Did you know that Manchester is the baby of the 14 parishes in Jamaica? On November 29, 1814 a group of very disgruntled coffee farmers from Mile Gully, May Day and Carpenter’s Mountain in the hill districts of Clarendon, St. Elizabeth and the then parish of Vere petitioned for a new parish. The petition was due to the fact that during the 18th century, coffee growing started and the hilly districts of Clarendon, St. Elizabeth and Vere provided the ideal atmosphere and terrain for the sustainable and profitable production of coffee. However, the coffee growers had issues accessing the surrounding parishes of Vere, Clarendon and St. Elizabeth because of the vast distance between the hill districts and the commercial and administrative centres of all three parishes. They further requested that the new parish be established with a town capital that could provide them with facilities to carry out their religious, civic, administrative and judicial needs, as the closest public building was 40 miles away. With distance like that one can understand why they needed a new parish. The government listen to the people, and in less than a year, on December 13, 1814 Manchester came into being with the joining of portions of St. Elizabeth, Clarendon and the entirety of Vere.The baby parish took its name from the then colonial governor William Montagu, 5th Duke of Manchester and the capital which was established in 1816 was named Mandeville, after his oldest son. The parish is the sixth largest parish with an area of 831.0 square kilometres (320.5 square miles) and is located south-central Jamaica. Fast Forward 208 years into the future, Manchester is home 190,812 people.
Jamaica’s youngest parish now shares a common western border with St Elizabeth, a northern border with Trelawny, an eastern border with Clarendon, and a southern border with the Caribbean Sea. Over 80 per cent of Manchester’s surface is covered with limestone and through weathering and soil erosion several sinkholes and caves have been created. The Gourie Cave, on the outskirts of Christiana, is the longest of its kind in Jamaica at 2.2 miles (3.5 km) and the Smokey Hole Cave in Cross Keys, which stakes its claim to be the deepest cave on the island at a depth of 643.5 feet (195 m).
Manchester is a mountainous parish with three mountain ranges – May Day Mountain, Carpenters Mountain, and Don Figuero Mountain – with the highest point located at Huntley in the Carpenters Mountain at an elevation of 2,770 feet (840 metres) above sea level.
With the parish being so mountainous it was always unsuitable for the cultivation of sugar cane. Instead, coffee became the main crop of the parish during the early 18th century and is still known for producing Jamaican high mountain coffee.
The parish of Manchester has the distinction of being the place where the irish potato was first introduced to Jamaica in 1902 at Bethany, a town in the parish. in 1902 and through the Christiana Potato Growers Association the parish continues to produce a large amount of Jamaica’s Irish potato crop. The parish is also noted for its high quality production of citrus, bananas and ground provisions as well as dairy production.
Manchester’s fortunes changed in 1942 when vast deposits of bauxite were uncovered leading to the growth and development of the bauxite and alumina industry in the parish. The development of a completely new industry naturally changed the character of the parish and its capital Mandeville in the growth as well as the composition of its population. Not only was there an influx of managers and specialist personnel from overseas but hundreds of skilled engineers and tradesmen as well as other mine workers were recruited from across the island, attracted by the relatively higher wages within the sector. Key players in that development were the Kaiser Aluminium Company and the Alcan Bauxite Company which between them employed as amany as 3,000 workers in the early 1960s. These developments also led to an increase in the housing stock of the parish and to the description of Mandeville as “a town which grew on bauxite”.
Lacking the attraction of the white sand beaches of the north coast, Manchester has pioneered the creation of a different kind of tourism – Community Tourism – which seeks to integrate local residents in the active provision of tourism services to visitors as the core concept of its product. The community tourism product ranges from the provision of bed & breakfast accommodation in a rural home to creating income – generating tourism opportunities for an entire village or community. The pioneers of this innovative concept were Diana McIntyre Pike and the late Desmond Henry who created the first first non-governmental organisation for community tourism, the Central and South Tourism Organisation (CESTO).
Manchester’s salubrious climate is encouraging not only for the growing of potatoes and yams but also for local horticulturalists. While the parish has not developed a horticulture industry,its Horticultural Society is one of the oldest of its kind in the world and in Jamaica its Horticulture Show is an important calendar event for enthusiasists from al over the island when it is held annually on Labour Day. There is one other spin-off from Manchester’s fortune of good, healthy climate. Its English-type atmosphere created both by climate and vegetation has made Manchester the parish of choice for returning residents especially those from England. Driving through the parish the visitor will observe many outstanding and elaborate mansions many of which have been constructed by residents returning to retire in Jamaica. Their presence in the parish has helped to enhance that air of calm and gentility that has always been a feature of the parish.
Manchester boasts one of the largest concentrations of educational institutions in the country outside of the capital Kingston. At the highest level, it is the only parish with an independent University, the former West Indies College, a Seventh Day Adventist Institution which is now the Northern Caribbean University with outreach campuses in other towns including Kingston. Mandeville is the home to Church Teachers College one of only 5 outside of Kingston and St. Andrew and several outstanding High schools that have produced scholars, politicians, public servants and sportsmen and women of international repute including the reigning Olympic 100 M and 200 M champion, Elaine Thompson an alumnus of Manchester High School.
Among Manchester’s most famous sons and daughters is National Hero the Rt. Excellent Norman Washington Manley who was born in 1893 in Roxborough in the parish. Noted for his early career as one of Jamaica’s most brilliant barristers, it was Manley and his cousin Alexander Bustamante who laid the foundation of Jamaica’s modern political party system, its trade union movement and who negotiated and led Jamaica to political independence. Although Manley never achieved the distinction of being elected Prime Minister of Jamaica he led Jamaica’s first years as a self-governing country and was the pioneer leader of Cabinet Government in the country. If one were to rank other outstanding Jamaicans from Manchester in order of importance and impact Arthur Wint would immediately come to mind. Wint was not only Jamaica’s first gold medal winner at the Olympics, but his individual exploits as well as those in combination with team mates like Herb McKinley can be said to have catapulted Jamaica into international recognition as a Track and Field nation. Arthur Wint is also remembered as one of Jamaica’s most beloved High Commissioners among the Diaspora population of the United Kingdom and so endeared himself to the people of the parish of Hanover as their Chief Medical Officer than many claim him to be a son of that parish!
The parish has also produced a number of prominent artistes including Ce’ Cile, General Degree Luciano, Garnett Silk rapper Heavy D, and the great Byron Lee leader of the Byron Lee and the Dragoniers band.
DID YOU KNOW?
[bs-quote quote=”The hybrid fruit Ortanique was first grown in Manchester. A cross between the orange and the tangerine fruit, it was propagated in 1920 by a Charles Johnson of the parish.
Manchester is the site of Jamaica’s greatest tragedy outside of a natural disaster. On Sunday September 1, 1957, the Kendal train tragedy claimed almost 200 lives and caused injury to an estimated 600 to 700 passengers. Kendal is a small rural community located in the north/central section of the parish and located 11km from the capital town of Mandeville. An inquiry into the crash found that it was caused by excessive speed.
Maidstone is among the first communities in Jamaica to be set up as a free village and was originally a coffee plantation owned by Thomas Frith. In 1840 the Nazareth Moravian Church, located at Adam’s Valley, bought 341 acres of the estate and subdivided them into lots of 1 to 15 acres, establishing a free village for former enslaved Africans.” style=”style-7″ align=”center” color=”#dd3333″][/bs-quote]
