(Continuationof Chapter 5)
The Caymanas Church up to 1839 (Part V)
By The Rev'd NicholasSykes
The Bishop was formally thanked for a donationfor the relief of hurricane sufferers and for the "liberalgrant" of £100 sterling made by him towards the rebuildingof St. George's church.
The Caymanians had evidently felt they neededto take further action, however. In their 1837/38 Petition tothe Commons the Custos, Magistrates and other Inhabitants lament
... two awful visitations of the Almightyon the 28th and 29th September and 25th October last when twoviolent Hurricanes destroyed one of their churches consecratedby the Bishop in 1834 severely injured the other5.52 reduced upwardsof One hundred dwellings to the ground wrecked their vessels destroyedtheir fields and has brought them to a state of comparative starvation...
That the Island of Grand Caymanas occupiedby your Petitioners not having participated in any grant madeby your Honorable House for the moral and religious improvementof the apprentices your Petitioners humbly submit this also toyour consideration as well as the impoverished state of the Islandand the deplorable condition of many of its inhabitants from thesevere hurricanes of September and October.5.53
Rather intriguingly, when the Colonial Officereceived the Governor's despatch with this Petition, the ColonialSecretary Lord Glenelg queried the Petitioners' statement thatthey had not benefited from the Parliamentary grant.
With reference indeed to their statementthat no part of the Parliamentary grant for Negro education hasbeen extended to them, there appears to be some misunderstandingas in Dec. 1836 a sum of £150 was granted to the Societyfor the propagation of the Gospel out of the Parly vote for Negroeducation in aid of the erection of a School House in the Caymanascalculated to hold 110 scholars. I have to request that you willcommunicate with the Bishop of Jamaica on this subject, as hewill be able to inform you of the measures which have been takenfor the appropriation of this sum. ...5.54
The fact is that by the time the Petitionwas drafted the sum had not been applied to the purpose for whichit was granted and evidently the knowledge of it had not reachedthe Caymanas. The Rev'd Mr. Wilson's school had not benefitedfrom it, and no progress had been made since. Lord Glenelg decidedtherefore to encourage the Trustees of the Mico Charity to spearheadthe educational work in the Caymanas.
... Since the receipt of this Memorial Ihave invited the attention of the Trustees of the Mico Charityto the wants of the Caymanas, and I trust that they will be enabled,with the assistance that I have offered them from the Parl. grant,to undertake the establishment of one or more schools in thatquarter.5.55
To set this suggestion in its proper contextit is necessary to list the several different providers of educationthat were running schools in separate systems in Jamaica at thetime:-
1. There was the Established Church, whichwas providing what were called the National schools.
2. There were the Wesleyan schools.
3. There were the schools of the Scottish Missionary Society.
4. There were the Mico Charity schools.
All of these received help from the annual Parliamentary grant,which, however, the Mother Country was seeking gradually to discontinue
By 1841 there were also to be schools supported"entirely by the contributions of the negro population".5.56
The expression "National schools" shows why the GeorgeTown school house at the time was being referred to as the Nationalschool house. The original intention was that it should be thefirst school of a network of schools set up in the Caymanas bythe Established Church of England. But as we shall see, followingLord Glenelg's intervention it was tendered to the Superintendentin Jamaica of the Mico Charity schools, who presumably becamethe next providers of education (after the Rev'd David Wilsonin 1836/37) in the Caymanas.
The existence of the £150 grantedin Dec. 1836 still unappropriated at the end of 1837 can possiblyexplain at least in part the liberality (as it was described)of the Bishop towards the needs of the Caymanas during the December1837 meeting of the Magistrates and Vestry. Thomas Sharpe apparentlystayed in the Caymanas for several months, no doubt serving onthe Committee to which the Special Vestry had appointed him forsuperintending the erection of the School house.
Presumably after Sharpe had reported tothe Bishop on the state of things in the Caymanas on his returnto Jamaica in 1838 the Bishop received the letter of enquiry fromthe Governor that the Foreign Secretary had requested about theappropriation of the Parliamentary grant, and the Bishop was ableto convey an encouraging picture:-
Bishop's Lodge May 4th1838
My dear Sir
In reply to Your letter of the 1st inst: I have the honor to acquaintYou for the information of His Excellency The Governor, that aschool House is nearly completed in the Grand Caymanas by aidof the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, & the ParliamentaryGrant.
That the church of George Town has beenrebuilt in five months since the Hurricane by further aid fromthe Society for the Propagation of the Gospel.-That the same Societyprovides a Moiety of Stipend for the Curate & the Inhabitantsonly supply one fourth of his remuneration the Bishop grantingone fourth from other means at his disposal.
That the same Society has engaged to providea Moiety of Stipend for a National Schoolmaster, so soon as theSchool room is completed.-
And finally - that the present exertionsof the Inhabitants & during the last five or six Months &the engagements they have entered into with a view to the religiousInstruction of the population are gratifying to me & willif fulfilled form a strong contrast to the procrastination previouslyevinced in building the additional church of Bodden Town. -
I remain
&c &c &c
signed C. Jamaica
Fine copy
(signed) C.H. Durling5.57
The following points should be noted fromthe Bishop's letter to the Governor:-
(1) The sources of finance upon which hewas drawing, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (S.P.G.),and the Parliamentary Grant, are freely acknowledged (while tothe Caymanians he was merely presented as being "liberal").
(2) By the S.P.G.'s aid, St. George's Churchwas rebuilt in five months after the hurricanes. This shows thatthe fact that the church had blown down provides no credible causefor the impending collapse of the Church's oversight.
(3) Unhappily the School house was stillnot completed. The Bishop used that fact in his letter to theGovernor to show why the S.P.G.'s provision of half of the schoolmaster'ssalary was a future projection, not currently in effect. But itseems clear that from the Caymanians' point of view the Bishopwas holding back on his offer to assist with the School house.
Moreover, according to the Colonial Secretary,it was the erection of a School house in the Caymanas to hold110 scholars that was the purpose in the first place of the voteof money to the S.P.G. from the Parliamentary Grant. It is puzzlinghow the Bishop stated to the Governor that by the aid of thesefunds the school house was nearly complete, while the Caymanasrecord shows rather clearly that this grant had not been received.It seems that a lack of straightforwardness to the Caymaniansabout the funds made available for the Caymanas, and in particularthe disheartening obstacles that the clergy seemed to be allowingto frustrate the desire for education (fuelled partly by the visitof the Wesleyan missionary), bore a disastrous price for the Church.The Caymanians were beginning to distrust the officers of theChurch and consequently to be drawn further towards other solutionsthat were beginning to appear both for religious practice andfor education.
CO 137/226 f117-118 Lord Glenelg to SirLionel Smith, Despatch of 14 March 1838. The Society for the Propagationof the Gospel was the Church of England's Missionary Society whichwas giving support to the work of the Bishop of Jamaica in theCaymanas