Thomas Lecky
Jamaican scientist
Thomas Phillip Lecky, known as T.P. Lecky (1904-1994), was a Jamaican scientist who developed several new breeds of cattle. Lecky is known as one of Jamaica's earliest environmentalists, and a strong advocate for conservation of hillsides. His research in cattle breeding led to the development of three breeds suited the tropical climate: Jamaica Hope, Jamaica Red, and Jamaica Black. Jamaica Hope was the first breed of cattle indigenous to Jamaica. He is remembered as the Father of the Jamaican Dairy Industry.
Early life and education
Lecky was born on 31 December 1904, the twelfth of 13 children, and raised on a small farm in Swift River, in the Blue Mountains region in Portland Parish in the island of Jamaica. Lecky received a scholarship to attend the Jamaica School of Agriculture at Hope Farm in Saint Andrew Parish. As a child, Lecky saw his father lose his banana crop as a result of hurricanes three years in a row. This inspired Lecky to research solutions to provide and improve the diet of his community and neighbours by developing the local breed of cattle for milk and beef production.
At the Jamaica School of Agriculture the director of the government stock farm H.H. Cousins involved Lecky in testing European cattle breeds for their suitability to the Jamaican environment.
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This entry incorporates text from “Thomas Lecky” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.