St. Luke's Anglican Church, Balaclava

Historical Significance

Named after St. Luke, the evangelist and physician, St. Luke’s Anglican Church, Balaclava, was established in 1897 as a daughter church of St. Paul’s, Kenysham, about five kilometres away in the parish of Manchester (St. Luke’s Church Centenary Magazine, 1997). The town of Balaclava is located in the north-eastern section of St Elizabeth, close to the border with Manchester. Balaclava emerged as a small community in the post-emancipation period. The settlement was started by freed people from surrounding estates such as Bogue and Union. It became an important marketing centre for small farmers’ produce. The extension of the railway service to parts of St Elizabeth, including Balaclava, between 1892 and 1894, helped in the growth of the town as the trains brought more goods and people into the area, strengthening trade and commerce. This led to an increase in shops, homes, schools and churches, including the St Luke’s Anglican Church (Jemmott, 2020).

The first Rector for St. Luke’s Anglican was Rev. Fred H. Perkins, who served until 1905. Initially, St. Luke’s was part of a Cure which consisted of four churches - St. Paul’s, Kenysham; St. Luke’s, Balaclava; St. John’s, Auchtembeddie and St. Simon’s, Comfort Hall. However, in 1946, the Balaclava Cure was combined with the Siloah Cure, in the Deanery of St. Elizabeth. The Balaclava-Siloah Cure consists of eight congregations: St. Paul’s, Kenysham; St. Luke’s, Balaclava; St. John’s, Auchtembeddie; St. Barnabas, Siloah; St. Aiden’s, Quickstep; St. Martin’s, Retirement; St. Bartholomew’s, Mulgrave; and Phillip’s, Niagara (St. Luke’s Church Centenary Magazine, 1997).

The St. Luke’s Anglican Church has a strong association with the second worst train crash in Jamaica. On July 30, 1938, Train No. 3 derailed at Oxford Siding near Balaclava, resulting in the death of 35 people and injuring 117 (Colonial Reports, 1939). Eleven of the bodies of the 1938 train crash were interred in the St. Luke’s Anglican churchyard by the Rev. J. T. Clark, who was at that time Rector of the church (The Gleaner, 1943). Initially, the bodies of the eleven victims of the railway disaster were buried on a plot of land on “Chew Magna” near the Balaclava Railway Station (The Gleaner, 1938). However, they were later exhumed and reinterred. The committee of the St. Luke’s Anglican Church offered the government space in the churchyard for reburial of the exhumed corpses. The offer was made to the Government, through Mr. H. R. Fox, Chief Engineer of the Jamaica Government Railway (The Gleaner, 1938). Five years later, a memorial was erected at the burial site in the churchyard (The Gleaner, 1943).

Inherent Features

St. Luke’s Anglican presents a typical religious neo-Gothic or Gothic Revival style architecture, with elements such as its pointed arches and large windows with decorative stone motifs. The roofline is extensively hidden by a plain parapet wall, and each corner is detailed with conspicuous raised quoins. A belfry also contributes to the historic value of the site. It is made predominantly of timber.

Other curative features of the site include the adjoining 19th-century graveyard, it showcases early examples of the use of Portland cement, with large aggregates in the mixture to create concrete.