THIS DAY IN OUR PAST

The following events took place on May 19 in the years identified:

1947:

A threat to call a rent strike if the Government is not prepared to take effective measures to reduce rentals is voiced at the meeting of the Kingston and St Andrew Corporation by Councillor Wills O. Isaacs. On a motion for adjournment Mr Isaacs states that the corporation, on many occasions, had brought to the attention of the Government the extraordinary burden on the back of the people by the high cost of rentals which had been taking at least one-third of their earnings and that situation should not continue.

1959:

Vernon Arnett of the People’s National Party wins the by-election in Central St Andrew to succeed the late Noel Nethersole as that constituency’s member in the House of Representatives and as Minister of Finance in the Council of Ministers. Arnett won with 13,028 votes against the Jamaica Labour Party’s D.C. Tavares’11,098.

1975:

With its objectives to enquire into and report on the conduct and practices of private developers of land and housing schemes, the Duffus Commission appointed by the Government has its first public sitting at Headquarters House on Duke Street in Kingston. The sole commissioner, Herbert Duffus, former chief justice of Jamaica and presently chairman of the Gun Court Review Board, was appointed by the governor general “to enquire into and report on the conduct and practices of private developers of land and housing schemes and to determine what factors have given rise to, or likely to give rise to, complaints of suffering and hardships by persons who have entered into contracts with such developers for the purpose of plots of land or homes”.

1984:

Sandra Walters, a sleek, graceful 15-year-old student of Camperdown High School in Kingston, is crowned the 1984 Miss Hal Jackson’s Talented Teens, Jamaica, at a keenly contested competition held at Disco Inferno, Rose Hall, Montego Bay, St James.