Rae Town – once an elite seaside enclave

For those of the 20th century, Rae Town was known as an elite community between the asylum and the prison. There are many Jamaicans and descendants living at home and abroad who have fond memories of pre-Independence Rae Town when there were attractive, sturdy, comfortable, well-maintained houses on the Kingston Harbour benefiting from the sea breeze.

Today, Rae Town is a dilapidated community, a shadow of its past self. Yet, there are respectable, industrious people who have resided there through its decline over more than 50 years.

In the beginning

Rae Town was initially a property on the Kingston Harbour on the south-east side of Kingston. It seems that there was a small stream nearby. The 1804 map by James Robertson shows that there was not much construction to the east of Kingston. This might have been part of the original Hope Estate.

It is recorded that, between 1807 and 1810, Scotsman William Rae (1762-1837), who lived in Jamaica for 55 years, subdivided his Kingston property and sold lots to 13 people, 11 of whom were free black people and two were people of colour. A list of these people can be found at historian Dr Joy Lumsden’s site, Jamaica. History. This was the foundation of Rae Town.

William Rae was from Dumfries in Scotland and was associated with John Hannah, who founded Hannah Town in St Andrew (see Gleaner article of August 25). William Rae owned several properties in Jamaica, including Arntully, Brook Lodge, Eccleston, Sherwood Forest, and River Head in St David parish; Petersfied in Port Royal; and Unity Valley in St Ann. It seems that he had a relationship with a coloured woman which produced a daughter, Ann, who might have married planter George Samuel Sharpe, of St Ann. They had three children.

It seems William Rae died in Jamaica in May 1837, age 75.

Haitian and British residents

Rae Town was primarily a residential community. Besides free blacks, people fleeing the Haitian revolution, which ended in 1804, flowed into Jamaica. These were mainly white and coloured people of French heritage and who had some expertise and resources. They established businesses in Kingston. They were also mainly Catholics. They settled in Rae Town and around the Race Course.

Another group settling in Rae Town was British merchants avoiding the French trade blockade of Britain through the 1806 Napoleonic Berlin Decrees during the Napoleonic Wars. These British merchants came to Jamaica to take advantage of the growing trade with Latin American countries out of Jamaica’s free ports.

With these new affluent arrivals, the profile of Rae Town further improved.

The boundaries/roads of Rae Town

Rae Town’s boundaries were Victoria Avenue to Windward Road in the north, Paradise Street in the east, Lower South Camp Road in the west, and the Kingston Harbour to the south. Roads in Rae Town included Hannah Street, South Street, Potter’s Row, Fisher’s Row, Rae Street, William Street, John’s Street, Margaret Street, Bow Street, Charlotte Street, and Elletson Street. The expansion of the coastal highway in 2000, saw the elimination of Hannah and South streets.

In 1877, Rae Town and Allman Town were considered two of the most densely populated areas in Kingston and St Andrew.

There was a small police post in Rae Town. A police station is still there on Elletson Street. In 1908, there was a Chinese grocery shop at the corner of Rae and John’s streets.

Fishing and bathing beach

Rae Town had a fishing and bathing beach, which facilitated fishermen and sea bathing on the Kingston Harbour. The access to the sea made Rae Town a desirable community.

The Rae Town Tannery

The Rae Town Tannery depot on Church Street made leather goods. In the 1860s, it seems to have been owned by James Key Ingzies.

The prison and the asylum

In 1840, following an inquiry, the decision was taken that a proper prison was needed in Jamaica. Work on the construction of the general penitentiary started in 1845. It was built next door to Rae Town on its west side on Tower Street. The Kingston House of Correction, a prison, had been on this site. A brick works was across from the prison, where prisoners made bricks, then used in construction. It is said that staff of the prison lived on Tower and McWhinney streets.

In 1861, the Jamaica Lunatic Asylum was relocated from the Kingston Public Hospital to Custos, Dr Louis Quier Bowerbank’s property at Bellevue Pen on Windward Road beside Rae Town on its eastern side. In 1946, the name was changed to the Jamaica Mental Hospital. It is commonly known as Bellevue.

The prison and the asylum did not seem to affect the social standing of Rae Town, which was sandwiched between them.

An 1874 advertisement for a Rae Town house

For sale – That most comfortable and extensive house known as ‘Marine Villa’, situated in Rae Town. Its salubrious position, being on the seaside is extremely vivifying and healthy; appendages include salt and fresh water baths, together with its general convenient arrangements, renders it a particularly desirable dwelling. It is currently being rented for £20 per month ($400,000 today). As a sanitarium, it is unequal in the island.

The Jamaica Yacht Club

It is recorded that the Jamaica Yacht Club was established in 1884 in Rae Town by a group of sailing enthusiasts. On November 29, 1889, the club was granted a Royal Charter by Queen Victoria following a visit by Prince Edward, the Prince of Wales, who later became Edward VII. It became the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club. The club moved from Rae Town to Palisadoes in the 1970s.

1907 earthquake

On January 14, 1907, a devastating earthquake struck Kingston. Buildings in Rae Town were damaged. At this time, a two-storey seaside residence, slightly damaged, was being sold for £250 ($5.6 million today).

Rae Town today

Like so many residential communities around Kingston, Rae Town, post-Independence, has slipped from an upper-class residential area to a low-income inner-city slum of derelict buildings. It is classified as vulnerable and volatile. The area has been plagued by crime, including gang warfare, though classified by residents as being relatively safe.

It appears that most of the people who lived in Rae Town in colonial times abandoned the area. It has been impacted by migration to other more affluent areas of St Andrew, to housing developments in St Catherine, and migration overseas. It does appear that many people in Rae Town own their homes or they are owned by family members. Houses have become tenements and others were probably taken over by squatters or simply abandoned. The pollution of the Kingston Harbour has also affected these seaside communities. Salubrious is not an adjective which would be used to describe Rae Town today.

People still visit the fishing village. They go swimming, at their own risk. In the 2000s, Rae Town was known for street dances and still has Old Hits Night. There have been efforts to return some cultural activities to the area.

The Planning Institute of Jamaica’s Community Renewal Study informs that Rae Town is in Central Kingston and partly in East Kingston/Port Royal. The population in 2018 was just under 2,000, with about half being under 30 years old. The statistics indicated overcrowding and a high level of unemployment in a depressed community. Assessment of housing and infrastructure conditions was ‘fair to poor’. Residents, though, are still trying to improve their homes and living conditions.

Rae Town is another historic community of Kingston and St Andrew in dire need of social and economic upliftment.

- Prepared by Marcia E. Thomas, history enthusiast and member of the Jamaica Historical Society and Built Heritage Jamaica