THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on October 5 in the years identified:

1949: The Rt Hon The Earl of Listowel, Minister of State, arrives in Jamaica on a visit of importance to the British West Indian colonies. He is welcomed in arrival by His Excellency the Governor, Sir John Huggins, G.C.M.G., Members of the Privy Council, the Executive Council, the President and Members of the Legislative Council, the Speaker and Members of the House of Representatives.

1949: The Jamaica Federation of Women is resolved not to be dragged into the whirlpool of local politics. At their annual Island Council Meeting in the Institute Lecture Hall, a resolution is unanimously adopted on the motion of Mrs. Dorothea Simmonds.

1957: Three possible causes of the railway crash which claimed over 180 lives at Kendal on the night of September 1, are named by Brigadier C. A. Langley, as the Commission of Enquiry hold its last public sitting at the Legislative Chamber, Headquarters House. He states that the circumstances which led to the crash may have been accidental, due to negligence and deliberate interference.

1962: Hon. Dr Michael I. Okpara. Premier of Eastern Nigeria and Mrs Okpara tour the West Indies Glass factory on Ashenheim Road.

1965: Edwin Allen makes an appeal to the young Jamaican nurses “to resist for a while the temptation to leave their own people in Jamaica to suffer for want of nursing care while they go after higher salaries in Canada and the United States”. Making the appeal in his capacity as acting prime minister, Allen confirms that a hospital ward at the Kingston Public Hospital is closed, and that three wards at the hospital may have to be closed because of the acute shortage of nurses in Jamaica.