Joseph Robert Love
Joseph Robert Love, known as Dr. Robert Love (2 October 1839 – 21 November 1914), was a 19th-century Bahamian-born medical doctor, clergyman, teacher, journalist, and politician. He lived, studied, and worked successively in the Bahamas, the United States of America, Haiti, and Jamaica. Love spent the last decades of his life in Jamaica, where he held political office, published a newspaper, and advocated for the island's black majority.
Dr. Robert Love | |
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| Born | Joseph Robert Love October 2, 1839 |
| Died | November 21, 1914 (aged 75) |
| Occupation | politician, journalist, physician |
Early life
Love was born in the Bahamas on 2 October 1839. He got primary education and was influence by the Anglican Church during this period. Later he became a teacher in Bahamas. [1]
In the late 1860s, He went to United States. In June 1971, he became clergy in Trinity Church, New York and transferred to the Church of St. Stephen, Savannah in December. In 1872, claiming about the discrimination to people of darker color there, he left Church of St. Stephen, Savannah and established St. Augustine's mission that mainly consist of black people; during this period he also managed schools for black children. In 1876 he left the mission and left for Buffalo.[1]
In Buffalo, he was Rector of St. Philip's until 1878. From 1877 he started to study at the University of Buffalo and in 1880 he obtained a medical degree.
Political career
In 1881, Love moved to Haiti, where he served as the rector of an Anglican church in Port-au-Prince. He was forced to end his career in church due to a quarrel, and he became a doctor in the Haitian army that engaged with the revolt in Haiti. During his time in Haiti he experienced grave difficulty in politics. In 1889, he was eventually expelled. He went to Kingston, Jamaica and failed in his attempts to return to Haiti.[1]
In Jamaica, he started the Jamaica Advocate in December 1894, which became an influential newspaper on the island. Love used the paper as a forum to express his concern for the living conditions of Jamaica's black population. He was a staunch advocate of access to education for the majority of the population. He believed that girls, like boys, should receive secondary school education.[2]
In 1906, Love won the Saint Andrew Parish seat of the Jamaican House of Representatives in general elections. He also served as chairman of the Saint Andrew Parochial Board, as well as a justice of the peace in Kingston, the Kingston General Commissions and as a trustee of Wolmer's schools. Love published two works, Romanism is Not Christianity (1892), and St. Peter's True Position in the Church, Clearly Traced in the Bible (1897). In 1906 Love's health began to deteriorate, and by 1910 he had been forced to end his political career. He died on 21 November 1914, and was buried in the parish church yard at Half Way Tree, near the city of Kingston. Love's activism in favour of Jamaica's economically depressed black majority influenced later Jamaican and Caribbean activists, including Marcus Garvey.[2]
References
- Lumsden, Joy. (1983). Joseph Robert Love, 1839-1914 : West Indian extraordinary. [Afro-American Historical Association of the Niagara Frontier]. OCLC 166409028.
- Kathleen E. A. Monteith and Glen Richards (eds), Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture, Kingston, Jamaica: The University of the West Indies, 2002, p. 379.
External links
- "Love, Robert", Biographies of Jamaican Personalities. National Library of Jamaica.