The Brethren in Jamaica are a family of independent Protestant congregations descended from the Plymouth Brethren movement that began in Dublin and Plymouth in the 1820s. Their meeting places are usually called gospel halls, gospel chapels, assembly halls or fellowships rather than churches, and most do not use the word “Brethren” in their names. The movement reached Jamaica in the mid-nineteenth century in its “Exclusive” or “Closed” form; an “Open” branch emerged in Kingston around 1920 and, helped by missionaries from North America, Britain and New Zealand, grew into the largest strand, with about 88 assemblies across the island in 2023. The 2011 census counted 23,647 Brethren, 0.88% of the population. Though small, the movement has had an influence beyond its size through its evangelists, its Bible institute in Clarendon, its youth camps, its radio broadcasting and the missionaries it has sent to the wider Caribbean.
Last updated: 12 October 2026. This is a living reference: Jamaica Homes updates it when events warrant and reviews it every October. Part of our guide to Christianity in Jamaica. Figures and statistics are on Jamaica Religion Stats.
| Brethren in Jamaica | |
|---|---|
| Tradition | Plymouth Brethren, from the movement begun in Dublin and Plymouth in the 1820s; not connected with the German-American Church of the Brethren |
| Arrived | Mid-nineteenth century; accounts give 1843, about 1850, about 1854 or 1869 (see below) |
| Pioneers | John Nelson Darby and George V. Wigram (by tradition); the merchant Benjamin T. Slim; later Leonard Bewick, William Gibson and George Henry Hale |
| Main branches | Open Brethren (Christian Brethren); Closed Brethren, often called “Grace and Truth”; a small remnant of the original Exclusive Brethren |
| Census 2011 | 23,647 people, 0.88% of the population (down 2.4% on 2001) |
| Assemblies | About 88 Open assemblies; about 25–29 Closed assemblies; two or three original Exclusive assemblies (Gleaner, 2023) |
| Umbrella body | Christian Brethren Association of Jamaica (CBAJ), formerly Christian Missions Jamaica, Hagley Park Plaza, St Andrew; five regions |
| Local government | Each assembly autonomous, led by a group of elders and in some cases a pastor |
| Bible school | Midland Bible Institute, Curatoe Hill, Clarendon (founded 1971) |
| Radio | Look at Life, Christian Brethren programme |
Origins of the movement
The Brethren movement began in the late 1820s, when small groups in Dublin and in Plymouth, England, began meeting simply to “break bread” and study the Bible, outside the established church, which they regarded as compromised by its ties to the state. Its early leaders included John Nelson Darby (1800–82), a former clergyman of the Church of Ireland, Benjamin Wills Newton, George Müller and Anthony Norris Groves. The name “Plymouth Brethren” comes from the assembly at Plymouth. In 1848 the movement divided: those who followed Darby became the Exclusive or Closed Brethren, while the others became known as the Open Brethren, the branch with the most assemblies in Jamaica today.
The Jamaican Brethren should not be confused with the older Brethren movement founded by Alexander Mack at Schwarzenau, Germany, in 1708, which gave rise to the Church of the Brethren in the United States. The Jamaican church historian Lloyd A. Cooke, a Brethren member since 1962, told The Gleaner in 2023 that there is no Church of the Brethren congregation in Jamaica.
Arrival in Jamaica: the Exclusive Brethren
Sources disagree on who first brought the movement to Jamaica. Accounts gathered by The Gleaner in 2023 credit an English merchant, Benjamin T. Slim, who worked in Kingston and Savanna-la-Mar as early as 1843; a short visit by Darby himself in 1850, during which he is said to have established assemblies in Clarendon and on Hanover Street in downtown Kingston; Darby with George V. Wigram; or Darby with James Wedderburn between March and May 1869. The Gleaner concluded that the movement had reached Jamaica by about 1854. The Open Brethren writer Vincent Ross, in a 2022 paper in the Caribbean Journal of Evangelical Theology, gives about 1850 for the visit of Darby and Wigram and notes that the number of assemblies by 1900 is unknown, because the early believers kept few records.
What is agreed is that the first Jamaican assemblies were of the Exclusive kind, and that this strain dominated for about seventy years. Lloyd Cooke names early Exclusive assemblies in the west, among them Dillion-Bigwoods, Bognie, Cave Valley, Sheffield, Shrewsbury and Petersville, and in western Kingston at Bond Street, which later moved to 20 Beechwood Avenue, St Andrew.
