The Jamaica Committee was a group set up in Great Britain in 1865, which called for Edward Eyre, Governor of

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

, to be tried for his excesses in suppressing the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865. More radical members of the Committee wanted him tried for the

murder Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification (jurisprudence), justification or valid excuse (legal), excuse committed with the necessary Intention (criminal law), intention as defined by the law in a specific jurisd ...

of British subjects (Jamaica was at that time a

Crown Colony A Crown colony or royal colony was a colony governed by Kingdom of England, England, and then Kingdom of Great Britain, Great Britain or the United Kingdom within the English overseas possessions, English and later British Empire. There was usua ...

), under the rule of law. The Committee included English liberals, such as John Bright,

John Stuart Mill John Stuart Mill (20 May 1806 – 7 May 1873) was an English philosopher, political economist, politician and civil servant. One of the most influential thinkers in the history of liberalism and social liberalism, he contributed widely to s ...

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...

, Thomas Henry Huxley, Thomas Hughes,

Herbert Spencer Herbert Spencer (27 April 1820 – 8 December 1903) was an English polymath active as a philosopher, psychologist, biologist, sociologist, and anthropologist. Spencer originated the expression "survival of the fittest", which he coined in '' ...

and A. V. Dicey, the last of whom would eventually become known for his scholarship on the

conflict of laws Conflict of laws (also called private international law) is the set of rules or laws a jurisdiction applies to a Legal case, case, Transactional law, transaction, or other occurrence that has connections to more than one jurisdiction."Conflict o ...

.Handford, ''Edward John Eyre and the Conflict of Laws'' Other prominent members of the committee included Charles Buxton, Frederic Harrison, Edmond Beales, Frederick Chesson,

Leslie Stephen Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, mountaineer, and an Ethical Culture, Ethical movement activist. He was also the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell and the ...

, Thomas Hill Green, Henry Fawcett, Goldwin Smith, Charles Lyell and Edward Frankland. The counsel to the Jamaica Committee was James Fitzjames Stephen, who held that the defendants were guilty of legal murder, but extended considerable sympathy to them and intimated that they were probably morally justified. From then on, Mill was cool to him.Lippincott: "Victorian Critics of Democracy" (1938), page 140.

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...

set up Governor Eyre Defence and Aid Committee in support of Eyre. His supporters included

John Ruskin John Ruskin (8 February 1819 20 January 1900) was an English polymath a writer, lecturer, art historian, art critic, draughtsman and philanthropist of the Victorian era. He wrote on subjects as varied as art, architecture, Critique of politic ...

, Charles Kingsley,

Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...

, Alfred Tennyson and John Tyndall. The Jamaica Committee was ultimately unsuccessful in its goal of having Eyre prosecuted.

References

History of the Colony of Jamaica 1866 in the United Kingdom {{UK-hist-stub

See also

References