Robert Love

'After 10 years in Haiti, Love moved to Jamaica in 1889. There he started the Jamaica Advocate, which became an influential newspaper on the island. Love used the paper as a forum to express his concern for the living conditions of Jamaica's black population. He was a staunch advocate of access to education for the majority of the population. He believed that girls, like boys, should receive secondary school education. In 1906, Love won the St. Andrew Parish seat in Jamaica's general elections. He also served as chairman of the St. Andrew Parochial Board, as well as a justice of the peace in Kingston, the Kingston General Commissions and as a Wolmer's trustee. Love published two works, Romanism is Not Christianity (1892), and St. Peter's True Position in the Church, Clearly Traced in the Bible (1897). In 1906 Love's health began to deteriorate, and by 1910 he had been forced to end his political career. He died on 21 November 1914, and was buried in the parish church yard at Half Way Tree, near the city of Kingston. Love's activism in favour of Jamaica's economically depressed black majority influenced later Jamaican and Caribbean activists, including Marcus Garvey.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Robert_Love

Vivian Virtue

'Virtue was born in Kingston, Jamaica, was educated there and was employed by the Jamaican Department of Public Works. On his retirement from the civil service in 1960, he moved to London. He served as the assistant secretary, librarian and later vice-president of the Poetry League of Jamaica. He was a founding member and vice-president of the Jamaican Center of PEN International. He was also a member of the British Royal Society of Literature and a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. Virtue translated poetry by José-Maria de Heredia from French into English as well as poems in Spanish by other Caribbean and Latin American poets. He received the Silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica in 1960. On the occasion of the Commonwealth Arts Festival in 1965, he was commissioned to write a poem in honour of Marcus Garvey. His work appeared in various journals, anthologies and the collection Wings of the Morning (1938). He frequently appeared on the BBC's Caribbean Voices radio programme. Virtue died in London in 1998 at the age of 87 after an extended illness from heart disease and bronchopneumonia.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivian_Virtue

William Anglin Scarlett

'Sir William Anglin Scarlett (1777-1831) was Chief Justice of Jamaica. Scarlett was the son of Robert Scarlett who owned property in Jamaica. His elder brother, James, was to become Attorney General. He was educated in Edinburgh and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1802. In 1809, Scarlett married Mary Williams of Luana estate in St. Elizabeth. Scarlett became Chief Justice of Jamaica in 1821. In 1823, Scarlett successfully descended a man against a charge of libel brought by the Duke of Manchester, the Governor of Jamaica. Scarlett was successful, but even as a Chief Justice, was abused as he left. He was involved again in another case where he opposed the governor. Scarlett released prisoners but they were rearrested and exiled from Jamaica. Scarlett's decision was in time upheld by the British Parliament. The case began when Louis Celeste Lecesne and John Escoffery were arrested on 7 October 1823 under the Alien Act by a warrant of the Duke of Manchester, the Governor of Jamaica. They were considered by the Attorney General, William Burge to be of a dangerous character and to be aliens as they were clained to be Haitians. Luckily they had time to raise a writ of Habeas Corpus in the Supreme Court of Jamaica. Scarlett released them, but it took Parliament to uphold his decision. Scarlett was knighted in 1829. Scarlett died in 1831. His obituary noted that he had been ill and that even his detractors noted his "love of justice". His wife died the following year.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Anglin_Scarlett

Tony McNeill

'Roy Anthony "Tony" McNeill (1941–1996) was a Jamaican poet, considered one of the most promising West Indian writers of his generation, whose career was cut short by his early death. McNeill was born in Kingston, Jamaica and educated at Excelsior School and St. George's College (where he was already known to his friends as a poet) before leaving to study in the United States. He studied creative writing at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Massachusetts Amherst, from which he graduated with a PhD. He returned to Jamaica in 1975, where he worked as a journalist and assistant editor of the Jamaica Journal (1975–81), as well as in a variety of other jobs, including civil servant, encyclopedia salesman, and janitor. While a student in the US, McNeill began writing seriously. His first major collection of poems, Reel from "The Life Movie", appeared in 1972 and immediately established his reputation in Jamaica alongside his contemporaries Dennis Scott and Mervyn Morris. This was followed by Credences at the Altar of Cloud (1979) and Chinese Lanterns from the Blue Child, published posthumously in 1998. Other significant work remains unpublished. McNeill was known for his experimental style, influenced by contemporary jazz as well as American poets like Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson, and E. E. Cummings. He once said, of his first collection, "I don't think I could write if my first concern wasn't for the aesthetic." He also claimed that his greatest ambition was to be a jazz pianist. He was recognised by his peers as a prodigious talent, but McNeill was plagued by alcoholism and drug abuse. In one of his later poems he wrote, "I realised very early I had no gift for conducting a life. So I shifted my focus and sang a wreath." He died while undergoing surgery at the University Hospital of the West Indies on 2 January 1996. In an obituary essay, poet and literary scholar Mervyn Morris wrote: "We have lost one of the finest of our West Indian poets, an extreme talent, recklessly experimental, awesome in commitment to his gift."' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_McNeill