Famous people who grew up or lived in Jamaica
5 notable people grew up or lived in Jamaica. Each listing explores the home and neighbourhood, and how the place shaped the person they became.
Bob Marley1955–1966
📍 First Street, Trench Town, Kingston 12, Jamaica
My mother brought me to Trench Town when I was ten years old, after my father died. The government yards were concrete tenements arranged around shared courtyards — no privacy, not much…
Ian Fleming1946–1964
📍 GoldenEye, Oracabessa, St Mary, Jamaica
I grew up in London and Scotland in the shadow of a brilliant elder brother and a formidable mother; my father was killed in the First World War when I was eight. In wartime naval…
Mary Seacole1805–1850
📍 East Street, Kingston, Jamaica
I was born in Kingston, the daughter of a Scottish soldier and a free Jamaican woman, a doctress who healed with Creole and African herbal medicine. My mother ran Blundell Hall, a boarding…
Usain Bolt1986–2004
📍 Sherwood Content, Trelawny, Jamaica
Usain St. Leo Bolt was born in August 1986 in Sherwood Content, a small village in the hills of the parish of Trelawny, in northern Jamaica, and grew up there with his brother, Sadiki, and…
Yohan Blake1989–2003
📍 Montego Bay, St. James, Jamaica
Yohan Blake was born in December 1989 in the parish of St. James, in north-western Jamaica, around Montego Bay, the sixth of seven children of Shirley and Veda Blake. The family lived in a…