T B Stephenson

Thomas Burchell Stephenson was born in 1845 in Bethel Town into a family who were loyal and devoted members of the Baptist Church, and he was named after one of the great Baptist missionaries who had been in the heart of the struggle for Emancipation. By the age of 20 he had become a teacher, having posts in St Elizabeth and Westmoreland before being called in 1882 to take charge of the Model School connected to the Calabar College which was then on East Queen Street, adjacent to the Baptist Church. He remained at the Calabar School for the 26 subsequent years of his working life, giving their early training to hundreds who became useful citizens in the island and abroad.

Mr Stephenson was a deacon and the treasurer of the church for over 25 years. He had a excellent voice and was for many years Choirmaster, training an outstanding choir. He was a Trustee of the Church and for 20 years superintendent of the Sunday School. He and his wife lived just around the corner from the Church at No. 2, Sutton Church.

He was an ardent supporter of the Baptist Missionary Society and at various times member of the managing committee, business manager and auditor of the Society’s monthly Reporter.

He was a founding member of the Jamaica Union of Teachers, and was twice elected President. He was a member of the Board of Education for 3 years, and in the last years of his life was on the Board of Trustees of the Wolmer’s Schools.

After his retirement in 1909 he stood for election to the Kingston City Council, and was later elected for a second term. Alexander Dixon, who served on the Council with him, said ‘He was a man who lived to satisfy all classes of the community.’

At the time of his death, after a brief illness, in July 1913 he was remembered for his hard and successful work as a teacher, his integrity and dignity, and the high esteem in which he was held by all classes of the community. His funeral, at the East Queen Street Baptist Church, and the May Pen Cemetery, was one of the largest the city had seen for many years.