Amy Bailey

Amy Beckford Bailey was born on 27 November 1895 [1] in Walderston, Manchester Parish, Jamaica,
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Amy Bailey OJ, OD, OBE, MBE (27 November 1895 – 3 October 1990) was a Jamaican educator,
social worker and women's rights advocate. She was a co-founder of the Jamaican aid organization
Save the Children and was the driving force behind the drive for introducing birth control to the
island. She received many honours and awards in her career, including the Order of the British
Empire, the Jamaican Order of Distinction and the Marcus Garvey Award for Excellence in 1988. In
1990, shortly before her death, she was honoured with the Order of JAmy Bailey gave voluntary
service to numerous underprivileged girls in the field of education and social service training. With
£100 she made a down payment for the property at 4 Rosedale Avenue in Kingston to start the
Housecraft Training Centre. The Centre opened in January 1946 with a mission to train girls to bring
out the best in themselves, to teach them respect for the self and the job. In essence her mission
was to equip them with self sufficiency and self reliance. Here she mothered 6000 girls along with
her adopted daughter. Amy was co-founder and first Chairman of the Women’s Liberal Club which
fought to give women an acceptable place in the world both outside and inside the home. She fought
relentlessly for the liberation of women and fervently believed that women should qualify themselves
in order to achieve their aspirations and not be rewarded with inferior positions because of their sex.
She along with Mae Farquharson, while in England raising funds for the Save-the-Children Fund,
was advised that the real problem facing Jamaican women relates to the high birth rate. Having
realized this, she quickly responded to the problem by teaching birth control on a small scale. Amy
along with Dr. Hyacinth Lightbourne and others in 1938 organized the first birth control league. Amy
Bailey is a strong Jamaican, inspired by Marcus Garvey, who believed in the dignity of people and
the fight against racial discrimination and the marginalization of women.In 1938, she lectured at a
Glasgow Peace Conference, Interlaken, Switzerland. She also visited the United States on tours to
raise funds for the Housecraft Training Centre. She served on several organizations as:
 President of the Shortwood Old Girls Association (1936-1937)
 President Woman’s Liberal Club
 President Kingston Technical School Group (1940-1941)
 Vice President Kingston Technical School Group (1942)
 Secretary Kingston Technical School Group (1942-44)
 Vice Chairman Shortwood Old Student Association (1944-45)
 Member of the executive of the Bureau of Standards, The Social Welfare
 Board and Price Commission
Amy Bailey , a Justice of the Peace, in 1960 was made a member of the British Empire for voluntary
social service and in 1990 she received the Order of Jamaica for Outstanding services to the
women’s movement. She also received the Marcus Garvey award for Excellence in 1988.She lived
by her motto – “Service is the rental one pays for one existence”. Miss Bailey died on October 3,
1990

amaica. While recuperating, she studied on her own to learn accounting,

bookkeeping, and shorthand.
Still fuelled by a desire to make a difference, Bailey taught young girls that there was
more to life than what they were told growing up.

Sometime later, with £100, she made a down payment for the property at 4
Rosedale Avenue in Kingston to start the Housecraft Training Centre.

The centre opened in January 1946 with a mission to train girls to bring out the best
in themselves, to teach them respect for self and the job.

In essence, her mission was to help create women who were self-reliant, a rarity in
early Jamaican history.

And that, she certainly accomplished.

At the centre she mothered 6,000 girls along with her adopted daughter.

Amy was also co-founder and first chairman of the Women’s Liberal Club which
fought to give women the same rights as men.

Concerned with the discrimination she saw in the class hierarchy enshrined in
Jamaica at the time, Bailey wrote a series of editorials that were published in The
Gleaner.

She openly addressed the racial discrimination that relegated black-skinned

Jamaicans to menial jobs and poverty, brown-skinned Jamaicans to middle-class
blue-collar jobs and white Jamaicans to positions of authority. 

Amy, along with Dr Hyacinth Lightbourne and others, in 1938 organised the first birth
control league.

Among multiple achievements as a teacher and political activist, Bailey was one of
the first black women in Jamaica to become a Justice of the Peace.
She received many honours and awards in her career, including the Order of the
British Empire in 1960 for voluntary social service, the Jamaican Order of Distinction
in 1971 and the Marcus Garvey Award for Excellence in 1988.

On International Women’s Day - March 8, 1990, she was honoured with the Order of
Jamaica for her contribution to women’s rights. She would die later that year, on
October 3.

Amy Bailey’s life, work and legacy are testament to what can be accomplished
through sheer determination.