Monymusk Prep School

Jamaica / Clarendon / Lionel Town /
 education  Add category
 Upload a photo
Nearby cities:
Coordinates:   17°49'15"N   77°14'24"W

Comments

  • Monymusk prep was located at the Great House on the Perrins residential compound built for upper management at the Monymusk Sugar estate in Jamaica. It started around the 1950s to cater for the children of the expatriate British staff. For that reason it was sometimes called the 'white people school' by the locals. It was also called Miss Nick's (Nichols or Nicholson) school in the 50s and 60s after the headmistress at the time. At this time it was located at Fifth Avenue, another mostly expatriate residential area about a mile or two from the above location. Then it was a very small school of fewer than a dozen kids with one teacher and one small schoolhouse. It relocated to its current location in the 1970s first to a converted house at Perrins and then to the Great House nearby. The Great House had been built for the Managing Director who was usually from England. Later, local managing directors stopped living in the rather ostentatious Great House and the prep school was located there. The two white spots to the right of the Great House on the map were a swimming pool and a clubhouse built for the managing director's pleasure. They are no longer in use. The surrounding land was a golf course. That is no longer in use either. Beyond these are cane fields (not in picture). Also out of the picture are the nearby sugar factory and the nearest towns, Lionel Town and the Alley. The entire area is historic. The alternative schools, where the locals attended were Alley infant and primary school and Watsonton primary in Lionel Town.
  • The prep school sometimes enters the junior school challenge quiz and appears on national television. This is a far cry from the small, obscure school it started out as.
  • Monymusk prep also enters the Maurice foster prep school cricket competition. One of the school's famous graduates is the present commissioner of customs, major Richard Reese.
  • The school was the white Peale school because the top management of the monymusk sugar estate was British. They were brought here because the company was the British company of Tate and Lyle.
  • I mean 'white people school'
  • The original schoolhouse was abandoned and has disappeared. It was located next to the old monymusk factory near to the old town of Alley. Then the company built a new factory nearer to Lionel Town up the road and the school was relocated to that area some years after.
  • The Monymusk prep school is no longer located at the Great House, I believe as of 2017
  • Show all comments
This article was last modified 17 years ago