Gallery Montserrat: Some Prominent People in Our History

176 Pages·1996·7.35 MB·English

by  Howard A. Fergus

GALLERY MtNTSERRAT
SOME PROMINENT PEOPtE IN OUR HISTORY
HOWARD A. FERGUS
UAfvoe Pi*44 University of the West Indies
Barbados • Jamaica • Trinidad and Tobago
Canoe Press University of the West Indies
1A Aqueduct Flats Mona
Kingston 7 Jamaica W I
© 1996 by Howard A. Fergus
All rights reserved. Published 1996
Printed in Canada
ISBN 976-8125-25-X
00 99 98 97 96 5 4 3 21
CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION DATA
Fergus, Howard A.
Gallery Montserrat: some prominent
people in our history / Howard A. Fergus
p. cm.
ISBN 976-8125-25-X
1. Montserrat -Biography. 2. Montserrat
-History. I.Title
F2082.F463 1996 972.97'5'0202 dc-20
Text set in 10.5/14 Libre Sans Serif x 27
Cover and book design by Robert Harris
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements /vi
List of Photographs fvii
List of Acronyms I viii
Introduction / 7
ADMINISTRATION
Edward Dacres Baynes / 5
Anthony Brisket / 8
William Stapleton / 10
AGRICULTURE
Juliette Greenaway / 73
Ellen Jane Lindsey / 74
ARTS AND CULTURE
Samuel Aymer / 77
Alphonsus (Arrow) Cassell / 20
Annie Cummings Greenaway / 23
James Alfred George Irish / 26
Ernest Archibald Markham / 32
Matthew Phipps Shiel / 37
Edgar Nkosi White / 39
iii
iv Contents
EDUCA TION
Vincent Bennett Browne (Major) / 43
Thomas Noel Kirnon / 48
Frederic Evered Peters / 52
Edwin Rowland White / 56
MERCHANTS AND PLANTERS
Michael Symmons Osborne / 62
Joseph Sturge / 65
Samuel Waad / 68
Walter Edston Wade / 69
John Clifford Llewellyn Wall / 72
RELIGION
Thomas O'Garra / 77
Quamina Williams / 79
SLAVERY
The St Patrick's Day Martyrs / 83
Olaudah Equiano / 86
SOCIAL SERVICES AND COMMUNITY ACTION
Catherine Barzey / 89
Charles Norman Griffin I 91
Patricia Griffin 193
Hodge Kirnon / 96
Noel James Linnington Margetson / 98
James Menzies / 700
Richard Piper and James T. Allen / 703
John Haynes Skerritt / 705
Elizabeth Wyke / 707
George Wyke and Edward Parson / 709
Contents v
SPORTS
Charles Henry (Jim) Allen / 772
Theodore Theophilus Bramble / 778
Fred Sylvester Davis / 727
TRADE UNIONS AND POLITICS
Percival Austin Bramble / 724
William Henry Bramble / 729
Robert William Griffith / 736
Margaret Mary (Annie) Dyer-Howe / 742
John Alfred Osborne / 747
Ellen Peters / 752
Mary Rose Tuitt / 754
Michael Edward Walkinshaw / 758
Lindona Vereen Thomas-Woolcock / 767
Select Bibliography I 764
The Author / 766
Acknowledgements
TIhe author wishes to thank Olga Allen for typing the
first draft of the manuscript, Oelena Lynch for type-
setting it and Barbara O'Leary for proofreading services. We wish also to thank
the personnel of the Public Libray in Plymouth for making resource materials
available, and for general assistance.
A number of persons mainly family members of some of the people profiled in
the book supplied information for which we are grateful and in some cases lent
valuable photographs. The photograph of M.P, Shiel was reprinted from The
Kingdom of Redonda: 1865-1900 (Aylesford Press, 1991), with the acquiescence
of Jon Wynne-Tyson. Thanks are due also to the University of the West Indies
(Montserrat) whose general resources assisted greatly, and to H.O. Woolcock for
photographic services.
vi
List of
Photographs
Ellen Jane Lindsey / 14
Samuel Aymer / 17
Alphonsus (Arrow) Cassell / 20
Annie Cummings Greenaway / 23
James Alfred George Irish / 26
Ernest Archibald Markham / 32
Matthew Phipps Shiel I 37
Vincent Bennett Browne (Major) / 43
Thomas Noel Kirnon / 48
Edwin Rowland White / 56
Michael Symmons Osborne / 62
Walter Edston Wade / 69
John Clifford Llewellyn Wall / 72
Charles Norman Griffin / 97
Patricia Griffin / 93
