Joseph
Thompson Dillon was born to Richard and Rebecca Dillon at Bagnolds, near
Dressikie in St Mary, and grew up in the Mt Angus Baptist Church where his
father was a deacon who was said to be “and a born leader of his fellows.” At
the age of fourteen, Dillon’s education was placed in the capable hands of Mrs.
Kirkham, the wife of the Rev. A. G Kirkham, then minister of Mount Angus
Church. She contributed towards the moulding of Dillon’s Christian character.
After leaving elementary school, he enrolled at the Mico institution where he successfully completed the three-year course and became a teacher. After completing the Mico course, Dillon taught at Lucea and then, Stewart Town. While in Stewart Town, where Rev William Menzie Webb was the Baptist pastor, Dillon offered for the ministry and was accepted for training at Calabar Institution, then being served by president David Jonathan East. Dillon joined the list of persons who trained as teachers at the Mico Institution and later became ministers of the Gospel. When Stewart Town Baptist Church celebrated its centenary, Dillon explained that it was in that church that he preached his first trial sermon. It was from that church that he left for ministerial training at Calabar and it was in the same church that he was ordained.
In his post-Calabar years, Dillon ministered in several circuits of churches. He started in the Old Harbour sphere, which included Rosewell and Freetown churches. He spent five years there. During this time, his health broke down under the effects of malaria, but he survived. He moved to the Linstead circuit where he spent nine years. From Linstead, he went on to St. Ann's Bay and its associated churches of Clarke Town and Liberty and served there for twelve years. While in St Ann’s Bay, he and his wife, together with the congregation, hosted the JBU Assembly on two separate occasions.
The old Mission House at Nutshell, St. Ann's Bay, that Dillon and his family occupied was destroyed in the 1907 earthquake. The pastor moved swiftly to lead the people in replacing the destroyed building with a new and commodious one which was completed at a cost of £464. However, the church encountered a serious challenge in repaying its £250 debt to the St Ann’s Bay Building Society. This loan was to be paid back in seven years with interest at 7½% per cent per annum.
In 1911, Dillon went on furlough to the United Kingdom. While there, he attended the coronation service for George VI, took part in the missionary meeting of the Mundsley Bible Conference. He also preached from Dr F. B. Myers’ pulpit at Christ Church, London, and for Dr John Forbes at the Hill Head Church, Glasgow. He used the opportunity to raise funds toward the loan repayment programme of the St Ann’s Bay Baptist Church. Unfortunately, Dillon did not raise enough money to solve the financial problem his church faced. However, he returned to St Ann’s Bay, pleased by the fellowship he had had with Christian friends there and grateful for the £80 he collected from friendly donors in Britain. He threw himself, more heartily than ever into the cause of Christ and his country and the work at St Ann’s Bay.
Dillon started envisioning a possible way to overcome the church’s financial problem and settled upon a particular approach. Dillon initiated an elaborate scheme. This involved, firstly, reuniting the Ocho Rios and St Ann’s Bay circuits, as in the days of their former pastors, Rev. John Griffiths and Rev. George House, and to making the mission house at Ocho Rios the residence of the pastor. This would enable the rental of the St Ann’s Bay mission house. With this income, the St Ann’s Bay church would be able to repay its loan.
Dillon managed to convince Rev Charles Baron, the pastor of Ocho Rios, to give up his pastorate and go on to serve in the Jericho circuit in St Catherine, where Rev. A. L. McDonald was pastor. Meanwhile, Rev McDonald agreed to commence a new phase of his ministry in the reunited Ocho Rios and St Ann’s Bay circuits and to reside in Ocho Rios. Dillon’s plan was successful. The plan being activated, the St Ann’s Bay mission house was rented to the District Medical Officer at St. Ann’s Bay and the church’s debt was eventually liquidated under the leadership of Rev. McDonald.
The Gleaner newspaper published a report on the farewell function for Dillon at St Ann’s Bay. According to The Gleaner, “All sections of the community were represented at this farewell meeting, and no wonder for The Rev Mr Dillon and his wife were very popular in this town.” In his chairman’s remarks, Methodist minister Rev. E. Armon Jones said that Dillon had “helped to a considerable extent in fostering the spirit of unity in this town.” In the address the church prepared and delivered in honour of their pastor, they said:
As a preacher of the Gospel,
you have surpassed our most sublime expectations. Your pulpit utterances from
time to time have been the means of cheering many a depressed heart and
pointing out to many a wandering, yet longing, soul the way of salvation.
