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TheJamaica Committee was a group set up in Great Britain in 1865, which called forEdward Eyre, Governor ofJamaica, to be tried for his excesses in suppressing theMorant Bay rebellion of 1865. More radical members of the Committee wanted him tried for themurder ofBritish subjects (Jamaica was at that time aCrown Colony), under the rule of law. The Committee included English liberals, such asJohn Bright,John Stuart Mill,Charles Darwin,Thomas Henry Huxley,Thomas Hughes,Herbert Spencer andA. V. Dicey, the last of whom would eventually become known for his scholarship on theconflict of laws.[1]
Other prominent members of the committee includedCharles Buxton,Frederic Harrison,Edmond Beales,Frederick Chesson,Leslie Stephen,Thomas Hill Green,Henry Fawcett,Goldwin Smith,Charles Lyell andEdward Frankland.
The counsel to the Jamaica Committee wasJames Fitzjames Stephen, who held that the defendants were guilty of legal murder, but extended considerable sympathy to them and intimated that they were probably morally justified.[2] From then on, Mill was cool to him.[3]
Thomas Carlyle set up Governor Eyre Defence and Aid Committee in support of Eyre. His supporters includedJohn Ruskin,Charles Kingsley,Charles Dickens,Alfred Tennyson andJohn Tyndall.
The Jamaica Committee was ultimately unsuccessful in its goal of having Eyre prosecuted.
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