Arnold Bertram, ContributorON TUESDAY last, the 113th anniversary of the birth of Norman Washington Manley passed without much fanfare. There was the usual ceremony put on by the state at his birthplace in Roxborough, Manchester. That apart, very few Jamaicans seem to have remembered the man who more than any other laid the foundations for the progress and development we now take for granted.
A poll conducted by the Stone Organisation and published in the Jamaica Observer of Thursday, December 14, 2000, posed the following question, to 1,205 Jamaicans from 42 communities across the island: "Which Prime Minister has done most to improve the lot of the Jamaican people?" The view of respondents was that Norman Manley had done the least. Nothing speaks more eloquently as to the profound ignorance that exists of this man's life and work.
A HARD UPBRINGING
Who was Norman Manley, and in what kind of environment was he nurtured? Within his own party he is often represented as one who grew up with the comforts and ease associated with wealth and, unfortunately, those who knew him and claim his legacy seem reluctant to respond to the perpetrators of this deliberate misrepresentation.
Norman Manley's father, Thomas Manley, a produce dealer, was himself the illegitimate child of a woman of the people and an Englishman from Yorkshire. His mother, Margaret, was a postmistress and a half sister of Alexander Bustamante's father. His father died when he was six years of age, leaving the family penniless. Faced with the task of bringing up four children by her own efforts, his mother moved to a property, Belmont on the border of Clarendon and St. Ann with her children, a blind father and an invalid sister. Here she eked out marginal existence with what little income she earned; a little logwood, a few cattle, a few tenants and a little cocoa. To supplement the income, she also operated the local post office, made all the clothes for her children and produced small quantities of guava jelly for sale.
Norman Manley first went to Wolmer's Boys' School and when his mother could no longer afford the fees she transferred him to the elementary school at Guanaboa Vale. After one year at elementary school she was again able to enrol him at Beckford and Smith, now known as St. Jago High School in Spanish Town, and from there obtained a scholarship to Jamaica College in 1906. During the holidays, to assist the family income, he cleaned pastures and chipped logwood at standard rates.
His mother died at 44 years of age, completely worn out by the physical demands of an extremely strenuous life. He was then 16 years of age, and having lost both parents decided to make a success of his life by dint of sheer hard work and the pursuit of excellence. Over the next three years he established himself as the finest school boy athlete of all times and establishing himself as a world class sprinter and a hurdler. During his final year in school, under his captaincy J.C. won all cups competed for in inter-secondary school sports. Even more than his own individual excellence he was already showing his capacity for leadership. As captain of the cricket team in 1912 he found himself without a pace bowler. For six weeks he got up every morning and practised and mastered the art of pace bowling. That year he took 36 wickets with figures of 9 for 12 and 6 for 29 against Kensington Cricket Club, and 5 for 4 against the Kingston Cricket Club.
Simultaneously, he came first in the Higher Schools Certificate Examinations and won the Rhodes Scholarship. At Oxford, Norman Manley even after interrupting his studies to take part in World War I, returned to take First Class Honours at Jesus College and another first in the Bar finals. He was also prize man at Gray's Inn.
THE DRUMBLAIR MOVEMENT
In 1923, Norman and Edna Manley bought Drumblair, a 25-acre property in what was then rural St. Andrew. They paid for it with a loan of £2,200 and an assignment of his life insurance. The repayment of £303 a year was planned with meticulous detail. His law practice would contribute £203 while the property would earn the remaining £100.
It was from Drumblair that Norman and Edna Manley built a cultural movement around a whole generation of young artists, including the painters Albert Huie and Ralph Campbell, the poets Philip Sherlock, Dossie Carberry, M.G. Smith, and the writers Vic Reid, Roger Mais and Basil McFarlane. For the first time Jamaican artists took notice of "the deep-rooted hidden impulse of the country and that which gives it its unique life," and represented ordinary Jamaicans at work and leisure in their art forms. Edna's seminal work 'Negro Aroused' completed in 1935 epitomises "the awakening of the Negro from the long lethargy into which he has been sunken by the subduing influence of the slaver's whip."
Norman Manley also found time to contribute to the development of sports in Jamaica. In 1933 he was active in the Jamaica Boxing Board. The following year he was among the founders of the Jamaica Olympic Association and accompanied the Jamaican team to the Commonwealth Games in England.
Next week: Manley's political involvement. Arnold Bertram, historian and former parliamentarian, is current chairman of Research and Product Development Ltd. Email redev@cwjamaica.com.
