The Father of Local Government in British Guiana – James McFarlane Corry

Mar 20, 2016 APNU Column, Features / Columnists

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(Address by His Excellency President David Granger on Thursday March 17, 2016 at the commemoration service in honour of James McFarlane Corry)
James McFarlane Corry is the acknowledged and celebrated ‘Father of Local Government in British

Guiana.’ He is remembered for his sedulous work in Den Amstel and in the villages of Guyana and for his visionary leadership in the establishment of a chain of Cooperative Credit banks.
CORRY, THE MAN
James McFarlane Corry was born in 1850, the son of a Congregational Minister of the Bethesda group of churches in West Demerara. He worshipped in the Congregational Church and a memorial plaque is attached to the Eastern wall of the Smith’s Memorial Church in Georgetown paying tribute to his stewardship. He also attended Bethesda Congregational School and Queen’s College.
Den Amstel and Fellowship was declared to be a ‘Village District’ in 1892. Corry was elected its third Village Chairman in 1895 and served until 1922. He was a village leader, founding the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) branch in Den Amstel in 1888 and remaining President for 27 Years. The Association was credited, at that time, with providing for “…the moral and intellectual improvement of the villagers…” among other things.
He was a professional man, becoming a Magistrate’s Clerk in 1881 and being regarded as “…an example of thoroughness in the preparation and presentation of his work.” He was appointed as a stipendiary Magistrate in 1911 and also served as a Justice of the Peace in this District (West Demerara).
CORRY AND THE CONTEMPORARY CONDITIONS
The ‘Village Movement’ started in 1839, the year after Emancipation. The peasant proprietors, in little over a decade, expended over one million dollars to acquire more than 6,000 hectares to establish our first villages. About half of the former enslaved population, about 40,000 persons, moved from the plantations into free villages during that period.
Sugar planters, known collectively in history as the ‘Plantocracy’, controlled the legislature, known as the ‘Court of Policy’. They tried every device, legislative and vindictive, to strangle the development of free villages which rivalled the plantations for labour.
There were, nevertheless, numerous outstanding examples of resilience and independence in agriculture, manufacture and village management. Some villages had begun to establish agricultural societies and to hold ‘District Agricultural Shows.’ Christian Improvement Associations were formed and a Conference of School Managers and Teachers was inaugurated in 1896. Many villages, however, suffered from repeated flooding, disease and declining production and population.
CORRY, THE CHAIRMAN
Corry, at this time serving as Chairman of Den Amstel, inaugurated the countrywide Village Chairmen’s Conference. He was elected its first Chairman in 1904 and served for two decades until his death in 1924. Norman Cameron, in his book ‘The Evolution of the Negro,’ wrote of Corry’s tenure as Chairman of the Conference:
His annual addresses “preserved his views on local government, the serious attitude which he took of the share of government entrusted to the villagers, his passionate appeals to his fellow Chairmen and Councillors for co-operation and to Government for fair-play and a recognition of their services.”
The Village Chairman’s Conference was aimed at improving village life and strengthening local democracy. Cameron wrote that its objective was:
“…that those who were appointed Chairmen should come together, year after year, discuss village affairs, make suggestions among themselves for the improvement of the Villages and, generally, to get such information as would help them in the management of their affairs with intelligence and success;” or, as was later expressed, “to assist one another in the art of managing our own affairs, to discuss the best means of carrying on our work, and to watch legislation as it affects our Villages.”
The Conference’s first agenda was progressive and extensive. Matters to be discussed included the collection of rates; the office of overseer; the custody of village money; the sanitary improvement of villages; the establishment of other local agricultural societies such as the one in Victoria Village; the introduction of village reading rooms and libraries, and Government aid in the form of grants, loans and agricultural instruction.
CORRY AND THE COOPERATIVE CREDIT BANKS
Corry, at this time, ever serious and studious, became aware of the functioning of ‘Raiffeisen’ banks in Austria.  These banks were founded by Friederich Wilhelm Raiffeisen and provided small loans, at low rates, for designated purposes, to worthy members of the German agrarian population.
Corry thought it would be good for local small farmers in British Guiana to have access to similar sources of credit.  He brought the idea to the notice of the Conference in August 1904, admitting, at the same time, that he knew nothing of how such banks actually functioned.  The Conference decided to obtain help and, as a result, certain representatives of Conference were invited to a meeting of the Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society (RACS) where a paper was presented on the subject.
Certain members of Victoria Village modified the suggested plan to suit their local conditions and, in August 1905, started the first local Co-operative Credit Bank.  Others followed, some succeeded and some subsided.  The banks at Victoria and Buxton in Demerara and Rose Hall in Berbice, “were reported as doing well under their energetic managers,” by 1912.
The Conference came to the conclusion that the central Government would have to play a part if the best results were to be obtained. It therefore urged the establishment of similar banks but operated by Government.  The idea was not adopted at first but, it is recorded:
“… the efforts of the people’s representatives and the spirit of self-help displayed by the farmers were rewarded when in 1914, Government started to operate District Credit Banks.  There were three at the end of 1915.  In the next year, 15 were added to that number.  At the 1917 Conference, it was decided to request the Government to retain the services of the energetic official who had been establishing those banks, solely for work in connection with them.  The request was granted.”
The Co-operative Credit Bank did much good work in saving the small farmers from loan sharks and assorted money-lenders. It assisted them to overcome the vagaries and the inevitable difficult periods which afflict peasant farming on the coastland.
Corry was recognised as the individual “who had brought forward the movement.” He, himself, was fully conscious of the importance of having such loan banks in the villages and was satisfied with the fact that the Conference had done something creditable in inaugurating those banks.   Corry announced, on the occasion of celebrating the silver jubilee of the Village Ordinance:
As a permanent memorial of our appreciation and that measure…I invite this Conference to make a practical effort to firmly establish the Co-operative Credit Banks in our Colony, and hand down to posterity as our contribution to the progress of our people, and as a result to the progress of the Colony at large.”
CORRY, THE LEADER
James McFarlane Corry was a leader. He gave the Village Chairmen’s Conference its initial direction and the benefit of leadership. It was similar to the leadership that had appeared in the Agricultural Improvement Societies. The Conference and the Societies worked towards similar objectives – the improvement of the lives of proprietors with house lots and farm lands and the improvement of village conditions in general.
The social significance of independent village institutions can be measured by the statistics concerning the number and size of the villages.  Villages numbered 214, of which 96 were in Berbice, 66 in Demerara and 52 in Essequibo by 1902.  The village population had nearly doubled from 44,456 to 86,935 persons.  The value of village property had increased by half a million dollars and there were 13,969 proprietors owning 31, 255 hectares (77,234 acres) – all in the period 1848-1902.
CORRY’S PLACE IN GUYANESE HISTORY
James McFarlane Corry died at the age of 74 years in 1924. He bequeathed a rich legacy of leadership in rural communities, Christian stewardship, organisational ability, communication skills, visionary planning and public service. Corry was a great guide and a worthy helmsman during a difficult stage in the evolution of rural Guyana.
There is no better epitaph to Corry’s life than Cameron’s conclusion that he was “one of the greatest leaders of his people in this Colony (British Guiana), even though his activities were mostly restricted to the Villages.”
James McFarlane Corry will always have a place in the history of our country and the memory of people who live in villages such as Den Amstel.

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