The Open Brethren from about 1920
The Open Brethren in Jamaica began with a split in the Exclusive assembly on Hanover Street, Kingston, around 1920. According to research by the evangelist and journalist Billy Hall, cited by The Gleaner, the immediate cause was a doctrinal controversy imported from England over whether Jesus became the Son of God only at his baptism, a teaching that some Jamaican leaders rejected. Ross, drawing on the account of the late elder Leo Smith, describes the break as a walk-out by those who had come to see exclusivity itself as unbiblical. He names Eustace Mais, Bryan Caws, Alexander Daniels, James Green and Herman Thorn and their wives, later joined by Herbert Harris, George Foster, Vincent Foster and others. About fifty people began meeting at 81A Slipe Road; the congregation later moved to West Race Course and finally to 188 Orange Street, where it became Assembly Hall, regarded as the first Open assembly in Jamaica.
The new group soon drew missionaries from abroad. The American Leonard Bewick and his wife Irene arrived in 1923, and Bewick later opened a Back to the Bible office in Jamaica in 1958. William and Grace Gibson came from Canada in 1925 and helped found Maranatha Gospel Hall in 1929. George Henry Hale, his wife Edith and their three sons came from New Zealand after three years in British Guiana and in 1928 started Elim Assembly on Shortwood Road, St Andrew, where Hale served until 1949. The English evangelist Harold Wildish, who had worked in British Guiana and the upper Amazon, came to the West Indies at the invitation of Harold P. Barker and joined him in Jamaica; Ross credits Wildish’s tent crusades and gospel meetings with bringing thousands to faith, and Open Brethren in Jamaica long remembered the boost his team gave their work.
Growth and mission
Open assemblies were first planted in the Corporate Area through crusades and street meetings and then spread into the rural parishes. In 1941 Randall Taylor of Maranatha became the first Jamaican commended by the Open assemblies as a full-time worker; he and his wife Eldora worked in Balaclava, St Elizabeth, where Emmaus Gospel Hall stands. Stanford and May Kelly of Maranatha went to Haiti in 1940, and Roy Campbell went to British Honduras, now Belize, in 1946, where with Richard Saeurlander he planted four churches. Other Jamaican evangelists worked without formal commendation: Hugh Clacken is reported to have planted ten assemblies by the age of 24, and Clinton Webb held crusades in the Bahamas, St Kitts and Nevis, Dominica, Guyana, Belize and Trinidad. Eli Ho of Maranatha taught English to Chinese residents of Kingston, and his converts formed the nucleus of what became Swallowfield Chapel; The Gleaner also links the beginnings of Chinese Christian work in Kingston to the Rev. Gallimore and his wife Helen, a former missionary to China. By Ross’s count in 2022, Jamaican assemblies had also sent women missionaries to Colombia, Belize, Haiti, Guadeloupe, Africa and Hong Kong.
Jamaican Brethren also take part in regional fellowship. The Caribbean Brethren Assemblies Conference met in St Kitts in July 2014 with participants from twelve Caribbean territories, and again in Trinidad in July 2017, when 273 people from thirteen territories attended and the Jamaican David Henry was a main speaker. Jamaica was named as host of the next conference, set for 15–19 July 2025.
Beliefs and worship
The Brethren are evangelical Protestants. They hold to the authority of Scripture and salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. The movement has traditionally had no ordained or salaried clergy, and its central act of worship is the weekly “breaking of bread”, the Lord’s Supper, held every Sunday in an open meeting of prayer, Bible reading and hymns rather than a service led by a minister. Each assembly is autonomous and is overseen by a group of elders drawn from its own members, and assemblies have traditionally admitted visitors to the Lord’s table on a letter of commendation.
Jamaican practice has moved some way from the classic gospel-hall pattern, especially among the Open assemblies. The Gleaner reported in 2023 that an Open assembly may be run either by a group of elders or by a pastor, and that the national association pays the salaries of some pastors. Ross observes that the early name “gospel hall” has largely given way to “fellowship”, “gospel chapel” or “chapel”, and regrets that the old emphasis on preaching the gospel is weaker than it was. The Closed assemblies keep a stricter separation; contact between the Open and Closed branches was described in an unpublished 2006 survey as “distant, almost non-existent”.
