William Menzie Webb, 1879-1912: Combining Daring Vision and Courageous Action

 

Stewart Town Baptist Church

 

William Menzie Webb was born on January 12, 1839, at Southampton, near Brown's Town, St Ann, which was then the property of Mr J. Parry.

His father, William Webb (Sr.), was united in marriage to Jane Syms, who was born in Shillington, Central Bedfordshire, England. The wedding took place at a church in Aboukir in 1838. Webb Sr. became manager of the Southampton Estate.  

Webb’s mother, a deeply devout woman, sought to bring up her son “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord.”  Webb spoke frequently of the godly influence his mother provided him during his childhood. Mrs Webb was a member of the Brown’s Town Baptist Church. She was principally responsible for bringing up her children in an atmosphere marked by the daily reading of the Holy Bible and family worship morning and evening with father, children, servants and visitors in attendance.

When he was about six years of age, Webb’s parents removed to their own property in Alexandria, in the Dry Harbour Mountains. They owned properties called Orange Vale and “The Mills.”

In those early years after emancipation, many parents longed for their children to receive a good education and this was one of the main concerns of Mr Webb (Sr.). So, while his son was still young, when men from Britain travelled about the countryside seeking jobs as teachers and accountants, he hired an elderly Englishman, a Mr. Cousins, as William’s tutor. Cousins taught young Webb to repeat from memory the Church of England Catechism and he introduced him to Thomas Dilworth’s spelling book and other books of that class.

At ten years of age, Webb’s father took him to Falmouth, boarded him with a family of strict Church people, and enrolled him at the Kirk school, under Mr. William Miller, a Scotch teacher with an outstanding reputation. Young Webb remained there for three years and his progress was considered satisfactory. While at Falmouth, Webb paid close attention to the sermons of the learned and devout rector, Dr Mc Grath. Webb was growing up in the path of godliness and virtue.

When he was 13, Webb returned home to his parents with solemn thoughts of God and of God’s gift of salvation given through Jesus Christ. He shared his thoughts with his mother, which filled her with joy. She advised her son to contact Rev John Clark, the celebrated pastor of Brown’s Town and Bethany Baptist Churches, and let him know about his desire for baptism. In that same year, his thirteenth, Webb was baptized and received into the fellowship of the Bethany Church.

He remained at home for two years pursuing his studies, and in January 1854, when he was fifteen years of age, he applied and gained admission to the Mico institution, which was then under the leadership of Julius Oliver Beardslee, an American abolitionist who contributed to the introduction of the Disciples of Christ Church in Jamaica.

For three years, Mr. Webb pursued his studies at the Mico. One of his outstanding teachers was   William Whitehorne, who succeeded Beardslee as principal of Mico. Webb left Mico with a first-class certificate when he was only eighteen. At the invitation of Rev. Benjamin Millard, then Baptist Minister of St. Ann's Bay, he took charge of the St Ann’s Bay Baptist Day School. Some of his students were young men and young women older than their teacher. They soon discovered that the teacher, although young, knew how to command respect, maintain discipline, and teach his pupils.

Webb was a strict and efficient teacher and the school flourished under his leadership. Soon, the student body moved from about 60 to more than 100 pupils. Mr. Millard recognized Webb’s exceptional gifts and not only placed his name in the church’s preaching plan, but offered to assist him in further studies. After two years of successful teaching work at St. Ann's Bay, Webb applied for admission to Calabar Theological Institution, then located at Calabar, near Rio Bueno. He was admitted, and came under the able leadership of Rev. David Jonathan East, Calabar’s president.

Over his four years at Calabar, Webb excelled in his studies and developed proficiency in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Theology and English Literature. East had the highest regard for Webb and looked forward to his future ministry with enthusiasm and optimism. 

When Webb completed the Calabar programme in December 1862, President East had temporary oversight of the Stewart Town Baptist Church, where Thomas Lea, William Knibb’s nephew, had just resigned the pastorate. East encouraged the church to invite Webb to be their minister. However, some of the deacons of the church and many of the members were not ready to have a Black minister and a young one at that. However, one of the deacons, Edward Samuels, a man of means and influence in the church, favoured Webb and promised that if Webb were accepted as pastor, he would contribute to augment Webb’s salary. The people accepted the offer and, in March 1863, Webb became pastor in the Stewart Town circuit, which included the Gibraltar church. In protest, some members left the church, but  returned later after realizing their folly. In November, 1863, Webb was ordained to the ministry and, with wisdom and zeal, he applied himself to the work of God.

