Colonial Medical Services and the Failure of Imperial Responsibility in Interwar Jamaica

During the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the British imperial government denied responsibility for social and economic conditions in Jamaica, including the colonial government’s failure to provide adequate medical services to the Jamaican population.  In the late 1930s, however, it became increasingly difficult for Britain to justify this laissez-faire policy.  International support for British imperialism was waning, and allies were essential in a time of potential war with Germany.  When conditions deteriorated in the British West Indies to the point that riots broke out in 1938, most violently in Jamaica, imperial officials feared having to fight not only Germans but their own colonial subjects to retain their empire.  The 1938 West Indian riots were the catalyst that drove Britain to move from a policy of colonial self-sufficiency to one of imperial responsibility in an effort to preserve its Empire.  This shift was embodied in the 1940 Colonial Development and Welfare Act.  In this paper, I examine one project initiated under this Act—the effort to bring comprehensive improvement to Jamaica’s colonial medical services in the early 1940s.  I demonstrate that despite the British government’s original intentions, this effort ultimately failed due to severe problems with the colonial medical service, internal colonial political battles, and crucially the Second World War, which prevented necessary funding, personnel and supplies.  In analyzing how this effort played out on the ground in this context and why it failed, I argue more broadly for colonial medical institutions as one area where efforts to preserve the empire and where the demise of British imperialism might be better understood.