For three decades before World War I the Kingston Choral

Union was the best-known and most popular singing group in Jamaica. They sang a wide variety of music, from local songs through current popular music to classical and operatic items. In 1906 to 1908 they toured the United Kingdom, performing in churches, concert halls and theatres, introducing the British to the musical genius of Jamaicans. After this tour they became universally known as 'The Jamaica Choir', but by the early years of the War they began to fade out of the music scene. Other groups, of younger people, had been started up, and some members of the Choir had pursued separate careers. However, even as late as the 1960s there were those who remembered the successes of the Choir's earlier days.

On this site I shall attempt to give some idea, for to-day's generation, of their predecessors' achievements. I am still doing research on the Choir, so this is an on-going project with no end in sight!

1882 was a bad year for Jamaica, Kingston in particular. In December a devastating fire burned down much of the commercial heart of the city.

The fire started just before 2 pm on Monday December 11, burned through the night and on into Tuesday afternoon. It destroyed most of the buildings on Port Royal Street, Harbour Street, and the harbour end of King Street and the other streets and lanes which run down to the sea.
A reporter of 'Gall's News Letter' wrote on Tuesday 12:
'It is impossible to give an adequate description of the raging of the flames.It was simply dreadful. The crash of falling walls, the explosion of rum barrels, and the lurid glare which o'ercast the sky, made the scene more dreadful than war.'
As many as 7 people may have been killed, but the main disaster was the vast destruction of property, of rich and poor alike. The Fire Brigade, such as it was, proved useless to control the blaze; soldiers from camp and sailors from Port Royal were successful in preventing the fire spreading northwards.
A reporter from the 'Jamaica Creole' wrote: 'I have never in my life seen anything like it. Thousands of people burnt out, the streets and lanes covered with debris of bedding, furniture, pickled herrings, buildings tumbling down; the whole city in a state of devastation.' Kingston had experienced fires before, but this was judged Jamaica's greatest disaster since the earthquake of 1692.

At least one good thing, however, survived out of 1882, to be a source of pride for the people of Kingston, decades into the future.