Gibraltar Baptist Church

The Gibraltar Church was meeting for worship in an old coffee house when Webb became pastor there. Webb led them to erect a beautiful edifice which became the pride of the district. Church membership grew as people responded to the proclamation of the Gospel. Such was the rate of growth that, after a few years, Webb suggested that some of the members who had to walk for several miles to church should withdraw from the Gibraltar Church and form a church in Watt Town, some five miles away. One of the members, a Mr. Jarrett, donated land for the construction of a church building and the people, in appreciation, called the church Jarretton Baptist Church.

A visionary, Webb continued to plan for the expansion of the ministry of the church. Recognizing that the Stewart Town church building was too small to accommodate the worshippers, he influenced some members of the church to unite in forming another church in the district of Keith, a few miles from Stewart Town. There they erected a church building which brought corporate worship in the community nearer to people who were not likely to travel on foot over the distance from Keith to Stewart Town.

   

William Webb

             

Keith Baptist Church

 

                  

 

Thomas Gordon Somers: The Silver-tongued Orator

 

A single institution – the Gordon Somers Society (TGSS)— bears his name. The organization’s first meeting took place on October 12, 1946, with Isaac Henry as president. At the meeting, Rev Ernest C. Askew, tutor at Calabar Theological College and Editor of the Jamaica Baptist Reporter made a presentation.  TGSS was an organization formed by Baptist students attending Calabar Theological College and other tertiary institutions in Kingston and St Andrew. In later years, Baptist students attending the United Theological College of the West Indies (UTCWI), the University of the West Indies (UWI), the College of Arts, Science and Technology, now called The University of Technology, Jamaica, and three teacher-training institutions in Kingston — The Mico College, Shortwood and St Joseph’s –  comprised its membership. Baptists from all over Jamaica who were students attending tertiary educational institutions in the Kingston metropolitan area shared rich fellowship and formed lasting friendships in TGAS over many years. The Society’s value was based partly on the remarkable prestige the Thomas Gordon Somers’ name attracted and the salutary example and inspiration the Society’s founders believed Gordon Somers provided for future Baptist leaders. It is unclear whether TGSS is still an active and vibrant organization.

Thomas Gordon Somers was born on May 28, 1866, in Camrose near John’s Hall in the parish of St. James. He attended the Buckingham Day School. He grew up in the environment of the Mount Carey circuit of Baptist churches, where he answered the divine call to the Christian ministry.

He applied for admission to Calabar College where he commenced his formal preparation for ministry in 1889. On his graduation, he served as pastor in the Yallahs Bay (now Yallahs) circuit of churches in the civil parish of St. Thomas.

In 1897, Somers answered the call to serve as pastor of the First Baptist Church (now Phillippo Baptist Church) in Spanish Town. His fame as a pulpit orator was established there.

Gordon Somers figured prominently in the public life of that town. A Justice of the Peace for the parish of St Catherine and a member of the Conciliation Board, he was an ardent advocate in the cause of Education and he served on many school boards. He served on the Parochial Board of St. Catherine and was for one term its chairman; but he resisted the pressure to run for a position in Jamaica’s Legislative Council. Gordon Somers was able to hold in balance his calling as a pastor and his involvement in the political life of the country.

Somers’ service in Spanish Town came to an end in 1922, when he accepted a call to the pastorate of the Stewart Town Baptist circuit which included, Stewart Town, Keith, Jarretton (Watt Town), and Gibraltar churches. He served in this circuit until his death in 1931.

In his book, Bananaland, former Calabar Principal, Ernest Price, who was an English Baptist missionary to Jamaica from 1910 to 1938, tells an interesting story about what transpired in a Baptist church in England one Sunday morning in 1901.

T. Gordon Somers was on his first visit overseas and, on his first Sunday morning in England, he was in Bristol. He decided to worship at the Old King Street Baptist Chapel – a large membership church that was under the pastoral leadership of the eloquent preacher, J. Moffat Logan.

On the Sunday morning when Somers arrived at the church, he was the only Black person present and the people were curious to find out who he was. He introduced himself as an accredited minister of the Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU).

