World of Jamaican Music

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An illustrated map of the creators of Jamaican music and how they are connected.

Remembering Derrick Harriott (1939-2026), rocksteady singer and producer. Read his story →

Sister Mary Ignatius Davies

Educator. Ska

Active
1939-2003
Sunrise
November 18, 1921, Innswood, St. Catherine, Jamaica
Sunset
February 9, 2003, Kingston, Jamaica (heart attack)

Sister Mary Ignatius Davies was a Sister of Mercy who spent her working life at Alpha Boys School in Kingston, where she ran the music program for more than six decades and oversaw the training of a large share of the horn players who made ska, rocksteady, and reggae.

She was born Agnes Marjorie Reeves Davies in Innswood, St. Catherine, baptized at St. Joseph's in Spanish Town, and educated at the St. Catherine Elementary School, then, after her family moved to Kingston, at Mico Elementary and the Alpha Academy, the girls' high school attached to the boys' school. She entered the Sisters of Mercy in 1939, taking the name Ignatius, and lived at Alpha for the rest of her life. The instruments were taught by the school's bandmasters, among them Reuben Delgado and later Lennie Hibbert, though by Owen Gray's recollection she could play saxophone and flute herself; her part was discipline, encouragement, and listening. She owned a large collection of jazz and blues records, ran a sound system on Saturday afternoons that drew listeners from outside the school, and also coached the boys in football, cricket, boxing, table tennis, and dominoes. "If Clement Dodd is the father of Jamaican popular music," the Gleaner columnist Gordon Robinson wrote, "Sister Ignatius is the mother." More than six hundred of her records, her Garrard turntable, and other Alpha artifacts, among them one of Don Drummond's trombones, are now held by the Museum of Pop Culture in Seattle.

The Alpha musicians on this site include the Skatalites founders Tommy McCook, Don Drummond, Johnny "Dizzy" Moore, and Lester Sterling; Rico Rodriguez, whom Drummond taught trombone as an older pupil; Headley Bennett, Bobby Ellis, Vin Gordon, and David Madden; Leroy "Horsemouth" Wallace and Richard "Dirty Harry" Hall, the two leads in Rockers; the singers Owen Gray, Leroy Smart, and Johnny Osbourne; and Albert "Apple Gabriel" Craig of Israel Vibration. Roland Alphonso, often assumed to be an Alpha pupil, trained at the Stony Hill Industrial School instead.

She took part in Island Rock, the BBC Radio 2 series of 2002 marking forty years of Jamaican independence, and was awarded the Badge of Honour in 1996. She departed at the University Hospital of the West Indies at eighty-one; the cause was a heart attack. Her funeral was held at Holy Trinity Cathedral on North Street, and she is buried at Dovecot Cemetery in St. Catherine.

Last updated November 5, 2026

Connections

Notes

  1. The Gleaner reported on Tuesday, February 11, 2003, that she had died "on Sunday night," and gave her birth as November 18, 1921. "Alpha's Sister Mary Ignatius Passes On," Jamaica Gleaner, February 11, 2003, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20030211/lead/lead5.html. The Rough Guide's chronology places her death on October 9, 2003. Steve Barrow and Peter Dalton, The Rough Guide to Reggae, 3rd ed. (London: Rough Guides, 2004), 456.
  2. The Gleaner says she "nurtured several generations of Jamaican musicians at Alpha Boys' School over the last 60 years." "Alpha's Sister Mary Ignatius Passes On." A later Gleaner piece refers to "her 64 years of uninterrupted service at the helm of the school." "The Special Sister and Jamaica's Rich Music History," Jamaica Gleaner, March 25, 2012, https://old.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120325/ent/ent4.html. On the school and its musicians, Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 8, 456.
  3. "Alpha's Sister Mary Ignatius Passes On." On St. Joseph's, "Mary Ignatius Davies," Wikipedia, accessed October 5, 2026, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ignatius_Davies. Augustyn, who found her birth record, gives her birth name as Agnes Marjorie Reeves Davies and her parents as John Davies, "a planter of Innswood, St. Catherine," and Ethel Davies, née Starego: Heather Augustyn, "Birth Record for Sister Ignatius," SkaBook (blog), April 9, 2018, https://skabook.com/2018/04/09/birth-record-for-sister-ignatius/.
  4. The Gleaner gives February 1, 1939 as the date she joined the Sisters of Mercy. "Alpha's Sister Mary Ignatius Passes On." The later piece says she "joined Alpha as an 18-year-old nun and spent the rest of her life there." "The Special Sister."
  5. The Gleaner names Ruben Delgado as Tulloch's successor and dates Hibbert's tenure to 1955-63. "The Special Sister." The Rough Guide says Hibbert was bandmaster when Leroy Wallace and Leroy Smart were pupils in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 8. Both men were Alpha old boys "lovingly coaxed back" as bandmasters, according to "Sister Mary Ignatius - Mother of Jamaican Music," Kool 97 FM, accessed October 5, 2026, https://www.kool97fm.com/component/content/article/17-blog/25-sister-mary-ignatius-mother-of-jamaican-music.
  6. The Gleaner stresses "the encouragement she gave to the youngsters around her." "The Special Sister." Owen Gray, interviewed by Augustyn, recalled otherwise: "she was a musician herself because she could play the saxophone, she could play the flute, and she was very strict": Heather Augustyn, "Skanking with Sister Iggy!," SkaBook (blog), September 13, 2013, https://skabook.com/2013/09/13/skanking-sister-iggy/.
  7. The Gleaner mentions cricket, boxing, and her work as "a sound-system operator with a large collection of vintage records." "The Special Sister." On the Saturday sound system, football, table tennis, and dominoes, "Mary Ignatius Davies," Wikipedia. Augustyn says she bought the Mutt and Jeff sound system, equipment and records, from the Alpha old boy Kenneth Davy in 1964, and sent pupils such as Floyd Lloyd Seivright to buy records for her: Augustyn, "Skanking with Sister Iggy!"
  8. Quoted in Heather Augustyn, "Sister Mary Ignatius Davies: Mother of Jamaican Music," Kool 97 FM, March 30, 2021, https://www.kool97fm.com/more/kool-blogs/sister-mary-ignatius-davies-mother-of-jamaican-music?format=amp.
  9. Augustyn says she sold the artifacts to the museum, then owned by Paul Allen, "in order to raise much needed funds for her boys": Heather Augustyn, "Sister Ignatius's Record Collection," SkaBook (blog), March 21, 2020, https://skabook.com/2020/03/21/sister-ignatiuss-record-collection/.
  10. Barrow and Dalton, Rough Guide to Reggae, 8; "The Special Sister."; "Sister Mary Ignatius - Mother of Jamaican Music." The individual entries give sources for each musician.
  11. The Gleaner lists "almost the entire horn section of the Skatalites Band, excluding Roland Alphonso" among Alpha's pupils. "The Special Sister." On Stony Hill, "A Remembrance of the Chief Musician," annotation for Rolando Alphonso, Something Special: Ska Hot Shots (Heartbeat, 2000), Tallawah, accessed October 5, 2026, http://tallawah.com/liner-notes/linernotes7/.
  12. On "Island Rock," "Mary Ignatius Davies," Wikipedia. On the Badge of Honour, "Alpha's Sister Mary Ignatius Passes On."
  13. The Gleaner says she was taken to the University Hospital after a heart attack on the Saturday. "Alpha's Sister Mary Ignatius Passes On." On the funeral and burial, "Sister Mary Ignatius - Mother of Jamaican Music."

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