Whitfield Town: once a vibrant middle-income community

In the 1940s and 1950s, my parents, Samuel Thomas and Gladys Morgan, lived in Whitfield Town, where they had seven children. They lived at 31 Wellington Road and 15 Glen Road.

My father had his sideline shoemaking shop at the corner of Fiddies Road and Whitfield Avenue. All their children attended Whitfield Town Primary School and the family was associated with St Phillip’s Anglican Church.

In the mid-1950s, the family moved away having acquired one of the lots being sold along Washington Boulevard (the Nylon Road) as more of the large estates and pens to the north were subdivided into residential lots.

The stories of Whitfield Town left the impression of a community in which people knew each other and lasting friendships were forged even though families had moved away into different directions. So, friendships remained with the Millers, the Browns, the Services, the Gordons, and the Glens, and a link was maintained with Whitfield Town for many years.

The boundaries

For this article, I am referring to the electoral division of Whitfield Town in the constituency of St Andrew South West. These are the boundary lines also used by the Statistical Institute of Jamaica. Thus, Whitfield Town is bounded by Maxfield Ave (Old Pound Road) in the east, to Delacree Road/Eden Ave/Delamere Avenue to the north, Waltham Park Road to the west, and Spanish Town Road in the south. It is in the Kingston 13 postal zone which encompasses a wider area. The name of the Old Pound Road was changed to Maxfield Avenue in 1936 following proposals in the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation (KSAC) founded in 1923.

So, what is the story of Whitfield Town?

In the beginning

Whitfield Town in St Andrew is a 20th-century township development to the west of Kingston, really a suburban area. It is actually the merging of two pens, Whitfield and Pinfold pens.

Whitfield Pen existed from about 1740 when it was producing livestock, scotch grass, milk, and coconuts. It was registered to a James Williamson into the 1840s following full Emancipation.

In the 1870s, a Henry R. Kidd and his late wife, Emerline Mary, were living there. This was most likely accountant, Henry Radcliffe Kidd, 1854-1905, who might have been there up to the 1890s.

In 1900, Whitfield Pen of 65 acres with its residence in perfect condition was for sale. By 1914, only the residence with six acres of land near Spanish Town Road was for sale for £350. It appears that the other 59 acres had been subdivided into lots and sold.

Pinfold Pen extended from Glen Road going north along the Old Pound Road, (Maxfield Avenue). Up to 1811, it was registered to George Dawson and from 1820 onwards, to Caleb Blades and his wife, Eliza. By 1900, this property was also being subdivided and sold in lots.

A township forms

Whitfield Pen merged with part of Pinfold Pen developed into a middle-income combined residential and commercial township. Residents were mainly of the non-white population and many owned their properties. By occupation, they were artisans, tradesmen, landlords, civil servants, employees of transport and utilities companies, and of other private-sector companies.

Besides my father’s shoemaking shop, there were the usual grocery stores, dry goods stores, bakeries, butcher, and other small businesses. It had schools, churches and a post office. A new post office was opened at Whitfield Pen in 1939 and another in 1958.

Whitfield Pen gradually became known as Whitfield Town from about the 1940s. It is not clear whether this was at the request of the citizens.

The community formed a citizens association which was the West St Andrew Citizens Association in the 1930s which lobbied, among other things, for water supply, improved roads, an elementary school, better postal service and telephone service. It seems citizens associations were promoted from the 1920s.

St Philip’s Anglican Church

In June 1917, the cornerstone was laid for the St Phillips Chapel School Mission. The land was given by Bishop Enos Nuttall for building of a chapel to be used as a school and church for the residents of Whitfield and Pinfold pens.

Whitfield Town Primary School

An elementary school was started in 1903 by the Anglican Church in nearby Pinfold Pen. It was moved to St Philip’s Anglican Chapel at 20 Whitfield Avenue in Whitfield Pen in 1917. The school was operated from the church. The church was expanded in 1926.

With the school population growing to nearly 600, a new school was built in the compound with a government grant and funding from the Anglican Church. It was opened by the governor, Sir Edward Denham, on September 22, 1937. The headmaster, W. K. Bryan, was credited with spearheading the building of the new school.

Norma Gravesandy

A true daughter of Whitfield town, Norma Evadne Gordon, was born when her parents, Herman and Daisy Gordon, lived on Nelson Road in 1933. She was the eldest of their eight children. The family home was at Nelson Road for 35 years. Norma met her husband, James Gravesandy, when they were children in Whitfield Town. They both attended Whitfield Primary. Norma Gravesandy returned to Whitfield as a teacher, and spent 45 years there becoming principal in 1989. She retired in 1997. She received a national award in 2001. Norma Gravesandy recently passed aged 92.

Area politician – Edward R. D. Evans

Edward Rupert Dudley Evans (1899-1958), a solicitor, was a popular politician of his day in the area. From at least the 1930s, E. R. D. Evans was councillor for the area in the KSAC and was deputy mayor in the 1930s. In the 1944 general election, as a candidate for the Jamaica Labour Party, he won the seat for the then St. Andrew Western constituency becoming a member of the House of Representatives. He was appointed minister for agriculture, lands and commerce. He and wife, Iris, lived in his constituency at 116 Maxfield Avenue.

In the 1949 general election, Evans, a founding member of the Agricultural Industrial Party (AIP), represented the AIP in the St Andrew Western constituency. He lost to the JLP’s Rose Agatha Leon. The AIP was short-lived.

Evans was 58 years old when he died at his Maxfield Ave home in December 1957.

Whitfield Town today

Today, the Whitfield Town division has a population of about 5,000. It is now considered a low-income, inner-city community. Like other older communities, it has been affected by the movement of people out of the community to new residential areas in St Andrew and St Catherine. Residents have also migrated overseas. Houses have become tenements. Property values have declined.

Whitfield Town has also been impacted by crime, violence and political polarisation. People will tell you they left because of the increasing violence and insecurity from the 1970s onwards.

Whitfield Town Primary School has had several name changes and has been rebuilt. It is now a primary and infant school with fewer than 200 children down from an average of over 500 in the 1980s. St Philip’s Church was relocated to 89 Maxfield Avenue in 1978, when the new building was opened and dedicated.

In spite of Whitfield Town’s decline, there are some families who have remained there or retained their link. In one case, the family has owned their property since 1914.

A sign of hope is that in driving through the area recently, it was noted that houses were being renovated. Whitfield Town is an area in further need of urban renewal.

Prepared by Marcia E. Thomas, history enthusiast and member of the Jamaica Historical Society and Built Heritage Jamaica