We remember with gratitude and
pleasure the very timely aid you offered us during the year following that of
the great earthquake in 1907. You were the means of stimulating and encouraging
us when everything seemed fraught with failure and despondency.
This address would be
incomplete if we did not make special reference to Mrs. Dillon, whom we love
and regard so dearly. We cannot forget her work among us. Not only did she
labour for some time in the Sunday School, but also established Young People’s
Christian Endeavour Society, where she was present during sunshine and rain and
attended to the youths with such loving tenderness that she won their
affection.
When you went off to England
for seven months’ holiday, and we were left without a shepherd, Mrs. Dillon
piloted the work of the church so effectively that she won the esteem of all
and you were to return and find the work prospering.
When you went off to England
in for seven months’ holiday, and we were left without a shepherd, Mrs. Dillon
piloted the work of the church so effectively that she won the esteem of all
and you were to return and find the work prospering.
We trust that our loss of her
will be a gain to the Montego Bay Church.
The people were sad to see Dillon go; but this was part of the debt repayment plan. Dillon had to leave St Ann’s Bay for another pastorate in order to make the plan work and the plan succeeded.
From St Ann’s Bay, Dillon went to work at the First Baptist Church (now, Burchell Memorial) in Montego Bay, where he spent 19 years. He succeeded Rev Henry Webster during whose tenure the church faced building woes. The church building was badly damaged by hurricane in 1903. Two separate accounts exist regarding the mission house. According to a report in the Jamaica Baptist Reporter, the mission house was destroyed by fire. According to another account that Dillon prepared for publication in The Gleaner, the mission house was sold to a private individual to settle a church debt. Whatever really happened, the church got into heavy debt for rebuilding and Rev Henry Webster, the pastor, deeply discouraged, resigned and migrated with his family to America.
When Dillon assumed leadership of First Baptist, Montego Bay, the church was facing a terrible crisis. Apart from the stress caused by its building woes, relationships had been adversely affected and the church fellowship was splintered. Relying on God and exercising inspired leadership, Dillon led the church to take successful action to redeem the property it had lost. He also led the congregation in a partial restoration of its church building at a cost of £2,000. Meanwhile, the spiritual life of the church was renewed. Under Dillon’s leadership, negotiations with a Building Society led to the mission house being redeemed at a cost of £800.
In the farewell service for the Dillons, this is what the members of the church said in their official address given in the service:
We regard you not only as the
indefatigable Christian minister of our church, but as the champion of Baptist
rights and principles throughout Jamaica. Your strength, courage and
determination are well known throughout Jamaica, and we believe that when the
history of Baptist work in Jamaica is written, the name of the Rev. J. T.
Dillon will occupy a very prominent place therein.
In 1937, when Dillon completed his tenure in Montego Bay, Rev Azariah McKenzie succeeded him at First Baptist. Dillon went on to spend a relatively short time in the Balaclava circuit. In September 1940, he assumed leadership of the Hanover Street and Tarrant Baptist churches in Kingston and St Andrew, respectively. While there, Dillon completed 2½ years and then went into retirement from active ministry.
On January 4, 1943, the eve of Dillon’s retirement, East Queen Street Baptist Church hosted a public meeting held in connection with Dillon’s jubilee and also to mark his forthcoming retirement from active service in the ministry. Among those in attendance were the Hon. G. Seymour Seymour, Custos of St. Andrew, who chaired the function; Dr A. H. Stephenson, chairman of the Jamaica Baptist Union; Rev. E. Armon Jones, head of the Methodist Church in Jamaica; the Hon. Dr Oswald E. Anderson, Member of the Legislative Council for St. Andrew; the Hon. and Rev. J. W. Maxwell. Member of the Legislative Council for Trelawny; the Rev. M. E. W. Sawyers: Mr. R. M. Dillon, brother of the retiring minister: and the Rev. F. Cowell Lloyd, minister of East Queen Street Baptist Church, who was responsible for arranging the function.
Armon Jones expressed great pleasure to be present “to honour my friend and brother minister.” He praised Dillon’s brotherliness and referred to his kindness to him as a young minister. He also celebrated Dillon’s work as an “outspoken critic, great fighter, [and] a great worker for church unity, serving not only his church, but all Christianity.