Organisation
Lloyd Cooke identifies several independent Brethren streams in Jamaica, which share much in belief but have little contact with one another. The figures below are those he gave The Gleaner in 2023; the paper’s two articles give slightly different counts for the Closed and original Exclusive assemblies.
| Branch | Assemblies (2023) | Where | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Brethren (Christian Brethren) | about 88 | Islandwide, five regions | Linked through the Christian Brethren Association of Jamaica |
| Closed Brethren | about 25–29 | Mostly Westmoreland and St Elizabeth; also Manchester, St James and St Andrew (Beechwood Avenue) | Many use the unofficial name “Grace and Truth” |
| Original Plymouth (Exclusive) Brethren | two or three | Red Hills near Mandeville; Stony Hill, St Andrew | Much reduced |
| United Brethren | not given | – | Listed by Cooke without detail |
The Christian Brethren Association of Jamaica (CBAJ) is the national body of the Open assemblies, with its office at Hagley Park Plaza, 1G Hagley Park Road, St Andrew. Ross gives its name as Christian Brethren Assemblies Jamaica, and it was formerly known as Christian Missions Jamaica. It was set up about fifty years ago, mainly by businessmen and professionals in the assemblies, to handle legal and technical matters: it is the legal representative of its registered assemblies and holds their property titles in trust. It is governed by a national board of elders that includes two representatives from each of its five regions, southeastern, western, central, midland and northeastern, each of which has its own leadership board, together with members with expertise in law and finance. A chief executive manages its work; Germaine Williams, an elder at Harbour View Gospel Chapel, held the post in 2023. The association does not impose discipline on member assemblies, which remain self-governing.
Bible school, camps and media
For many years Jamaican Brethren leaders held that training for ministry was the responsibility of the local assembly, and a Bible school came late. Midland Bible Institute was founded in 1971, by Emile Turner and Frank Fenton according to Ross, with five students, two of them from Belize. It began on the grounds of a school in May Pen and moved in 1980 to its own premises at Curatoe Hill, Clarendon. Hurricane Ivan damaged its roof in September 2004, flooding the building and putting the dormitories out of use. The institute gained registration in May 2010 to offer a BA in Theology and a Certificate in Ministry, opened a Kingston extension, and marked fifty years in 2021. Brethren assemblies have also run basic, preparatory and primary schools in town and country, although no list has been published.
Camps were long central to Brethren youth work. Teen Time Camp, directed first by Dave Ho and later by John Keane, was the main camp for teenagers and young adults; its Teen Time Quartet, later joined by women singers, became the Sunshine Singers. After Teen Time was phased out, the Corporate Area Assemblies Summer (CAAS) camps and then the South East Youth Arm (SEYA) camp took its place. The sports ministry Christian Ambassadors Footballers United (CAFU), begun around 1976 and led by Frederick D. Hemmings, a deacon at Assembly Hall, uses football as a means of evangelism and is now interdenominational.
Brethren have been early users of radio in Jamaica. Arthur Hart’s programme The Master’s Time was broadcast on Radio Jamaica in the early 1950s, when RJR was the island’s only station. Roy Campbell later presented Food for Thought, and Billy Hall produced Stop and Think and then Look at Life, the Christian Brethren programme broadcast on Sunday mornings, which Ross describes as among the most listened-to religious programmes in Jamaica. Magazines produced by Clinton Webb, Kenn Fullerton and Billy Hall were short-lived, but Fullerton helped found the Christian Publications bookstore, which also produced plaques and greeting cards.
Notable assemblies
| Assembly | Location | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Assembly Hall | 188 Orange Street, Kingston | Grew from the Hanover Street split of about 1920; regarded as the first Open assembly |
| Hanover Street assembly | Downtown Kingston | Early Exclusive assembly, by tradition founded during Darby’s visit |
| Beechwood Avenue assembly | 20 Beechwood Avenue, St Andrew | Closed assembly, formerly at Bond Street, western Kingston |
| Elim Assembly | Shortwood Road, St Andrew | Founded 1928 by the New Zealand missionary George Henry Hale |
| Maranatha Gospel Hall | Kingston area (address not confirmed) | Founded 1929 with the help of William and Grace Gibson; sent the first Jamaican commended worker, 1941 |
| Emmaus Gospel Hall | Balaclava, St Elizabeth | Rural assembly; Balaclava was the field of Randall and Eldora Taylor from 1941 |
| Swallowfield Chapel | St Andrew | Grew from the Chinese converts of Eli Ho’s ministry |
| Harbour View Gospel Chapel | Harbour View, St Andrew | Open assembly |
| Ensom City Gospel Chapel | Spanish Town, St Catherine | Open assembly |
Notable people
- John Nelson Darby (1800–82), leading figure of the Exclusive Brethren, traditionally credited with planting the first Jamaican assemblies.
- Leonard Bewick, American missionary from 1923; opened a Back to the Bible office in 1958.
- George Henry Hale, New Zealand missionary, founder of Elim Assembly (1928) and its leader until 1949.
- Harold Wildish, English evangelist whose crusades were central to Open Brethren growth.
- Randall Taylor, first Jamaican commended full-time worker of the Open assemblies (1941).
- Roy Campbell, missionary to British Honduras from 1946 and later radio presenter.
