Douglas Hall

Douglas Hall (1920-1999)

Douglas Hall was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in December 1920 and attended Jamaica College where he was influenced by Reginald Murray, Hugo Chambers, and the historian E. H. J. King.

In College, he was a keen sportsman and won a gold medal award in school athletics before left to enter the University of Toronto in 1941. Like many, war service interrupted his studies when he joined the 48th Highlanders and saw active military service in Italy.

Resuming his studies after demobilisation in 1946, Douglas completed his Master of Science in Economics at Toronto. From there he went to England to the London School of Economics where he completed his Doctorate of Philosophy in History under the guidance of Professor F. J. Fisher. His thesis was published as "Free Jamaica, 1838-1865: An Economic History" by the Yale University Press in 1959.

Douglas joined the staff of the then University College of the West Indies (later called University of West Indies, Mona) in 1954 as Extra-Mural Tutor for the Leeward Islands. In 1957 he returned to Jamaica as Resident Tutor, taught economic history in the Department of Economics between 1959 and 1961 and in the later year he joined the Department of History as Lecturer.

By the time he was aged 43 he was appointed Professor of History and Head of the Department until he retired in 1981.

Through his scholarly work, Douglas provided a distinctly Caribbean voice in the writing of Caribbean economic history, a field traditionally dominated by British and American historians.

Another of his pioneering works was "Five of the Leewards, 1834-1870" (1971) remain the primary reference texts for the study of the economic history of the post-slavery period.

Equally important are his many ground-breaking articles, which include his collaborative and interdisciplinary work with the American anthropologist, Sidney Mintz: "The Origins of the Jamaican Internal Marketing System" (1960); his "Absentee-Proprietorship in the British West Indies to about 1850" (1964); "Incalculability as a Feature of Sugar Production during the Eighteenth Century" (1961); "Slaves and Slavery in the British West Indies" (1962); "The Flight from the Estates Reconsidered: The British West Indies, 1838-42" (1978); and his unique 1987 Elsa Goveia Memorial Lecture, "Planters, Farmers and Gardeners in Eighteenth Century Jamaica".

His "In Miserable Slavery: Thomas Thistlewood in Jamaica 1750-1786" (1989), a compilation of and commentary on the diaries kept by the overseer/penkeeper, is essential reading for those who seek an understanding of the daily lives of slaves and their masters on West Indian slave properties.

Since its inception in 1997, Douglas had been Series Editor of the UWI Press Biography Series - his biography of M. G. Smith "A Man Divided"; "Law, Justice and Empire: The Colonial Career of John Gorrie 1829-1892" by Bridget Brereton; "White Rebel: The Life and Times of T. T. Lewis" by Gary Lewis and "Bechu: 'Bound Coolie' Radical in British Guira 1894-1901" by Clem Seecharan.

Douglas Hall was living in the Darliston, Jamaica when he died Tuesday 24th November 1999, in Westmoreland at the age of 79 his burial was on Monday, 6th December 1999 at 3:00 p.m. at the University Chapel, Mona Campus. He was survived by widow, Pat, his daughters Valerie, Denise, Thealia, Lisa and his sons David and Peter.