Chairman of the Trelawny Municipal Corporation (TMC) and Mayor of Falmouth, Councillor Collen Gager, has lauded members of the local Chinese community for their contribution to the commercial and social development of the town of Falmouth.
He said much of the commercial and charitable activities of Chinese entrepreneurs in Falmouth over the past century have had significant and lasting impact on the town’s economy and the parish, by extension.
Gager was speaking at the recent monthly meeting of the TMC, where member of the Chinese community, Joy Chin-See Livingstone, presented the corporation with an archival ‘Red Box’ containing a universal serial bus (USB) with documents and photographs chronicling the role the Chinese families played in the economic development of Falmouth between 1900 and 2000.
A plaque memorialising the presence of the Chinese in Falmouth and their commercial activities was also unveiled at the Falmouth Courthouse building earlier.
Gager thanked Chin-See Livingstone for the gift.
“When we shall have left this place, the information should be left (for successive generations) to have access… and when the rain, dust and moth destroy what is on display in the mayor’s parlour and walls of the courthouse, the material in the Red Box can be used to reproduce what we have,” he stated.
For her part, Chin-See Livingstone explained that the gift is a compendium of the commercial and social investments made by members of the Chinese community in the capital town and surrounding areas for over a century.
She said the occasion also marked the launch of a plan to preserve her family’s legacy over the next 500 years.
Speaking of the contributions of her family, Chin-See Livingstone said they have been responsible for establishing several businesses that have helped to fashion the commercial landscape of not just Falmouth, but the parish, by extension. These include soya sauce, pepper and aluminium pot manufacturing enterprises in the Martha Brae/Hague area.
The Red Box also contains the names of the relevant supermarkets, haberdasheries and dry goods stores, some of which are still providing employment for families in the town and surrounding areas.
The Chin-Sees were among indentured workers who came to Jamaica between 1854 and 1970 and established a mercantile industry in the townships where they resided.
Chin-See Livingstone, who is Jamaican-born and educated, currently resides in Canada, and is a regular visitor to Falmouth.
She, notably, made a similar presentation to the Trelawny Parish Library.
