Celebrating the life of William Knibb

This year, 2025, is the bi-centenary of the arrival of William Knibb in Jamaica. He was 21 years old when he left England – presumably energized to journey to the British West Indies.

The powerful humanitarian destiny of William Knibb would begin unfolding two decades after an act of the British Parliament made the slave trade illegal for British subjects after 1807. Although the horrific Middle Passage journey of captured Africans had ceased 18 years before Knibb arrived in Jamaica, the cruelty of enslavement in the West Indies was on-going when fledgling pastor William Knibb arrived on the island in 1825.

A gateway and path to his distinguished religious and humanitarian service was firmly in place when Knibb reached Jamaica with his English Baptist affiliation.

There was already “an active Baptist leadership which included missionaries, deacons and thriving congregations that were following the pioneering work of George Lisle”, the formerly enslaved African-American who subsequently became an evangelist.

“William Knibb began work in Jamaica as the schoolmaster of the Baptist Mission School in Kingston, and worked closely with fellow missionaries Thomas Burchell and James Phillippo.”

It is reported that “Knibb later moved to Savanna-la-Mar and then relocated to Trelawny when he was appointed pastor responsible for the Baptist Church at Falmouth, in 1830.”

ABOLITION OF SLAVERY

Dedication to his religious duties was accompanied by a determination to pursue action towards the abolition of slavery. In that regard, William Knibb collaborated with Samuel Sharpe, and they were heroic personalities of the 1831-32 slave revolt in western Jamaica. Brutal responses by the authorities in the aftermath of that event, was the arrest of Knibb and the martyrdom of Samuel 'Daddy' Sharpe.

After the release of William Knibb from detention, he persisted arduously “to set the captives free” from enslavement. He visited England in 1832 on a mission to plead for the abolition of slavery.

Knibb was unrelenting – even after a so-called religious body named the Colonial Church Union was formed in a desperate attempt to prevent the abolition of slavery. In the north-western parishes of Jamaica, that renegade group of mainly ‘backra’ planters, had ‘burnt-down’ several Baptist chapels and other religious sanctuaries that were not Anglican church-buildings.

In the book Emancipation to Emigration, authors R. Greenwood and S. Hamber described William Knibb as “a fine example of everything a missionary should be; utterly devoted to his flock and ready to make any personal sacrifice for them”.

In his practice of Christian virtues, William Knibb demonstrated what should be described as total rejection of the so-called ‘Black Ancestral Curse’, a fallacy which author Norris R. McDonald described as “the abuse of sacred (biblical) texts that helped to legitimise slavery, colonialism and systemic racism.”

Although his contribution towards the abolition of slavery was the cornerstone of his endeavours, the work of William Knibb in the establishment of several “free villages” in Jamaica was an accomplishment which strengthened his legacy as a great humanitarian.

William Knibb died in Jamaica on November 15, 1845 at the age of 42. He is quite visibly memorialised by the historic William Knibb Baptist Church in Falmouth, Trelawny and the Kettering Baptist Church in Duncans, Trelawny. The William Knibb Memorial High School in Falmouth is also a tribute to his memory.

For his monumental contribution to building the ‘freedom road’ for embattled Jamaicans of the 19th century, and the freedoms enjoyed by successive generations of Jamaicans, William Knibb was posthumously awarded the very prestigious Jamaican Order of Merit in 1988, on the 150th Anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

Neil Richards is an architect and town planner.