That morning, Rev. J. M. Logan suddenly fell ill and the deacons anxiously sought someone to replace him as preacher at the service. They decided to approach the visiting pastor to ask whether he would deliver the sermon. Somers requested fifteen minutes to collect his thoughts, after which the service began. After hearing Somers’ sermon that morning, the deacons asked if he could return to preach at the evening service, which he did. And when Rev. Mr. Logan's illness persisted, Somers preached at the Church for another six months before returning to Jamaica, where, like the Greek church father, John Chrysostom, he had already earned the moniker “the silver-tongued orator.”

Nine years later, he was elected JBU Secretary-Treasurer. He served in that capacity from 1918-1929, after which he was for two years the first JBU General Secretary.

Gordon Somers served on many JBU committees and in many capacities including as secretary of Calabar College for nearly 10 years, and as chairman (now called President) for 1908-1909. He was Secretary-Treasurer of the Union for 13 years starting in 1908. He led deputations on behalf of JBU to Britain in 1902 and Costa Rica in 1909.

He offered his gifts to the local ecumenical community, serving as president of the Jamaica Union of Christian Endeavourers and president of the Jamaica Union of Evangelical Churches. In 1905, he was chosen as president of the Jamaica League, an organisation formed “to advance Jamaica’s best interests.”

Mr. Rupert E. Meikle, a journalist, delivered a lecture before the Quill and Ink Club at their Jamaica Evening at the YMCA Hotel, Port Maria, in 1933, in which he declared:

 

In building up some definite background of Jamaican Culture and National Pride we can take the lives of two outstanding personalities of this our island community and hold them up to the youths of the country and know that we are showing them the strength and grace and charm of the land. These mirrors of national excellence are Thomas Gordon Somers and Aemelius Alexander Barclay, and in them we see reflected the full-grown fruits of those good qualities which Jamaica and the Negro Race most naturally produce. Both of them were born of the people in humble homes, educated exclusively in the country and rose to great heights in the land acting as national stimuli to its people. Gordon Somers, who cradled in himself all the virtues of the country and its people; and Barclay, who by the force of his personality, character and actions inspired the people.

Meikle identified the Baptist and the Presbyterian ministers as “ideal Jamaicans.”

In announcing the passing of Gordon Somers, The Gleaner newspaper of March 21, 1931, reported Somers’ passing on page 1 under banner headlines, describing the deceased in the following words; “Was For Many Years One Of Island’s Outstanding Personalities” and “WAS NOTED ORATOR” and “Took prominent part in all works for social uplift in Colony.”

On the February 1, 1931, Somers preached his last sermon at a special service at the East Queen Street Baptist Church to mark the Jubilee of the Christian Endeavour movement. Shortly after this, he passed away at the Sanitarium operated by Dr. Anderson in lower St. Andrew. Alice Maud, his wife of thirty-three years, their sons and their daughter were present watching at his bedside.

At his Memorial Service at East Queen Street, on April 5, 1931, Rev Cowell Lloyd, the pastor, declared: 

Gordon Somers is dead! When that message was flashed along the wires and then leaped across the seas, finding its way into newspapers, letters, churches, homes, and hearts, the spontaneous exclamations from every lip were: "A great man has passed on;” “A big Christian has been called away;” “Jamaica has lost one of her most worthy sons.” The news of his death brought a sense of vast loss. It meant a gap in the front line of the battlefield; an empty chair at the council Board, a vacant pulpit in the Church, the removal of a pillar and support of the truth.

Somers’ mortal remains were buried in the church cemetery in Stewart Town after his second funeral service.

God gave many gifts to Thomas Gordon Somers and he dedicated them all to the service of the Lord, whom he loved.

The First Baptist Church, Spanish Town, convened a Memorial Service for Gordon Somers on April 22, 1931, at which the serving pastor Rev Gillette Chambers preached on the text Psalm 127:2. Chambers reminded the congregation that Somers was “a worthy human example, a man whom [they] knew, watched, honoured and loved.” He called Somers a “steward of the manifold grace of God: faithful ambassador, and full dressed soldier of the cross.” He continued: 

Jamaica has lost a worthy son; the Baptist Union, a trusted counsellor and an able leader; the churches a faithful pastor and effective preacher; the family a loving husband and tender father, and I have lost a personal and trustworthy friend.

 

On March 13,1932, a function took place at the East Queen Street Baptist Church to unveil a tablet and portrait of the late Gordon Somers. Mr. A. J. Newman, Principal of the Mico Training College presided and, the choir members of the Coke and East Queen Street Baptist Churches rendered special items. Mr. Frank Somers expressed thanks on behalf of his family for the erection of the tablet to honour his father.

