From the Governor’s Despatches to the diaries of Thistlewood.

The SHP purchased and repatriated microfilmed documents of the Governor’s Despatches (C.O. 137 series) from the Public Records Office in London, starting with Volume 185 (1832) to volume 513 (1885).

The SHP has also acquired a copy of the Thomas Thistlewood Diaries on disk. These diaries cover the period 1750-1786. Thistlewood came to Jamaica to work as a penkeeper, eventually as an overseer. He later became the owner of a small property, Breadnut Island Pen in Westmoreland. The diaries provide rare insights into the human relations between slave and master, facilitating a better understanding of the complexities of Jamaican social history of that period.