Mona, Past and Present

Founded in 1948, the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies is located in Kingston, Jamaica, and is the largest campus in the unique multi-campus, multi-island university system. Internationally known for its scholarship, the Mona campus is also renowned for its commitment to and preservation of a rich historical legacy. Built on the site of former sugar and slave plantations, the campus has several outstanding historical features which have been partially preserved. This carefully researched and well-written publication investigates the historical ruins on the campus, which include an eighteenth-century aqueduct, an intact bookkeeper's house, a distillery, a boiling and curing house, and the wooden barracks of Gibraltar Camp, which housed at various times during World War II Jewish refugees, Gibraltarian evacuees, and interned Germans and Italians. Beautiful photographs of historic campus landmarks are featured, including the exquisite University Chapel, which was originally part of an eighteenth-century sugar estate in Trelawny. The Georgian building was disassembled, moved and reconstructed on the Mona campus in the 1950s. The book provides a useful guide for a walking tour of the campus, and survey maps point out where slave villages were originally located. It is replete with charming anecdotes that capture the spirit of the times and bring the rich history of the campus to life.