Jamaica Archives and Records Department
Our locations
Office of Government Archivist
59 – 63 Church Street,
Kingston
Email: cthomas@jard.gov.jm
Tel.: (876) 922-8830
Fax: (876) 948-0266
Archives Unit
Corner of King and Manchester Streets,
Spanish Town,
Saint Catherine
E-mail: jarchives@jard.gov.jm
Tel.: (876) 984-5001; 984-2581
Fax: (876) 985-8254
Audio Visual Unit
5 South Odeon Avenue,
Kingston 10
Email: avu@jard.gov.jm
Tel.: (876) 968-4800; 926-7995
Fax: (876) 906-4667
Government Records Centre
59 – 63 Church Street,
Kingston
Email: grecords@jard.gov.jm
Tel.: (876) 922-3705; 922-3706
Fax: (876) 922-3707
Description:
The Jamaica Archives and Records Department had its beginnings in the Island Secretary’s Office (ISO) established in 1659 as the administrative and record keeping arm of the Colonial Government. The Island Secretary’s Office was dismantled in 1879 and some of its functions transferred to the Island Records Office (IRO) in Spanish Town under the Records Law of that year. As a Government Department, the Jamaica Archives began in 1955 with the establishment of an Archives Section in the Island Records Office and the appointment of Clinton Black as government archivist, the first such appointment in the Commonwealth Caribbean. Some of the records transferred to IRO in 1879 became the holdings of the Archives Section and in 1962 were amalgamated with the historical records of the law courts to form the Jamaica Archives. During that year the records in the Archives Section was moved to the new building specifically erected to house them at the corner of King and Manchester Streets, Spanish Town.