 

We thank God for the ministry and legacy of Thomas Gordon Somers, for those led to Christ through his preaching, and for the stewardship he exhibited as a minister of Christ’s Church.

 

 

Angus Duckett: Missionary, Pastor, Educator & Translator

 

Hayes Baptist Church Building Being Restored

Angus Duckett was a member of the Falmouth (now William Knibb Memorial) Baptist Church. He grew up in a church where the pastor advocated strongly for Baptists in Jamaica to take seriously what he regarded as their responsibility to take the Gospel back to their continent of origin. Duckett was among those who responded favourably to William Knibb’s urging and joined BMS missionary John Clark when, in 1843, he led a group of 42 Jamaicans on a journey to evangelize and contribute to the development of the people of Africa.

Another person who was among those who decided to throw in their lot for the cause of the development and Christianisation of Africa was Miss Ann Cooper from the Brown’s Town Baptist Church. She was a teacher and she joined the team to Africa with a plan to continue her ministry as a teacher there. Duckett and Cooper met in Cameroon and they got married there on July 17, 1844.

Duckett discovered his gift of language acquisition. He developed some mastery of Isubu, a Bantu language spoken in Cameroon, and he went to serve in Bimbia, in the southwest of the country with Joseph Merrick.

In 1843, Merrick, after giving up the pastorate in the Jericho Circuit to travel, with his wife, on the BMS/JBMS sponsored mission to Africa, departed for the continent. In 1844, with permission from King William of the Isubu people, Merrick planted a church and established a school in Bimbia.  Over the next few years, Merrick also established a brick-making machine and a printing press. He used this press to publish his translation of the New Testament into Isubu. Duckett provided valuable assistance to Merrick in his translation work. Merrick and his assistants also translated the New Testament into Duala, a major language spoken in Cameroon.

Unfortunately, the Jamaicans serving in Cameroon experienced severe health challenges. From as early as 1837, John Clarke, who had led the team of missionaries to Africa stated, in a letter to BMS:

The last year has been one of peculiar trial to our brethren in Africa. Two of their number, Mr. Thompson and Mr. Sturgeon, have been removed by death. Four of the teachers from Jamaica have returned, and the health of all our friends has suffered very seriously from the climate. Indeed, it is feared that some of them may be compelled to leave Africa, either permanently or at least for a season. If this fear be fulfilled, two missionaries and two teachers will be all the foreign labourers engaged in this field…. Surely this is a cry of distress, which will arouse the churches to think of our state.

 

Duckett was among those who faced ill health in Cameroon. Unfortunately, in 1847, acute bronchitis forced his return to Jamaica, where he was to continue the ministry to which God had called him. In 1853, he was admitted to Calabar College, where he completed two years of ministerial training.

To read the account of the oral examination that the students had to endure before twelve outstanding BMS missionaries, including Phillippo, Dendy, John Henderson, John Clark, William Teal, Edward Hewitt and Ellis Fray, and in which Duckett participated at Calabar is to recognize the enormous giftedness of the men who were admitted to Calabar in its earliest years.

As a first-year student, Duckett was required to present a paper on "Christian Watchfulness," which was followed by an examination of the several methods of Scripture exegesis, analysis of scripture, scripture geography, and Jewish antiquities.

 

After completing his time at Calabar, followed by his ordination, Duckett served, with his wife, at The Cross (now Palmer’s Cross) in Clarendon and at Hayes in the parish of Vere as a devoted and zealous pastor.  At Cross, Duckett established a school. In December 1872, a reporter in The Gleaner wrote about Duckett’s zeal “in forwarding the work of education among the people of his district” and the progress exhibited among the pupils [at the school] as being “astonishing as well as gratifying.”

Duckett, “assisted by his son George Duckett, Esq.” was among the featured speakers at the Jamaica Baptist Missionary Society annual meeting that took place at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Spanish Town on January 17, 1886.

The Hayes Baptist Church where Duckett served is still ministering today, but the Cross church passed into the hands of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Some information on this church can be gleaned from Sharon Grant’s Rebaptism Calmly Considered: Christian Initiation and Resistance in the Early A.M.E. Church in Jamaica (Eugene, OR; Pickwick Publications, 2019).

