Peter Beckford the Younger

'Peter Beckford (junior), (1672/3 – 1735), was the son of Peter Beckford, founder of one of the most powerful families in colonial Jamaica. Peter joined the Jamaican House of Assembly and became the Speaker. In 1710, during a debate at the Assembly, things became extremely heated and some members drew their swords and threatened Peter, the Speaker. The Governor responded to shouts for assistance and the doors of the chamber were forced open. The Assembly was dissolved in the name of the Queen. The aged Peter Beckford senior was amongst those who had come to his rescue. In the general confusion, he slipped and fell down the long staircase. Suffering a mortal injury, he died soon after. Like his father, Beckford suffered a severe temper. As a young man, he was accused of killing the Deputy Judge Advocate of Jamaica in a fit of temper. He was finally acquitted after a lengthy court case. In 1720, he was one of the prominent people in Jamaica about whom the governor Sir Nicholas Lawes complained had "anarchical principles". He went into business with Alexander Grant, leasing a storehouse from which the partners sold supplies to other plantation owners. Peter married Bathshua Herring and they had thirteen children. He died in 1735. His will included a legacy of £2,000 to found a school in Spanish Town, which was started there in 1744. This school merged with another school started with £3,000 donated by Francis Smith forming the Beckford and Smith School in 1869. His son, William was born in 1709. William emigrated to England and had a prominent career in politics, defending the West Indian interest as a Member of Parliament and Lord Mayor of London.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Beckford_(junior)

Morris Cargill

Morris Cargill CD (10 June 1914 – 8 April 2000, Kingston) was a Jamaican lawyer, businessman, planter, journalist and novelist. Educated at Munro College, a prestigious Jamaican secondary school, and the Stowe School in England, Cargill was articled as a solicitor in 1937. During World War II, he worked for the Crown Film Unit in Britain. After the war, he played a role in the development of the coffee liqueur Tia Maria. Returning to the Caribbean he worked as a newspaper editor in Trinidad, and, having acquired a banana plantation in Jamaica, began a career as a columnist for the Gleaner newspapers in 1953 which was to last, with some interruptions, until his death. Until the late 1970s, his articles appeared under the pseudonym "Thomas Wright". In 1958, he was elected to the parliament of the Federation of the West Indies, as a candidate of the Jamaica Labour Party, and served as deputy leader of the opposition in that legislature for the next four years. In 1964 he persuaded his friend Ian Fleming to write the introductory article for a guidebook to Jamaica called Ian Fleming introduces Jamaica. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he collaborated with novelist John Hearne, under the pseudonym 'John Morris', on a series of three thrillers -- Fever Grass, The Candywine Development, and The Checkerboard Caper—about an imaginary Jamaican secret service. Cargill makes an appearance, in the surprising guise of a high court judge, at the end of Fleming's novel The Man with the Golden Gun. For two years in the late 1970s, he left Jamaica because of his opposition to the government of Michael Manley, returning in 1980 to join the campaign against Manley. During this period he lived in the United States and worked for the publisher Lyle Stuart, editing a study of the Third Reich in Germany called A Gallery of Nazis, and writing a memoir called Jamaica Farewell (an expanded version of which was reissued in 1995). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morris_Cargill

Peter Beckford the elder

'Colonel Peter Beckford (1643–1710) was acting Governor of Jamaica in 1702. Peter was the son of another Peter Beckford, of Maidenhead. Sir Thomas Beckford, Sheriff of London was his uncle as was Captain Richard Beckford, who was trading in Jamaica from 1659. Peter emigrated there in 1662, afterwards becoming President of the Jamaican Council and acting Governor in 1702. He arrived in Jamaica with two or three enslaved Africans shortly after it became an English colony and engaged himself as hunter and horse catcher. When he died suddenly in a fit of passion in 1710, he was the wealthiest planter in Jamaica, and it was claimed he was "in possession of the largest property real and personal of any subject in Europe." Having served as a seaman, he was granted a thousand acres (4 km²) of land in Clarendon by Royal Patent on 6 March 1669. He took an active part in island politics, representing St. Catherine in the Assembly in 1675, and was later called to the Council where he was appointed President. He was appointed Chief Justice of Jamaica in 1703. He was the first Custos of Kingston, and a street was named after him there. He was renowned for being haughty with a strong temper and was involved in many heated debates. He was twice married - to Bridget who died in 1691, and to Anne Ballard in 1696. He had two sons. Peter was the elder. The death of Peter senior resulted from an accident when he rushed to the defence of his son, who had caused such a commotion in the House of Assembly that swords were drawn.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Beckford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Jago_High_School

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