EXACTLY 40 years ago, on June 27, 1973, Florizel Glasspole was sworn in as Jamaica’s third governor general, the second one born in Jamaica. The last colonial governor, Sir Kenneth Blackburne, was Jamaica’s first governor general.

After Blackburne was in office for four months, Sir Clifford Campbell was sworn in as Jamaica’s second, but more importantly, first native governor general. The elevation of the Campbells as governor general and first lady is a great story about a rural man and his humble wife who went to King’s House. There was a lot of envy and they suffered. But they eventually won the hearts of all Jamaicans.

Florizel Glasspole was born on September 25, 1909, and died on November 25, 2000 at the age of 91. The Glasspole story is yet to be written, but it was the rise of an accountant who doubled up as a streetside entertainer. In 1990, when John Major succeed Margaret Thatcher as prime minister of Great Britain, much media space was taken up with the fact that Major, at one stage of his life, was employed to a circus as a clown.

In Jamaica, however, not much was said or written that Florizel Glasspole was in a duo with Eric Coverley (husband of the late Louise Bennett Coverley) as Ike and Mike — Coverly being Ike and Glasspole being Mike.

Bim and Bam on the one hand, and Ike and Mike on the other, were parts of the cultural revolution that was itself a part of the social and political revolution that brought about the birth of Jamaica’s nationalism of the late 1930s. Out of this same nationalism would come the National Reform Association, in 1935, that was pushing for self- government.

The National Reform Association, for all intents and purposes, evolved into the People’s National Party in 1938. And out of that same nationalism would come the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union, also in 1938. By 1943, the BITU was the base out of which Alexander Bustamante formed the Jamaica Labour Party.

Glasspole worked for the Hanna stores on King Street and at the time was a founding member of both the Clerks Trade Union and the Clerks Credit Union. So Glasspole was also a credit union pioneer.

Indeed, although the Roman Catholic Church brought the credit union concept to Jamaica, the Clerks Credit Union was registered before Sodality, which was the first credit union — though unregistered at the time — in Jamaica. NB: In 2009, the City of Kingston Credit Union and the Sodality Credit Union merged to become the COK Sodality Credit union.

Glasspole entered politics as a member of the PNP. He represented Eastern Kingston and Port Royal as its member of the House of Representatives (1944-62) and Member of Parliament from 1962 to 1973.

Glasspole served as an elected member of the legislature for nearly 29 years. He was minister of labour from 1955 to 1957, minister of education from 1957 to 1962 and again between 1972 and 1973.

Glasspole was a conservative politician in a radical party. The fact that the PNP was pushing for self-government, Universal Adult Suffrage and political independence was radical enough in 1938, and for this Glasspole had no problem with the PNP. But Glasspole never seemed comfortable with the fact that the PNP declared itself a socialist party two years after its founding in 1940.

Just last week, I mentioned in my column that Ken Hill, his brother Frank Hill, Richard Hart and Arthur Henry (the so-called Four Hs) had been expelled from the PNP for ideological reasons in 1952. Some have never forgiven Wills Isaac and Florizel Glasspole for their role in changing the socialist orientation of the PNP at that time, as they were among the principal campaigners for the expulsion of the Four Hs.

One anecdotal story is that both Wills Isaacs and Glasspole approached Norman Manley and said to him “it is either them (the Four Hs) or us”. The Four Hs however were expelled by the vote of the PNP’s National Executive Council. Indeed, it is widely believed that Glasspole was ‘kicked upstairs’ when he was made GG in 1973 to get him out of the way so that Democratic socialism could be implemented.

It is quite ironic that Glasspole’s 40th anniversary of being sworn in as GG should come at the same time that there are riots in Brazil caused by the building of several stadia to host the 2014 Olympics, that are seen as a waste of money because they will not be used after the Olympics.

Between 1961 and 1962 there was much controversy about building of the National Stadium in St Andrew, Jamaica. But even more ironic, Glasspole was minister of education when the present building housing the education ministry was built, which was seen as a colossal waste of money. The building was nicknamed Glasspole’s Glass House and Hotel Glasspole.

Whose fault is it really when stadia are underutilised? Have you seen anyone with the requisite rental funds rushing to use Greenfield in Falmouth or the stadium in Sligoville that have been stopped?

My own position is that Jamaica should be a republic. I believe that Jamaica should have a ceremonial-type republic — like Trinidad and India — rather than a republic with an executive presidency, like the USA. I am of the opinion that we need non-partisan national referees. Jamaica is too polarised by our political parties to have a national president that comes from one of the parties.

At the swearing-in at King’s House, 40 years ago, Glasspole (later Sir Florizel) gave his views about the name King’s House. This conservative politician who was on the right wing of the PNP said: “King’s House was a bit of an anachronism.”

Dudley Thompson moved a resolution in the Senate to have King’s House renamed State House, but the general view was that such changes should wait until Jamaica becomes a republic. Forty years later we are still not a republic because of those who are opposed to the piecemeal approach. But the true question is, will Jamaica ever become a republic?

ekrubm765@yahoo.com