By June next year there should be a monument in the National Heroes Park in honour of the late Prime Minister the Most Hon. Hugh Lawson Shearer.

The Jamaica National Heritage Trust has announced that a design for the monument has been chosen following the meeting of a special committee that was established to examine the entries that were submitted in a competition. The competition closed on September 3, 2007. The winner of the competition will be announced in November at a special event to award the top entrants and show off their design to the public.

A panel of judges that included representatives of the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP), Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), Jamaica National Heritage Trust (JNHT), Jamaica Institute of Architects (JIA), Jamaica Institute of Engineers (JIE), and the Jamaica Guild of Artists, unanimously chose the winning design from the entries received. Among the criteria for entry, was that the monument should closely relate to the other monuments in the park and that the material used in its construction should be mostly Jamaican in origin and offer ease of maintenance.

The JNHT had to run the competition twice because of the low number and quality of the entries received the first time around.

Senator Oswald Harding (left) and Louise McLeod of the Jamaica Institute of Architects (JIA) take a closer look at one of the submitted entries for the design competition for a monument to the Most Hon. Hugh Lawson Shearer. A committee met on October 16, 2007 to choose the winning design.

The Most Hon. Hugh Lawson Shearer was Jamaica’s third Prime Minister, being sworn into office on April 11, 1967. He became president of the BITU in 1977 and built the Union into the largest in the English-speaking Caribbean. He also played a major role in the discussions and negotiations leading up to the establishment in 1980 of the Joint Trade Union Research Institute, the first of its kind in the Caribbean.

(From left) Head of the Estate Management Division of the JNHT Mr. Gavern Tate, Ms. Lise Walter of the Jamaica Institute of Architects, Senator Oswald Harding, architect Louise McLeod and Mr. Jordan Brown discuss the merits of one of the designs submitted for a monument to the Most. Hon. Hugh Shearer.

Ms. Carol Watson of the Jamaica Guild of Artist (left) and Mr. George Fyffe of the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) examine the working drawings of one of the submissions to the design competition for the monument to the Most Hon. Hugh Shearer at a committee meeting held recently to choose the design for the monument
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