Dr Lecky was recognised for his contribution to cattle breeding. Throughout his career, he made it his mission to put Jamaica on the world stage for best practices in agriculture.

Published Monday, July 6, 1970

First Manley award goes to cattle breeder

Nettleford notes hero’s ‘insatiable belief’ in Jamaicans

THE CHAIRMAN of the Norman Manley Award for Excellence Committee, Mr Rex Nettleford. on Saturday night described the late national ehro as one who had  an“insatiable belief in the Jamaican people”.

Reviewing the background to the award designed to perpetuate the memory of the late Rt. Excellent Norman Manley at the first award banquet at the Sheraton Kingston Hotel on Saturday night, Mr Nettleford spoke of the memorable things that the patriot and dedicated son had left behind.

He said that the excellence of Mr Manley’s achievement had to be measured by the way in which he had moved society to greater consciousness and how he had transformed noble ideas into practice and dedicated service for his country.

Pioneer

The announcement of the award, which went to a pioneer in cattle breeding, Dr Thomas Lecky, 66, a retired director of livestock research, was made to a capacity audience by a trustee of the Manley Foundation, Mr Felix Fox, who read the citation.

Dr Lecky, a popular winner, received a standing ovation as he was invited to the platform to receive an illuminated scroll from Mrs Edna Manley, widow of the late hero.

Dr Lecky, who will keep the temporary scroll until a more solid and permanent award becomes available, expressed his appreciation for an award: “I never thought I would win until I was told on Tuesday last”.

He said that the award reminded him of his “sincere friendship” with the Manley family over the years, from whom he had derived great strength and faith.

Supreme

Describing the award as something which would serve as the supreme recognition for superior service rendered by Jamaicans to their country and fellowmen, the chairman of the foundation, Mr Douglas Graham, said that it would identify closest with agriculture, education and with the creative arts.  This year’s award went to agriculture mainly because of Mr Manley’s devoted service to agriculture, as well as a special tribute to Farmers’ Year, he said.

A feature of Saturday’s banquet was a departure from the traditional 'head table', allowing for the VIPs to be dispersed among the guests and among members of the Trustee Body of the Manley Foundation.

Later, Mr Graham invited those persons who normally would have constituted the head table to a seat on the platform, beginning with the Governor-General Sir Clifford Campbell; the Prime Minister, the Hon. Hugh Shearer; the Guyanese Prime Minister, the Hon. Forbes Burnham; and the Leader of the PNP Opposition, Mr Michael Manley, in that order.

Other guests present included, ministers of Government, members of the diplomatic corps; members of the clergy, the courts and representatives of various organisations from all over the island.

Following is the citation:

“The Norman Manley Award For Excellence is undoubtedly a most fitting memorial designed to perpetuate the memory of a man whose very life reflected excellence in every phase of the many and varied activities which characterised that life.

“It follows then that any recipient of this high award will have achieved distinguished eminence in his field in ways which not only place him above the ordinary, but which render such lasting benefit to the advancement and development of his native Jamaica.

“Such a recipient will have exhibited not short-lived flashes of brilliance, but sustained effort in his unswerving commitment to an ideal, regardless of the difficulties encountered And such a recipient will have been a living example of the rewards that dedication and devotion to a task can bring.

Selfless

“The recipient of this first award is fittingly someone drawn from the field of agriculture – a field for which the late Norman Manley had a special love. The recipient is also one who embodies the essence of that selfless devotion to duty which was the hallmark of Norman Manley’s own illustrious life.

“It is with special pride and pleasure, then, that the Norman Washington Manley Foundation, on the recommendation of the Selection Committee for the Norman Manley Award For Excellence, makes the first presentation of this Award For Excellence to Dr Thomas Phillip Lecky, farmer, public servant, scholar and innovator – whose intellectual, daring, lifelong dedication and sustained application to scientific research, whose self-discipline and faith in the power that any new knowledge can give the human condition, have produced distinguished eminence for himself and his country, have made an original and major contribution to the field of agricultural science, and have promised lasting benefits not only for his country but for all mankind.

“Many years ago, Thomas Phillip Lecky had a dream. He had a dream of doing something for his country but, firstly, he had to qualify himself for the exciting task that he knew was ahead of him. With vision, he entered McDonald College, University of McGill in 1930, at a time when few Jamaicans sought professional qualifications in the field of agriculture.

After successfully completing the two-year diploma course in a single year, he enrolled at the Ontario College of Agriculture at the University of Toronto, where he pursued a three-year course leading to the Bachelor’s Degree in Agriculture.  There, he repeated a predictably fine scholastic career, and his dissertation on Dairy Cattle-Breeding in the Tropics gave portents of things to come.

1937 appointment

“He did not have an easy time finding an outlet for his talents and ambitions when he returned to Jamaica.  But, he waited for the first opportunity to apply his training in animal production. This came when he was appointed to the Department of Science and Agriculture as a stock inspector in 1937.

“In 1939, Philip Lecky was appointed livestock oield Officer in the then Western Division of the island and there he was able to work with farmers while at the same time maintaining his interest and ideal of giving to Jamaica a breed of cattle which would meet the needs of Jamaica.

“And so to Hope Stock Farm in 1943, there to carry on the work of the late H.H. Cousins with whom he was earlier associated in developing a breed of dairy cattle suited to the tropics.”

By 1949, Philip Lecky’s boldness of speculation and innovative spirit convinced him that it would be possible to develop from the Channel Island Jersey and the Indian Sahiwal breeds a dairy animal adapted to Jamaican conditions. But his intellectual integrity and love of knowledge also convinced him of the need for more academic studies.  He, therefore, proceeded to the Institute of Animal Genetics at the University of Edinburgh for advanced training in animal breeding.

“The data which he collected while working at Hope, together with material from other tropical countries, was studied, analysed and relined to form the basis of the thesis on 'Genetic Improvement in Dairy Cattle in the Tropics’ – a paper which was then and is still regarded as a milestone in the development of tropical cattle breeding, and which subsequently earned for the honoured recipient the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.'

“He returned from his studies at Edinburgh University in 1951 and immediately laid plans for the formation of an indigenous Jamaica breed of dairy cattle, and, a year later, in 1952, the Jamaica Hope Breed of cattle was born.

Cattle

“But, it is in the nature of the man not to have rested there as well be might. Instead, he actively inspired those among the young who saw, as he once did, the fundamental and vital importance of agriculture to the development of Jamaica.  And he carried the same kind of zeal and enthusiasm into the formulation of beef breeds - the Jamaica Red Poll, the Jamaica Black and the Jamaica Brahman.

“He vigorously advocated for the establishment of Breed Societies to promote these breeds, and gave unstintingly of his time and energies in laying down the technical details of the constitutions governing the Herd Recording Societies of these four breeds of cattle mentioned, from the time of their introduction until his retirement in 1964.

“Although retired, he has continued to contribute to Jamaica’s agricultural development, generously and willingly giving from his storehouse of knowledge and experience.

“The standard of excellence that these breeds of cattle have achieved over the years and the great demand for them as seed stock at home and throughout Latin America and the Caribbean is more than living testimony of the mark of excellence that has been set on the work of Thomas Philip Lecky, the recipient of the first Award for Excellence in this Farmers’ Year.

1970 – a man whose work would have entitled him to this high and noble honour in any year, beside men and women of excellence from any field and in any part of the world.”

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