Trewlawny 250th Anniversary

NAME OF FEATURE | THE GLEANER | SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2020 6 TRELAWNY 250TH ANNIVERSARY Albert Ferguson/Gleaner Writer F ORMER PRIME Minister Hugh Lawson Shearer, a native of Trelawny, emerged as a voice of the people through the labour market as a trade unionist and later as Jamaica’s third prime minister, serving from 1967 to 1972. SHEARER WAS born to World War I ex-serviceman James Shearer and Esther Lindo, a dressmaker, 153 years after the parish was established in 1770 in the subur- ban community of Martha Brae, just outside Falmouth, Trelawny, in 1923. Ninety-seven years after the birth of Shearer, affectionately called ‘Chief’, Olivia Grange, minister of culture, gender, entertainment and sport, announced recently that his birthplace would be declared a national heritage site and that his house is to be rehabilitated The house in which Hugh Shearer spent much of his boyhood is lo- cated in Martha Brae. The building, which appears to be a late 19th-cen- tury structure, is very small and quaint. It seems to be a mixture of vernacular Jamaican architecture and modern materials. The structure of the current building is partially made of wood and concrete and sits on a gentle gradient on top of a concrete base and boasts the traditional elements. The main building of Shearer’s house follows the symmetry evi- dent in most vernacular structures, with a staircase placed in the centre that leads right up to the veranda. The windows are wooden louvres, and the doors are also wooden. The structure is covered by a combina- tion of hip and gable roof and shed made of aluminium sheeting. According to the archives of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust, the house, which now sits on the site that once housed the original structure of Shearer’s home, was constructed with wattle and daub HUGH SHEARER The house in which Hugh Shearer spent much of his boyhood is located in Martha Brae. The building, which appears to be a late 19th-century structure, is very small and quaint.