Recollections and reflections is a collection of
memoirs of some key persons who have been part
of the credit union movement since its beginning in
Jamaica in 1939, and those who have nurtured the
movement and watched it grow to become a major player
in the Jamaican financial sector.
The book begins with Father Francis Osborne’s
recollections of the work of the stalwart Father Peter
John Sullivan who came to Jamaica as a Jesuit priest in
1939. Father Sullivan was truly concerned about the
plight of the working classes and felt an obligation to
serve them. This was a time when poor people lived
at the mercy of loan sharks, who charged exorbitant
rates on the loans that workers were obliged to undertake,
as their wages were not sufficient to maintain their
families. Father Sullivan was assigned to be the director
of the Catholic Young Men’s Sodality (CYMS) at Holy
Trinity Cathedral in Kingston, and there in a classroom
at St George’s College, began his deep involvement in
the establishment ofthe credit union movement.
