Sir John Stanley Mordecai (1903–1986) went from primary school to Wolmer’s Boys’ School for the years 1915–1920, the Gleaner wrote on 13 November 2022. That same “Remembering Distinguished Jamaicans” column said he won a Government Scholarship, studied at Syracuse University in New York State, and took a degree in public administration. The Gleaner called him “an exemplary civil servant at the national and regional levels.”

When the West Indies Federation was formed he was appointed federal secretary and, the 2022 Gleaner said, “the chief official” of the new government. A Gleaner “This Day in Our Past” note (30 March 2021) records that in 1962 the “Deputy Governor General of the West Indies Federation, Sir John Mordecai, arrives in Jamaica from Trinidad for a three-day business visit.” He published The West Indies: The Federal Negotiations in 1968.

After the Federation he chaired the new Jamaica Racing Commission from 1971 to 1978, the first person in that chair (Gleaner, 19 November 2006). The paper said he was known as “Musket” and was credited with “kindling public enthusiasm and confidence in Sport of Kings.” He died on 3 August 1986.

Sources

Sources: Jamaica Gleaner, Remembering distinguished Jamaicans: Sir John Stanley Mordecai, 13 November 2022; Jamaica Gleaner Outlook, 19 November 2006; Jamaica Gleaner, This Day in Our Past, 30 March 2021.