Albert Virtue had been a schoolboy athlete and continued to play cricket, at least, while he was at university.
Daily
Gleaner, July 22, 1935
AMONG THE MANY JAMAICAN CRICKET
CLUBS in the United States, the Surrey Cricket Club of
Montclair, New Jersey, occupies a prominent
place....
As
to the field of sport, the Club is
quite on the alert. Among its members are some very fine players especially a
student body in the persons of Messrs. Miller, Virtue and Blake, who are at
Howard University and are regarded as
the first
of the bunch. They are backed up by an able captain, Mr. Faulk, and by a
wicket-keep second to none in the United
States, in the person of Mr. DaCosta.
Daily Gleaner, July 19, 1950
Daily Gleaner, April 29, 1953
crash in Jamaica's aviation history.
Daily Gleaner, April 11, 1953 p 1
FIRST
FATAL ACCIDENT IN HISTORY OF
COMMERCIAL
FLYING IN JAMAICA
THIRTEEN PERSONS — five men, five
women and
three children were killed when a Caribbean
International Airways plane, on its first
scheduled flight to Grand Cayman, crashed into the sea off Palisadoes
Airport within minutes of its take off
yesterday morning.
Only one person - a passenger - survived the crash which occurred just shortly after 9.30 a.m. when the plane, a Lockheed Lodestar, nosedived into about 30 feet of water 50 yards from the shore.
p11
A
crowd was beginning to gather. In it were Dr. S. E. Ferreira, Assistant Director
of Medical Services, and Dr. Ernest Murray, colleagues of Dr. Bertie Virtue, the
Government dentist in Cayman who went down
in the plane.
With them was a clerk from the Medical Office who said: "I cannot believe it. Dr. Virtue was in the office yesterday. He shook my hands, said good-bye, and was as jolly as ever. He came for a short leave to see the cricket, and now. . . . ”
Daily Gleaner, April 13, 1953
[from the accounts of the funerals of the crash victims]
Daily Gleaner, March 28, 1953
Dr. Virtue
Albert Evans Virtue. - Doctor of Dental Surgery, was born in Kingston on May 24, 1913, son of the late James Virtue, druggist, and his wife Adelaide, nee Macaulay. He was Government Dental Surgeon in the Cayman Islands.
Educated
at Cornwall College, the School of
Liberal
Arts at Howard University and Meharry
Medical School. After post-graduate work in
the Guggenheim Clinic in New York 1939-1940 he practised privately in Jamaica up to 1949.
At Cornwall College, he showed prowess as a footballer and was captain for three seasons of the school's Olivier Shield team which won the trophy twice in succession.
Dr. Virtue's popularity at school was transmitted into public life. He had a host of friends and in Grand Cayman, where he was seconded from the Jamaica Government Medical Service in 1950, “Doc" was a popular public figure. Dr. Virtue's original term of office in Grand Cayman was six months, but this had been extended continuously.
A true sportsman, he came to Jamaica. on holiday especially to attend the recent International cricket matches at Sabina Park. He was returning to his post in Grand Cayman in the plane.
An active Freemason, Dr. Virtue was a member of the Phoenix Lodge, No. 914
