"Father Coombs" reburied

The remains of Allan Coombs , a politician and trade unionist who was also known as "Father Coombs", were re-buried on Thursday at the Oaklawn Memorial Gardens in the central parish of Manchester.

Coombs was buried at the May Pen Cemetery for forty-four years before his body was exhumed last month.

Sylvia Lyn, his adopted daughter who is also a  Director of Lyn's Funeral Home, said the politician wasn't given the type of burial he deserved, hence her decision to exhume and re-bury his remains.

Her husband, Calvin Lyn, says more events are set to take place this year to honour the generosity of Father Coombs.

“We will be planning a memorial service sometime in October in his honour, after the tomb and whatever type of monument we plan to put there is completed” he said.

Allan Coombs along with St. William Grant and Alexander Bustamante started the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU) . He then founded the Jamaica Workers and Transport Union (JWTU), the first union to have an island wide network, and set the pace for the labour movement's success in the 1938 riots.

He later served as Member of Parliament for North West St James and as Communication and Works Minister under the People's National Party administration.

He died on July 15, 1969, at the age of 68.