This article was given to me by Joan Wilson but she cannot tell me anything about it nor when it was written or by whom.

By a couple dates and the “century ago” title it was probably written mid to late 1970’s. I found it very interesting, as I am sure you will, too.

Commissioner Lawrence R. Fyfe the “officer sent by Sir Henry Norman” wrote the first published report about the Cayman Islands, “Preceded by Minute of Instructions by His Excellency Sir HW Norman, GCB, GCMG, CIE, Governor of Jamaica, 1887”.

“A century ago, schooling cost sixpence a week”

A picture of the church’s early work for education in Grand Cayman is provided in the report by Lawrence R. Fyfe, an officer sent by Sir Henry Norman, Governor of Jamaica, in 1887 to make a report on the estate of the Dependency.

Commissioner Fyfe reported:

“The Bodden Town school is kept in the Chapel belonging to the United Presbyterian Mission by Mr. A. Roberts, an Englishman, who purchased his discharge from the Royal Scots while stationed in Jamaica and was opened by him on the 20^th June, 1887.

In addition to a grant of 5 pounds sterling by the Vestry, Mr. Roberts receives school feed of 6d. a week, which he states are paid regularly in money. There are 62 pupils on the books. The average attendance so far has been 55 and there were 56 present on the day of my visit.

He could not undertake to teach a large number, but he estimates there are quite 100 of schoolable age in the District more than enrolled on his books, and the parents would probably be induced to send their children to school if the fees were reduced to 3d. per week, but he would require assistance to manage so many.

Those of the pupils who read to me did so fluently and well. Mr. Roberts complains much of the want of maps and desks and other school appliances. The school is evidently doing good work in the District.”

The Commissioner also reported on schools in George Town, West Bay and East End, all of them being held in the Presbyterian churches in those districts. His report reveals that the financial support of the churches voted by the Justices and vestry, ranging from 2 pounds. 10 shillings to 5 pounds a year, was conditional on them receiving a certain number of fatherless children free of charge.

He also reported Mr. F.S. McTaggart, the teacher of the George Town school, making a familiar complaint. “He told me that the great obstacle with which he had to contend is the irregularity of attendance and the failure of parents to see that their children learn their lessons at home.”

Fees at the George Town school, where only boys attended, were 6d. a week “for those boys who are sufficiently advanced to do writing in copy books and arithmetic, and 3d. a week for the rest.”

And the commissioner also reported: “He takes the fees in whatever way he can get them; and this is principally in provisions.” Mr. McTaggart – first of a famous Cayman family – was also paid a salary of 25 pounds a year by the United Presbyterian Missions.

The school was in 1887 held in the chapel, but the commissioner reported that a good schoolroom was then in course of erection. This was the traditional style, a wattle-and-daub building on the waterfront site now occupied by part of the George Town port, which served many generations of local school children until its demolition in the 1970’s.

On his visit to the school at West Bay, Mr. Fyfe was impressed by the bright and cheerful look of the children and intelligent manner in which they answered his questions. He was also surprised that they refused a half-day holiday to them at his request – “a strange experience” he called it.

Reporting on educational provisions in Grand Cayman about 40 years later, Commissioner George S.S. Hirst, was somewhat less happy. In 1908, he says in his famous “Notes of the History of the Cayman Islands”, a population estimated at 5,000 was served by about 15 schools “of one sort or another”.

Of these, only five could be taken as properly conducted, “or conducted on principles likely to meet with approval. The other schools (ten) were conducted by girls or women who would receive much benefit by attending a school themselves.”

However, he was encouraged that education was receiving more attention and that a law had been passed which, while not complete, acted as a stimulus. By 1910, he reports, over 600 children were attending elementary schools.

In September 1909, he also reports, a government school was opened in Bodden Town, having been converted from a house purchased from Mr. Phineas Connor and doubled in size. The following year, the old court house at prospect was repaired and re-roofed and turned into a Government school, while the Government school at West Bay was re-roofed.

Some sense of the illiteracy, which the early church-inspired schools tackled, is given by statistics which the Rev. Thomas Redpath, Presbyterian Minister at Bodden Town, 1896-1909, provided for Mr. Hirst’s history.

Mr. Redpath had compiled figures for 1854 which showed at that time the population was 1,989, of which 892 were black and 968 were white, and 988 male and 1,001 female.

Of the total population, only 358 could read and write, while another 414 could write only, and 1,089 could not read.

At that time there were only two schools on the island.