- Billy Hall, evangelist, journalist and broadcaster, producer of Look at Life.
- Lloyd A. Cooke, missionary and historian, author of The Story of Jamaican Missions (2013).
- Winston and Nurkle Litchmore; he led Christian Missions Jamaica from 2000 and then Midland Bible Institute, where she was dean of students, until they retired in 2013.
Membership
The census records people who describe themselves as Brethren, not formal members. Because assemblies seldom carry the Brethren name, some worshippers may give the name of their congregation instead, so the census may undercount the movement.
| Census | Brethren | % of population | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | 24,217 | 0.93% | – |
| 2011 | 23,647 | 0.88% | ▼ 2.4% |
Source: Statistical Institute of Jamaica, Population and Housing Census 2011. The 2022 census religion tables have not yet been published. In the 2011 census the Brethren were the second-smallest of the fifteen Christian groups listed, ahead of the Moravians (18,351). The fall of 2.4% between 2001 and 2011 was much smaller than the declines among the Anglicans, Methodists, Moravians and United Church. Neither the Open nor the Closed assemblies publish membership totals.
Hurricane Melissa and current issues
Hurricane Melissa struck Jamaica as a Category 5 storm on 28 October 2025, doing its worst damage in the western parishes, where many of the Closed assemblies are concentrated. Jamaica Homes has not found a published account of damage to Brethren halls and chapels, and neither the CBAJ nor the Closed assemblies have issued a consolidated figure; this section will be updated if one appears. The other churches’ losses are summarised in our religion analysis.
Questions raised in recent years include the drift of Open assemblies towards paid pastors and a more conventional church style; the long separation between the Open and Closed branches; and the place of the CBAJ, which its leaders describe as a partnership that leaves each assembly autonomous while still holding it accountable.
Timeline
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1820s | Brethren movement begins in Dublin and Plymouth. |
| 1843 | Merchant Benjamin T. Slim reported working in Kingston and Savanna-la-Mar. |
| 1848 | Movement divides into Exclusive and Open branches. |
| c. 1850 | J.N. Darby traditionally said to visit Jamaica and found assemblies in Clarendon and on Hanover Street, Kingston. |
| 1869 | Alternative date given for a visit by Darby with James Wedderburn (March–May). |
| c. 1920 | Split at Hanover Street leads to the first Open assembly, later Assembly Hall, Orange Street. |
| 1923 | American missionaries Leonard and Irene Bewick arrive. |
| 1925 | William and Grace Gibson arrive from Canada. |
| 1928 | George Henry Hale founds Elim Assembly, Shortwood Road. |
| 1929 | Maranatha Gospel Hall founded. |
| 1940 | Stanford and May Kelly go to Haiti. |
| 1941 | Randall Taylor becomes the first Jamaican commended worker. |
| 1946 | Roy Campbell goes to British Honduras. |
| Early 1950s | Arthur Hart’s The Master’s Time on Radio Jamaica. |
| 1958 | Back to the Bible office opened by Leonard Bewick. |
| 1971 | Midland Bible Institute founded in May Pen. |
| c. 1976 | Christian Ambassadors Footballers United begins. |
| 1980 | Midland Bible Institute moves to Curatoe Hill, Clarendon. |
| 2004 | Hurricane Ivan damages Midland Bible Institute. |
| 2010 | Midland Bible Institute registered to offer a BA in Theology (May). |
| 2021 | Midland Bible Institute marks 50 years. |
| 2023 | Gleaner series records about 88 Open and about 25–29 Closed assemblies. |
| 2025 | Caribbean Brethren conference scheduled in Jamaica (July); Hurricane Melissa (28 October). |
Updates to this page
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| 12 October 2026 | Page created. |
Sources: Statistical Institute of Jamaica, Population and Housing Census 2011; The Gleaner, Paul H. Williams, “The Brethren Church – Part 2: the early beginnings in Jamaica” (16 April 2023), “Fragmentation in Jamaica” (30 April 2023), “All are Brethren, but not the same” (14 May 2023), “The missionary man” (11 June 2023); Vincent Ross, “The Christian Brethren Movement and Its Contribution to the West Indian Landscape”, Caribbean Journal of Evangelical Theology 21 (2022); Winston and Nurkle Litchmore, “Prepared to Go”, Echoes International (Midland Bible Institute, 1971–2021); Billy Hall, review of Lloyd A. Cooke, The Story of Jamaican Missions (Arawak, 2013), Caribbean Journal of Evangelical Theology 13 (2014); International Brethren Conference on Mission, Caribbean Brethren conferences 2017 and 2025; Christian History Institute, Harold Wildish; Wikipedia, Gospel Hall Assemblies.