          • Simeon I. Battiste
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            • portable window fire-escape ladder
          • A. E. Forsyth
      • - dentists >
        • Pedro Pompey
        • A. T. Cooper
        • E. E. Clark
        • J. H. Nicholson
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        • Anthan F Berry
        • Charles E Moody
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      • early Black politicians [slideshow]
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      • Jim Russell >
        • the 'Great War'
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        • Charles Philip Lazarus remembered
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        • Gall's News Letter 1890
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          • . . . but after that
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      • Gleaner references
      • 1796 Richard Brinsley Sheridan
      • 1802 Maria, Lady Nugent
      • 1836 Popular Encyclopedia
      • 1844 Edwin Tregellies
      • 1844 Philip Henry Gosse
      • 1859 Richard Hill
      • 1860 Atlantic Monthly
      • 1862 Edward Cust
      • 1865 Col. Fyfe
      • 1865 Once a Week
      • 1866 Charles Town Maroons
      • 1867 Trip to the Tropics
      • 1890 Historical Geography
      • 1898 New York Tribune
      • 1898 Edith, Lady Blake
      • my articles: >
        • 1996 'Trouble with the Maroons'
        • 2001 'A brave and loyal people'
    • . . . some more Jamaicans
    • and even more
  • places
    • Kingston & St Andrew >
      • various places >
        • Knutsford Pen
      • street corner cannons
      • the Old H-W-T Courthouse >
        • four 18th century houses >
          • Hibbert House >
            • Hibbert House - over time
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          • P A Espeut interview
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        • a trip to 'Wareka' 1896
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        • - 'Victoria Quarterly'
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        • Prof. W. A. Barclay
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      • the classical musicians >
        • - Eleanor Alberga
        • ~ Neville Atkinson
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    • & everything else >
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        • 1888 - 50 years
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            • - Creole Airs
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      • 1891 >
        • the phonograph
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      • 1932 >
        • the Exhibition starts >
          • a walk around the Exhibition
        • Exhibition extended
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        • - D T Wint
        • - 'Exhibition' Beecher
        • - W A W Mitchell
        • - L. A. Thoywell-Henry
      • 1934
      • 1946 - Exhibition that wasn't
    • natural disasters >
      • earthquakes >
        • - 1692
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          • Kingston burning
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            • map
            • - Capt. T. T. Lovelace
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          • who was Joseph E Thomas?
          • afterwards
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      • hurricanes >
        • Jamaica's climate
        • Dampier and hurricanes
        • 18th century >
          • 1780s - hurricane decade
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          • - 1815
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        • 21st century
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        • 1843 >
          • 1843 Colonial Magazine
        • 1862
        • 1875
        • 1882
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        • cholera
        • 'Dandy fever'
        • "Spanish" 'flu
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places >
Kingston & St Andrew >
Kingston Race Course

'Race Course'

   Long before there was National Heroes Circle, or George VI Memorial Park, there was 'Race Course', where so many important events in the lives of Kingston's citizens  took place.
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   Before the Race Course land was bought in 1804, Kingston held its races at a track in the area now taken up by the May Pen Cemetery through to the remains of the Jamaica Government Railway terminus; this area was then, apparently, known as Littleworth, a name which does not seem to have survived. Horse racing was among a variety of sports authorised by Governor's patent to be held every year at Littleworth as far back as 1718, when a Patent was granted by the Governor Sir Nicholas Lawes to Thomas Spencer, Bricklayer, to hold a Fair for three days on West Street at Littleworth in Kingston beginning on May 1, "where there will be all manner of sports and pastimes like Horse Racing, Cockfighting, Bullbaiting, Cudgelling, Playing for hats. Dancing for Knots, Wrestling for Belts, Troll-Madam, Coits, Leaping, Pitching the Bar, the Raffling Plate." ('troll-madam' was a game for women, something like bagatelle, rolling ivory balls into, or perhaps through, holes in a board.)
   

​
The area referred to as Littleworth is not named on any map I have seen so far, but would have been in the area marked in brighter green on this map, which comes from Long's History of Jamaica, 1774.
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      This painting, from c1796, by a French artist, F. J. Bourgoin, entitled Kingston Racetrack, seems most likely to be an image of the track at Littleworth.
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Kingston Race Course, 1804.
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Retreat Pen
Waireka House
Date Tree Hall
Rockfort Gardens
'Babbin's' Church
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