Noel James Linnington Margetson / 98
Elizabeth Wyke / 707
Charles Henry (Jim) Allen / 772
Theodore Theophilus Bramble / 778
Fred Sylvester Davis / 727
Percival Austin Bramble / 724
William Henry Bramble / 729
Robert William Griffith / 736
Montserrat Legislative Council 1952 / 747
Margaret Mary (Annie) Dyer-Howe / 742
John Alfred Osborne / 747
Ellen Peters / 752
Mary Rose Tuitt / 754
Lindona Vereen Thomas-Woolcock / 767
vii
List of
Acronyms
ACP Associateship of the College of Preceptors
ARC Antilles Radio Corporation
ASP Assistant Superintendent of Police
AUC American University of the Caribbean
BEM British Empire Medal
BWIA British West Indian Airways
CARICOM Caribbean Community
CBE Commander of the Order of the British Empire
CCL Caribbean Congress of Labour
CM Chief Minister
CTO Caribbean Tourism Organization
CUT Caribbean Union of Teachers
ECS Emerald Community Singers
FRCS Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons
GCE General Certificate of Education
ICFTU International Confederation of Free Trade Unions
LIAT Leeward Island Air Transport
MAAS Minority Arts Advisory Services
MADS Montserrat Amateur Dramatic Society
MAWU Montserrat Allied Workers' Union
MBE Member of the Order of the British Empire
MDF Montserrat Defence Force
MDP Montserrat Democratic Party
MORECO Montserrat Real Estate Company
MSS Montserrat Secondary School
MTLU Montserrat Trades and Labour Union
NDP National Development Party
NPP National Progressive Party
NGO Non-governmental organization
NOW National Organization of Women
QBE Officer of the Order of the British Empire
DECS Organization of Eastern Caribbean States
OPWA Old People's Welfare Association
POP Progressive Democratic Party
PLM People's Liberation Movement
RSA Royal Society of Arts
SMO Senior Medical Officer
UCWI University College of the West Indies
UWI University of the West Indies
UNF United National Front
YWCA Young Women's Christian Association
viii
INTRODUCTION
History is fashioned in the dialectical interaction between culture and economics:
but it is illumined by its personalities. It is the great figures who shed the light and
cast the shadows through which we understand.
Michael Manley
In the 1967-68 edition of Personalities Caribbean,
Montserrat earned only three listings, two of whom
were educators working temporarily in the island for the University of the West
Indies (UWI); the third was Chief Minister W.H. Bramble. As a result of this kind
of superficial and cavalier treatment, a small island colony like Montserrat had
little or no literature to promote national pride and a positive collective self-im-
age. There is no logical reason why a Montserratian headmaster could not have
been listed instead of a UWI resident tutor born in Barbados.
To make matters worse, such history as was taught was Eurocentric, glorifying
Europeans as the key players in our development and underdevelopment. The
heroes were Warner, Rodney, Nelson, Napoleon, Cromwell and George the Third,
not Equiano, Richard Piper, Quamina Williams and Robert Griffith. Successive
generations of Montserratians have been deprived of historical role models. It is
no wonder therefore that in 1978, Owen C. Mathurin asserted that Montserrat
was likely to be Britain's last colony after all the others were shed.
An incipient sense of nationhood is nevertheless discernible in recent years.
This is due in a large measure to the emergence of fragments of island history,
and cultural and creative programmes rooted in that history. The present work
takes forward the process of historical research and publication intended to
illumine the past and provide guidelines and inspiration for the future.
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