Sir John Gay Alleyne, the Alleyne School and a most impressive legacy that Mount Gay Rum Distillery nobly honours.

By Stanley Collymore

Thank you Mount Gay Rum for your commendable and altruistic gesture in not only recognizing the remarkable achievements of the Alleyne School and recognizing the outstanding philanthropy of the Sir John Gay Alleyne, but also in praiseworthily giving something back not only to the region where all of this started, but equally so Barbados itself.

My followers and readers following this report of mine here would have already known of the origin of Mount Gay Rum – first distilled in 1703 and is the oldest continuously produced rum in the world in the country of Barbados, where rum was initially invented, and moreover its close association with Sir John Gay Alleyne, whose middle name, Gay, became closely and indelibly associated with this specific brand of rum, that both rum connoisseurs and the world at large widely recognize and delightedly appreciate as Mount Gay Rum.

But Mount Gay’s history is not only connected with rum distillation, production and distribution. Sir John Gay Alleyne whose name emblazons every bottle of this Barbadian nectar was a truly remarkable Barbadian man of his time, whose legacy has left a lasting impact on multiple generations of subsequent and fellow Barbadians.

A white and local Barbadian born into a family of considerable means, John Gay Alleyne was someone wholly distinct from most whites of his time and generation. For a start, he was implacably opposed to slavery and the ill-human and barbaric treatment of Blacks and was resolved from an early age to do whatever he could not only to resist this white trend but also eradicate it.

A highly intelligent as well as a conscionable man John Gay Alleyne became an elected and popular MP for the regional constituency of St. Andrew where he was born and also lived. And so skilled and influential was John Gay Alleyne in his parliamentary and other social issues campaigns that he quickly rose through the ranks of his fellow parliamentary members to become not only the youngest ever Speaker in the history of the statutorily self-governing Barbados Parliament, established in 1639 and which in 2019 is still ongoing, and is itself the second oldest continuous parliament in the entire world after the House of Commons in London, England, but a position that he honourably held for over 40 years; once again setting a remarkable record that to this day in Barbados (2019) parliamentary history has not been exceeded.

A skilled businessman, John Gay Alleyne bought plantations in his St. Andrew constituency as well as the north of Barbados generally referred to then and still is as the Scotland District. By all accounts and at a time of slavery when most whites were brutally exploiting their slaves who legally were designated as nothing more than bought and paid for human chattels – in other words expendable property – John Gay was most impeccably different. And such was the commendable nature of this white Barbadian that he even used his own money to purchase other plantations within several other Caribbean islands, and as always treating his employees, whom he irrefutably saw as human beings and not as expendable chattels, with the same dignity and respect that he felt that all of God’s human creations were inalienably entitled to.

As a result, production on John Gay’s plantations were always at an all-time high, a sure recognition by his Black employees of John Gay’s altruism, compassion and humanity towards those who through no fault of theirs had been enforcedly placed in the bondage of servitude by a graspingly greedy, avaricious, grotesquely inhumane and endemically barbaric white society to whom money, profit and general abuse in acquiring these were the only things that actually mattered to them.

Intent not only on improving the lifestyles of his Black employees John Gay Alleyne, this phenomenally significant and outstanding human being decided that as a legacy to the outstanding work and cooperation that his workers had rendered on his behalf, he would set up a school that would enable both enslaved Blacks and poor whites - who were principally Irish and Scottish indentured servants transported to Barbados, or “Barbadozed” as was the common terminology used at the time by the barbaric English that sent them there, long before any European had ever heard of Australia, but which after its colonization became the focal point for these white outcasts to be sent to by the English, and why this specific area of Barbados was initially called the Scotland District –to have an education, which could quite significantly alter their personal lives as well as their immediate and long-term job prospects.

