|
Jamaican History February 2004 |
 |
|
|
Charles Philip Lazarus was born in Kingston on May 1, 1836 and was baptized into the Roman Catholic Church. The record of his baptism names his father as Abraham Lazarus and his mother as Marie Francis. An Abraham Lazarus is recorded as owning 72 acres of land at Mount Pleasant, St Andrew in 1840. His mother, born in Jamaica, about 1809, was the daughter of a Black woman from Haiti. Lazarus himself recorded that his father did nothing for him after he was 12 years old, and he attributed all his later success to his mother, of whom he wrote:
She ‘was a black woman not possessing education, but she was very wise and extremely industrious. Her character was strong and determined and she had great self-respect. The counsel, advice and direction that she gave me from the very beginning of my life were of inestimable value to me. She was very shrewd. She would say to me, “my son don’t trouble to go as clerk although it may seem more attractive at first. Learn a trade and master it well; they will need you; they must have you”. She encouraged me to make myself thorough, and reliable, to use my time to the best advantage, to improve my mind.’ At five he went to the Wesleyan school, then later to the Roman Catholic
School at Sutton Street. Afterwards he was a Wolmer’s boy. He left school at 13 and had to begin work at once. He was
indentured to learn the trade of a plumber in December 1849. At nineteen he started his own business, establishing his famous
foundry in West Kingston in 1855. For over 60 years, that foundry was constantly
employed in important work, especially for the sugar states, and through it passed more than one thousand young men whom he
trained. In 1870, when the ocean telegraph cable was being
laid, Lazarus assisted with the work and was recognised for the high quality of his work. The following year he cast a monster
water-wheel for Savoy Estate in Clarendon. The Governor, Sir John Peter Grant, was among those who paid a special visit
to the Foundry when the great wheel was completed to see it before it was dispatched to its destination. Another Kingston
building he constructed was the synagogue on Duke Street in 1888 (the present building is that reconstructed after the 1907
earthquake.) Robert Love recognised his stature as a public figure; Lazarus involved himself in various public
activities, including service on the Kingston City Council, and was made a J P near the end of his life. When
he died in 1917, ‘Tom Redcam’, then editor of the Jamaica Times wrote of him: ‘Charles P. Lazarus
was a personality of strong and distinctive character, cast in some respects on antique lines, which recalled at times a combination
of the Roman and Puritan outlook on life. He was an original and stimulating
thinker, possessing great powers of reflection, a luminous native wit and a large store of sound practical wisdom. With the spirit of thoroughness and efficiency he was imbued through and through, and his unerring instinct
for essentials was a remarkable trait.’ Interestingly, one can see an example of Lazarus’ work
any day, by travelling up Hope Road from Half-Way-Tree: it was Charles Philip Lazarus who built George Stiebel’s famous
Devon House.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Click on the violin  for Jamaica's Classical Musicians Click here to e-mail me your comments or queries.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