In his tribute, M. E. W. Sawyers called Dillon “this great veteran and fighter who has upheld the flag of our denomination and the flag of the Christian ministry for fifty years –a record of which one ought to be proud.” Meanwhile, John Maxwell lauded Dillon’s “outstanding and conspicuous service in the religious life of Jamaica.” Referring to him as “the historian of the denomination,” Maxwell recalled Dillon’s recently published memoir on the work of the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society. He praised Dillon for his great personality and his worth not only as a minister, but as a man.
Great was Dillon’s contribution to meeting the infrastructural needs of the churches he served. While serving in the Old Harbour circuit, the church building at Rosewell was completed and a new building was erected in Freetown. When he was pastor at Linstead, the church worked to replace their old wooden building that had been destroyed in the hurricane in 1903. A site was acquired and the stone walls of the large new chapel were carried to a good height, before Dillon turned it over to Rev. A. Copeland Bennett, his successor. While he served in St Ann’s Bay circuit, the old thatched building at Liberty gave way to a neat stone chapel; and at Nutshell, St. Ann's Bay, a new and commodious house replaced the old Mission House that had been destroyed by the 1907 earthquake. Before he served in Montego Bay, the mission house is said to have been sold to a private individual to settle church debt. Under Dillon’s leadership, the church restored its ownership of the mission house.
Dillon’s service extended beyond the pastorate. He placed his gifts in the service of the Jamaica Baptist Union. He was elected JBU Chairman on two separate occasions, 1915 and 1932, the latter being during the period of the Calabar Impasse. He was also, for many years, Secretary of the Calabar General Committee and its chief spokesperson. When JBU faced the Calabar Impasse, Dillon gave inspired leadership. Of this period starting in 1931, Dillon wrote:
Our Union life for the year
1931 will make a chapter of painful reading on the pages of history when that
history comes to be written. Death and dispute have both entered and invaded
our ranks and while the former has brought bereavement to homes and churches;
…. the latter has brought and planted in our midst, suspicion, sorrow and
shame, such as have never been experienced since the Union was formed….
A man with a strong ecumenical commitment, Dillon was deeply involved in the Christian Endeavour movement.
Meanwhile, in his public life, Dillon was a patriotic citizen who served faithfully on the St James Parochial Board and played a major role in the movement to obtain land for the people on terms that he deemed just and reasonable. He also served on the Parish School Board in St. Ann. Over the years, Dillon contributed articles to the press on a wide range of religious and educational themes.
Dillon authored two monographs, viz. Centennial Review of the First Baptist Church, Montego Bay, printed by the Gleaner Company in 1923, and A Centennial Review of the Jamaica Baptist Union 1849-1949 published by Jamaica Baptist Union in 1949. During the final years of his life, with his eyesight severed challenged, he acceded to his friends’ strong request to compile an autobiography. In the Preface to this autobiography, he wrote:
For a very long time now, a
few of my most intimate friends have been urging me to publish the story of my
life, but on every occasion that the request was made, I firmly declined to do
so, feeling that such a publication might be misunderstood and interpreted as
being a bold piece of advertisement of myself when there are scores of my
countrymen whose lives if written would make more interesting and profitable
reading. But now that I have reached the age of fourscore and four years, and
the request is renewed with great urgency, I reluctantly yield with the hope
that I shall not be misunderstood and accordingly mis-judged.
In 1948, Benjamina Agatha Dillon, J. T. Dillon’s wife, predeceased her husband. She died on February 12 of that year and her body was interred in the King's Gate Christian Church cemetery. Two years later, after an illness that confined him to bed for ten days, J. T. Dillon passed away at his home at 101 Hope Road, Kingston on March 9, 1950. His funeral followed on March 10 at the East Queen Street Baptist Church, with interment beside his wife in the King's Gate Christian Church cemetery.
C. J. Whylie, chairman of the Jamaica Baptist Union, officiated at the funeral where many other ministers were in attendance. Whylie read to the gathering a resolution of condolence from the K.S.A.C. Council.
On June 4, three months later, Hanover Street Baptist Church hosted a Memorial Service for Dillon. The preacher was Rev Frederick Cowell Lloyd of East Queen Street Baptist Church, gave an overview of Dillon’s ministry and said concerning him: “As a preacher, Mr. Dillon was arresting, thoughtful, strongly evangelical and informative. As a platform, orator he was always effective and sometimes brilliant. As a citizen, he was public-spirited, sound in principle and extremely practicable.”
In Dillon’s passing, Jamaica Baptists lost a servant of God who was a visionary known for his exercise of Christian leadership that was devoid of fear and marked by trust in God, courageous action and sacrificial labour.
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