That inspirational educational project splendidly set in motion by the now ennobled Sir John Gay Alleyne, who was knighted by King George III of England – Barbados from its inception as an unchanged English colony in 1627 and throughout its continuously unbroken existence as such until its sovereign independence on the 30 November 1966, was a self-governing and most particularly locally run, parliamentary territory, that completely fortuitously for England (there was no entity such as Britain or any United Kingdom then) became not only England’s richest colony but also rather single-handedly totally financed the much heralded and English boasting English Industrial Revolution -  was the Alleyne School, appropriately named after this great and noble white, Barbadian citizen.

Most unfortunately, however, Sir John Gay Alleyne did not live to see his motivating project come into fruition. But, even so, he had accordingly most carefully and diligently set out the detailed parameters of what he specifically intended and, significantly, wanted to be carried out, so that those who in his will were entrusted with this incomparable project of his, knew precisely what this highly principled and extraordinary, white man intended, wanted and was unquestionably dedicated to ensuring actually came about.

Accordingly, the Alleyne School: that subsequently and undoubtedly became my proud alma mater and the most esteemed secondary educational institution throughout my determinative and impressive education in Barbados was established: a fully-fledged grammar school as Sir John Gay Alleyne had wished it to be. And most pointedly located in his precious St. Andrew District, where he was born, had lived all his life, was the duly elected Member of Parliament for, was the distinguished Barbados House of Parliament Speaker for in excess of 40 years, as well as the espoused and interminably practising humanitarian and philanthropist that he had always been, Sir John Gay Alleyne’s esteemed Alleyne School – and naturally my own too – was established  in 1785, in the elegantly beautiful, admiringly picturesque, longstanding and companionably domesticated and quite notably exceedingly enchanting valley of Belleplaine: so mesmerizingly acknowledged and portrayed by some early French visitors to the area who were thoroughly impressed by the overwhelmingly natural spectacle of untrammelled beauty which agreeably gladdened their eyes, that they consequently referred to the area as “la belle plaine” – a name that affectionately stuck, just as it became the particular location where the Alleyne School was originally established, and to this very day in 2019, 234 continuous years afterwards, still stands.

Academic excellence, the highest moral standards, a marked and discernibly unselfish sense of commitment to the island of Barbados, as well as one’s own society and regional peoples were some of the plethora of intrinsic values that were instinctively imbued within all those who were fortunate to have attended the Alleyne School, and likewise comprised the many noble values that all of us saw, recognized and earnestly endeavoured to carry out as worthy pursuits not only during our school life at the Alleyne School but equally as well, when we inevitably entered the wider world. And it’s a glowing measure of his importance as a man and a commendable human being dexterously coupled with his remarkably outstanding and lasting legacy that his influence both carried and merited, that Sir John Gay Alleyne will not only for those who entered, studied and benefited from being at the Alleyne School, but also everyone who is fully cognizant of what Sir John Gay Alleyne has done then and subsequent generations of Barbadians and others both recognize and are eternally grateful for that there will always be a bond of the deepest gratitude to this remarkable and highly moral man.

We all also know of Sir John’s close and caring involvement with Mount Gay Rum Distillery and the prodigious influence and immense impression that he also wielded there, and it’s with profound appreciation that the likes of me, an exceedingly proud and thankful beneficiary of Sir John Gay Alleyne’s legacy and altruistic beneficence, say a heartfelt thank you to Mount Gay Rum for splendidly maintaining the impressive and outstanding legacy of Sir John Gay Alleyne. Thank you!

Finally, from its inception the Latin motto of the Alleyne School was and still is: “Aliis Non Sibi.” Translated into your language that means: “For others, not ourselves.” Which is a most apt way to characterize all that Sir John Gay Alleyne, the Alleyne School and those that with pride can honourably say that this remarkable school was or still is their alma mater.

God Bless the man Sir John Gay Alleyne and his legacy the Alleyne School; God Bless all those who attended and still do, the Alleyne School; God Bless Mount Gay Distillery, and God Bless our native homeland, Barbados.