On May 30, 1859, Mrs Ann Duckett died leaving for her two children a wonderful testimony of a life devoted to Jesus Christ and spent in the service of the kingdom of God. In June 1860, Duckett remarried. He found another great partner in the Gospel in Miss Monroe from St Mary who had been a teacher in Lucea.

 

Patrick O’Meally: Sincere Service Appreciated and Remembered

 

 Patrick O’Meally

 

Plaque at Ulster Spring Church

Only those who are conversant with the history of Baptists in Jamaica can truly appreciate the significant contribution of the historic Jericho Baptist Church. Patrick Mitchell O’Meally, 1818-1904, was one of the persons whom the Jericho Church helped to form for Baptist ministry in Jamaica.

Born in Spanish Town in 1818, O’Meally, aged 35, was admitted to Calabar College near Rio Bueno. While in College, he began to show his giftedness from the early stages of his studies. All students attending the College were required to participate in the annual oral examination conducted by the Calabar Committee. At the end of his very first year at Calabar, O’Meally distinguished himself when he presented to the outstanding panel of external examiners an excellent essay on effectual prayer.

When he completed the course of preparation at Calabar, he answered the call to serve as pastor of the church at Coultart Grove, near Claremont in St Ann. This church had been in the St Ann’s Bay circuit under the pastoral care of BMS missionary Benjamin Millard who became JBU Secretary (later, General Secretary) in the 1860s and 1870s.

O’Meally’s gifts had commended him as a suitable person to serve at Coultart Grove, which was set in a community without enormous financial resources. When he arrived there, O’Meally found the Coultart Grove church building and mission house in a dilapidated state. However, he noted two signs of hope: the Sunday School population was 160 children and the church operated a day school that enjoyed an average attendance of 97 students.

O’Meally’s stay at Coultart Grove was not to last long. After a year there, he moved on to serve the churches associated with the Alps Baptist Church in the Cockpit Country in Trelawny, namely, Warsop, Albert Town and Crombie, which was eight miles inland from Alps – churches that are now in the Ulster Spring, Warsop and Spring Garden circuits.

Alps, the centre of O'Meally’s circuit, was a “free village,” established by William Bull Dexter, who was one of William Knibb’s close relatives who served the Baptist cause in Jamaica. The son of the sister of Mary Knibb, William Knibb’s wife, Dexter was a missionary to Jamaica from 1834 to 1853.  

Ulster Spring Baptist Church

With the help of William Knibb, Dexter established New Birmingham, later named Alps, as a free village. in the community, he set aside land on which the Baptist church was erected.

 O’Meally was joined in matrimony to Margaret Eliza Sicard in August 1861 and theirs was a crowded home – six daughters and four sons.

So impactful was O’Meally’s ministry that, on September 21, 1919, fifteen years after his death, a special gathering took place in the Ulster Spring Church to raise funds for the erection of a special tablet in honour of the beloved former minister. Addressing the people, Rev J. T. Dillon of First  (now Burchell) Baptist Church, Montego Bay, used Judges 1: 12 as his text. Dillon challenged the people to follow O’Meally’s example and be the Othniel who will “storm the Kirjath Sepher of Upper Trelawny.”

Pointing to O’Meally’s example, Dillon said this; “He laboured here for 40 years and when he came there, conditions were just revolting and means of communication with the outside world almost nil. These parts were then giant mountain fastnesses, tenanted by wild boars and a fairly large human population who had emigrated from lower Trelawny and St. Ann to these fertile slopes and glades so well-known in Upper Trelawny for their proverbial productiveness.

"From a situation where civilised life was practically non-existent, there arose the dawn of a new era, heralded by Patrick O’Meally of revered memory. He was not afraid of difficulties, privations and dangers. His encounters with wild boars would make thrilling reading if the story of them all were written. He became at once to the poor ignorant people, father, minister, teacher, doctor, advocate and judge; he led the way and called them upward; he bore the lion's share in helping to establish the present order of things—from good roads, spacious and neat churches, schools, and commodious cottages, a post office, etc., and that was why his name would always live in the hearts of the people of Upper Trelawny.”

The people’s response was splendid and the tablet they erected is still to be found today in the Ulster Spring Baptist Church, where it reminds the current members of two faithful Christian workers in the early life of the church – Patrick and Margaret Eliza O’Meally.  

At 87 years of age, Patrick O’Meally died in Kingston on January 23,1904. Cause of death is listed as old age.