In the great era of West Indies cricket, a first-class cricket match and, particularly, an international Test match at Sabina Park was sold out, with additional spectators perched in trees and on rooftops. Some of the most glorious innings in West Indies cricket were played at this ground by such legends as George Headley, Garfield Sobers and Courtney Walsh. In the year 1972 Lawrence Rowe joined the cricket immortals after making a double century (214) and 100 not out on his international Test cricket début at Sabina Park.

Sabina Park was the Mecca of Jamaican and West Indies cricket. Today, we now long for those glory days.

A woman called Sabina Park

In a quick search on the history of Sabina Park, Wikipedia reproduces excerpts from a story first carried in the Jamaica Observer in June 2018 informing that Sabina Park, previously Sabina Park Pen, was named for an enslaved woman with that name. She was a slave belonging to Joseph Gordon, father of National Hero George William Gordon, who was granted large tracks of land following the restoration of the British monarchy. She killed her baby as she did not want her child to grow up in slavery. She was found guilty in the Half-Way-Tree Court, was executed, and buried on the property which now bears her name. No dates or references are cited.

The information available on Joseph Gordon indicate that he was born in 1790 in Scotland and came to Jamaica about 1814 as an attorney (property manager) and later property owner. He died in 1867. He would have been 14 in 1804, living in Scotland, when the owner of Sabina Park Pen, Englishman, Robert Rainford Sr, died. The monarchy, under Charles II, was restored in Britain in 1660, 130 years before Joseph Gordon’s birth. The time periods in this Observer article do not tally.

There is a brief reference to the case of an enslaved woman, named Sabina Park, who committed infanticide on page 106 of Orlando Patterson’s The Sociology of Slavery. There is no link made to Sabina Park Pen. Patterson’s reference for this story is The Jamaica Journal, Vol 1, No 42. A no 42 of this journal, from 1823-1824, cannot be found. No other references to a woman named Sabina Park could be found. A reference to the existence of a property called Sabina Park Pen before 1800 could not be found.

Park Pen

I did some reading on the origin of Sabina Park Pen and this is what I found from the Jamaica Almanacs, the University of London’s Legacies Of British Slave Ownership, the History of the Kingston Cricket Club, and other sources.

In 1787, the Jamaica Almanac shows that the territory then had 4,093 free black people in the population. Don’t be surprised that some black/coloured people were also slave owners. One of these was Isabella (Bella) Hall, a free coloured woman.

In 1809, the Jamaica Almanac shows that the proprietor of Sabina Park Pen was Isabella Hall. She was born in 1762 to a free black woman, Elizabeth Pinnock, and a white man, Oliver Hall (c 1740-1771), who could have been a sugar baker (a refiner of raw sugar). They had two children, Isabella and Alice.

Isabella was the partner, “housekeeper” of Robert Rainford Sr, who had been born in England possibly in the 1750s. He was a merchant and slave trader living in Kingston, Jamaica, and partner in the company, Rainford, Blundell and Rainford, from 1779.

Isabella and Robert Sr had two sons, Robert Jr (born 1780) and Samuel (born 1781). Rainford Sr died in 1804. From his will, written in 1803, I deduced that he owned Sabina Park Pen, his residence in Kingston. He was also joint owner of Mount Prospect Coffee Estate in St Andrew. He left Bella £1,400 and his pen as her residence. To each of his sons he left £2,000. Isabella was registered as the owner of Sabina Park Pen up to her death in 1822.

Isabella’s son, Robert Rainford Jr (1780-1850), married another free coloured woman, Frances Brewer Powell, of the Cassava River Plantation in the then parish of St Thomas in the Vale.

In 1823 Sabina Park Pen was registered to Netlam Troy, a merchant. He moved back to Liverpool, England, after 1832. The property, thereafter, changed owners several times until it passed, in about 1839, to Robert Fairweather (1784-1843), property attorney/owner of St Mary.

Cricket ground

In 1880 the lands of a derelict Sabina Park Pen on South Camp Road, covered in large lignum vitae and guinep trees, were rented to the Kingston Cricket Club by then owner, Mrs Blakely. I discovered that this was Catherine Fairweather Blakely (1815-1902), daughter of Robert Fairweather. For clarification to Wikipedia, Ellen Agnes Blakely was her daughter.

The Sabina Park lands were purchased by Kingston Cricket Club in 1890. Note that the national cricket team was founded in 1888. The maiden first-class cricket match (Jamaica vs English RS Lucas XI) was played there in March 1895. The first international Test match (England vs the West Indies) was played in April 1930.

Sabina Park was also the venue for track and field events, including the Boys’ Championships (“Champs”), and football matches.

A Sabine woman?

Regarding its name, Sabina, according to a dictionary of names and also mentioned in Jamaican Place Names by Higman and Hudson, refers to the Sabine women of Italy. The legend of the Sabine women states that they were abducted as wives by the early Romans. The Rape of the Sabine Women was a popular image in Europe.

“Park” refer to a cattle pen or land in an enclosure.

This Sabine legend could have inspired the name Sabina Park. Is it possible that Rainford saw Bella as his Sabine woman?

Today, what I would love to see are more glorious cricket innings at Sabina Park from a competitive West Indies team. Gone are the days when, with pride, our team showed that those who were colonised and enslaved could master the coloniser’s game.

In a flight of fancy, I would like to think that Isabella Hall might be amazed to see what her home, Sabina Park Pen, has become, and the achievements there. Indeed, so might the legendary enslaved woman, Sabina Park.

In 2019, it was so disappointing to visit Sabina Park and see that it did not have a museum and that it was largely empty during an international Test match.

Marcia E Thomas is a history enthusiast. Send comments or feedback to letters@jamaicaobserver.com.