| Vale Royal | |
|---|---|
 Vale Royal, Jamaica | |
 | |
| Former names | Prospect Pen |
| General information | |
| Type | Official residence |
| Location | St. Andrew, Jamaica |
| Country | Jamaica |
| Coordinates | 18°00′50″N76°46′38″W / 18.0139°N 76.7771°W |
| Current tenants | Prime Minister of Jamaica |
| Owner | Government of Jamaica |
| Website | |
| Official site | |
Vale Royal is the official residence of the prime minister of Jamaica. It is located on Montrose Road in Kingston 10, Jamaica. [1]
Constructed in 1694, as Prospect Pen, by Sir William Taylor, [2] it became the property of Scottish sugar planter Patrick Tailzour following his marriage to Martha Taylor, daughter of George Hanbury Taylor and Mary, of Caymanas, Jamaica. In turn he who would pass it in to his Jamaican born son Simon. Simon never married, instead electing to father children with his slaves, and Free Jamaicans of color; on his death the property would pass to his nephew, Sir Simon Richard Brissett Taylor, the son of his brother Sir John. On Sir Simon's death the property would pass to his sister Anna Susannah (1781–1853), and her planter husband George Watson-Taylor (1770–1841), the fourth son of George Watson of Saul's River, Jamaica. [3] George later became the Liberal MP, for Devizes, England, and campaigner for the retention of slavery. Following abolition George Watson-Taylor's finances collapsed, with the property reverting to his wife, on his death, in Edinburgh, in June 1841. Later passing to their son Simon (1811 – 25 December 1902), in 1852.
In 1928 the property was acquired by the British government and was the official residence of the colonial secretary until independence in 1962. In 1980, Vale Royal took over from Jamaica House as the official residence of the prime minister. [4] Latterly the prime minister has returned to Jamaica House and the Vale Royal building has fallen into disrepair. [4] [5]
The Caribbean Island of Jamaica was initially inhabited in approximately 600 AD or 650 AD by the Redware people, often associated with redware pottery. By roughly 800 AD, a second wave of inhabitance occurred by the Arawak tribes, including the Tainos, prior to the arrival of Columbus in 1494. Early inhabitants of Jamaica named the land "Xaymaca", meaning "land of wood and water". The Spanish enslaved the Arawak, who were ravaged further by diseases that the Spanish brought with them. Early historians believe that by 1602, the Arawak-speaking Taino tribes were extinct. However, some of the Taino escaped into the forested mountains of the interior, where they mixed with runaway African slaves, and survived free from first Spanish, and then English, rule.
Barbados is an island country in the southeastern Caribbean Sea, situated about 100 miles (160 km) east of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Roughly triangular in shape, the island measures some 21 miles (34 km) from northwest to southeast and about 14 miles (23 km) from east to west at its widest point. The capital and largest town is Bridgetown, which is also the main seaport.
The prime minister of Jamaica is Jamaica's head of government, currently Andrew Holness. Holness, as leader of the governing Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), was sworn in as prime minister on 7 September 2020, having been re-elected as a result of the JLP's landslide victory in the 2020 Jamaican general election.
Saint Andrew is a parish, situated in the southeast of Jamaica in the county of Surrey. It lies north, west and east of Kingston, and stretches into the Blue Mountains. As of the 2011 census, it had a population of 573,369, the highest of any of the parishes in Jamaica.
Charles Augustus Ellis, 6th Baron Howard de Walden and 2nd Baron Seaford, was a British diplomat and politician.
Peter Beckford was a Jamaican-born planter, politician and merchant who served as speaker of the House of Assembly of Jamaica from 1707 to 1713, and again in 1716. The son of one of the richest men in the colony of Jamaica, Beckford sat in the House of Assembly of Jamaica for three decades and acquired a vast financial estate. His wealth would go on to support the political careers of his children in Great Britain.
Colonel Sir Thomas Modyford, 1st Baronet was a planter of Barbados and Governor of Jamaica from 1664 to 1671.
Charles Rose Ellis, 1st Baron Seaford was a British politician, sugar planter, and slave holder.
Simon Watson-Taylor was a British landowner in Wiltshire and Jamaica who briefly served as a Liberal Member of Parliament for Devizes between the 1857 election and that of 1859.
Hibbert House, also known as Headquarters House, is the head office of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. It is located at 79 Duke Street in Kingston, Jamaica. It was built by Thomas Hibbert, a wealthy young English merchant, in 1755 to serve as his residence. Hibbert migrated to Kingston in 1734, at a time when Jamaica was becoming the largest and wealthiest of the British Caribbean islands and the largest single destination of African slaves. In the early 1750s, he formed a partnership with Nathaniel Sprigg to serve as factors for slaves, purchasing them off the ships from Africa and reselling them to planters and others in Jamaica. Hibbert also helped found a major West Indian house in London, trading in sugar and rum.
The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.
George Watson-Taylor, of Saul's River, Jamaica, was a plantation owner and Member of Parliament (MP) at Westminster. In 1810 he married into the family of the planter Sir John Taylor, 1st Baronet, in time adding the Taylor surname to his own, and becoming the richest planter on Jamaica. He bought a house in Cavendish Square, London, and Erlestoke Park, near Devizes, Wiltshire. As MP for a number of constituencies, where he was brought in without contests, he supported the Tory administration, and campaigned for the retention of slavery.
Sir John Taylor, 1st Baronet FRS was a Jamaican-born planter who was a fellow of the Royal Society and was created a baronet of Lysson Hall in Jamaica. He lived in London but he died in Jamaica.
Alexander Aikman was a Scottish printer, newspaper publisher, planter, and member of Jamaica's House of Assembly. From 1805 to 1825, he was a member of the House of Assembly as the representative of Saint George parish.
Simon Taylor was a sugar planter and slave owner in the British Colony of Jamaica. Taylor was the wealthiest planter on the island, according to its governor, and died leaving an estate estimated at over £1 million, equivalent to £69,416,794 in 2021.
Charles Nicholas Pallmer was an English politician, West Indies estate owner and a supporter of slavery. He twice served as a Member of Parliament (MP), with his later career overshadowed by high debts and bankruptcy.
Major-General Sir Evan John Murray-Macgregor of Macgregor, 2nd Baronet, was a Scottish colonial administrator and senior British army officer.
Free black people in Jamaica fell into two categories. Some secured their freedom officially, and lived within the slave communities of the Colony of Jamaica. Others ran away from slavery, and formed independent communities in the forested mountains of the interior. This latter group included the Jamaican Maroons, and subsequent fugitives from the sugar and coffee plantations of coastal Jamaica.
William Atherton, was a merchant and wealthy landowner from Lancashire, England, who operated and co-owned sugar plantations in the former Colony of Jamaica. He was a slave owner, as well as an importer of slaves from Africa.
Green Park Estate was one of several sugar plantations owned by William Atherton and his heirs. It was located in Trelawny Parish, south of Falmouth, Jamaica. By the early nineteenth century, at least 533 people were enslaved there producing mainly sugar and rum.