https://jamaica-gleaner.com/article/commentary/20200126/carolyn-cooper-sir-roy-augier-history-making
An Interview with Roy Augier: https://ibccdigitalarchive.lincoln.ac.uk/omeka/collections/document/3333
Born in St. Lucia, Fitzroy Richard Augier was educated at the Roman Catholic Boys Elementary School and at St. Mary's College in Castries and at the universities of St. Andrew and London. He was appointed as a junior research fellow at the Institute of Social and Economic Research at the University College of the West Indies in Mona, Jamaica, in 1954. In 1955, he became a lecturer in the department of history, a senior lecturer in 1965, and a professor of history in 1989.
As a historian, Augier worked to establish Caribbean history as a study in its own right. He was involved in three seminal publications. Firstly, the publication with Douglas Hall, Shirley Gordon, and Mary Reckord of The Making of the West Indies in 1960 revolutionized the teaching and studying of history in the region. It provided students with reading material, which permitted them to study and understand their societies, and stimulated volumes of writing and research on Caribbean topics. With Rex Nettleford and M.G. Smith, he produced the Report on the Rastafarian Movement, which demonstrated the importance of historical examination of this group in Caribbean society. He also served as chairman of the drafting committee for UNESCO's General History of the Caribbean.
Augier's efforts were not confined to the university. He criticized the Cambridge Caribbean history examination for its focus on Britain, was asked to review the Cambridge Ordinary and Advanced Level Caribbean history syllabuses, and for many years he was the sole examiner for the A level exams. Augier chaired the history panel of the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC) from its inception, and from 1986 to 1996 he served as chair of the Caribbean Examinations Council. In this latter role he spear-headed the move to institute a regional examination to replace the Cambridge A level examination, as a result of which, the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) has come on stream. Once again, this able foot soldier lobbied for popular support of the new program through regional meetings with government officials and teachers and through school visits. Caribbean history became fully legitimized. Thus, Augier contributed to the process of development of a cadre of Caribbean people who would begin to reinterpret their history.
Augier was also involved in curriculum development and teacher-training workshops for CXC and CAPE preparation. He served as examiner of the Institute of Jamaica, where he assisted in curriculum development, paper setting, and marking scripts for teacher training institutions in Jamaica. Because of his varied involvement in the education system, he was well placed to wield considerable influence on the teaching of history at secondary and tertiary levels in the region.
For Augier, education was the means to establish closer relations across the language barriers of the Caribbean. As a founding member and past president (1984) of the Association of Caribbean Historians, he promoted closer relations between French- and English-speaking historians. For this, he was honored as Chevalier, Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 1989.
An administrator par excellence, Augier served as dean of the Faculty of General Studies (1967–1972), acting principal of the Cave Hill campus, (1970), and pro vice chancellor of the university (1972–1990). He influenced programming in the institution and along with Elsa Goveia, is credited with ensuring that the students of nonelite schools got a fair stake in the university. He has served on archive committees in Jamaica and initiated the establishment of the Barbados Archives. For his contribution to regional archival development, he was awarded a medal by the International Council of Archives. He also received awards from the Institute of Jamaica in 1996 and 2003, and was knighted for his contribution to education in St. Lucia. Sir Roy Augier is at heart a scholar, architect, visionary, pioneer, activist intellectual, and the quintessential Caribbean man.
https://www.encyclopedia.com/history/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/augier-roy
Professor Sir Hilary Beckles is the Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies. Before assuming this office on May 1, 2015, he served the university as Professor of Economic History, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Undergraduate Studies, and Principal of its Cave Hill Campus in Barbados for thirteen years (2002-15).
Sir Hilary has had a distinguished career as an academic, international thought leader, United Nations committee official, and global public activist in the field of social justice and minority empowerment. He joined The University of the West Indies in 1979 after completing doctorial studies at the University of Hull. In short time, as a result of a distinguished record of published research, he was promoted to the rank of Reader and at the age of 36 became the university’s youngest scholar to be promoted to a personal chair. Shortly thereafter he won the inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Award for excellence in the field of research. Professor Beckles has had several visiting appointments, including Senior Commonwealth Fellow at London University, and scholar in residence at New York University’s Centre for Latin American and Caribbean Studies.
Sir Hilary has had widespread Caribbean and global recognition for his academic achievements and leadership expertise. He serves on many United Nations Committees and Advisory panels. He was called upon by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to serve as an inaugural member of his Science Advisory Board on Sustainable Development. He also served as an advisor to UNESCO’s Cities for Peace Global Program and was an advisor to the UN World Culture Report. For many years he was a lead conceptualizer of UNESCO’s Slave Route Project, and currently serves as its Vice President. He is also a member of UNDP’s Advisory Panel on the Caribbean Human Development Report.
After years of critiquing UNESCO’s highly respected eight volumes series, The General History of Africa for its inadequacy as a reference in respect of African diasporas in Europe, Middle East, Asia, and the Americas, he was appointed an Editor of the 9th volume which is conceptualized around the theme “Global Africa”. For his outstanding academic leadership and public advocacy around these themes, in 2015 Sir Hilary was invited by the President of the UN General Assembly to deliver the feature address during the sitting in which 2015-24 was declared the UN Decade for African Descendant People. This address was followed by many speaking engagements on the theme; the USA Congressional Black Caucus, Washington; the House of Common, London; Oxford University, Harvard University, the University of Johannesburg, the University of Ghana, the University of London and the University of Edinburgh.
Sir Hilary received his higher education in the United Kingdom and graduated in 1976 with a BA (Hons) degree in Economic and Social History from The University of Hull, and a PhD from the same university in 1980. He has lectured extensively in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia, and has published over 100 peer reviewed essays in scholarly journals, and 12 books on subjects ranging from Atlantic and Caribbean History, gender relations in the Caribbean, sport development and popular culture. Sir Hilary has sought to push the frontiers of knowledge and through his publications to initiate new field of enquiry. His book “Natural Rebels: A Social History of Enslaved Black Women in Barbados and the Caribbean (Rutgers University Press/Zed Book, 1989) was the first major study of enslaved women in Atlantic slave societies. This was followed by “Centering Woman: Gender Discourses in Caribbean Slave Societies (James Currey Press/Randle Publishers, 1999). This is now a vibrant field of research.
His “White Servitude and Black Slavery: white indentured servitude in the Caribbean, 1627- 1715: Tennessee University Press, 1989) was the first major study of the oppressed landless British working class who were a critical part of Empire and of the slave societies of the British Caribbean. In 2016 he published another seminal monograph: “The First Black Slave Society: Britain’s Barbados, 1627-1876”. This study locates Barbados as the first African majority society in the Atlantic world, and a slave society best described as “Made in Britain”. Likewise, his seminal study “Britain’s Black Debt: Reparations for Slavery and Native Genocide in the Caribbean: UWI Press, 2015”, is an economic history of the rise of British Capitalism in the 17th-19th centuries that provides the evidentiary basis of the claim for reparatory justice for the genocide of the native community, the globalization of African enslavement, and the deceptive indenture of Asians that followed -“three acts of a single play”.
Following CLR James he turned to cricket culture and, in an attempt, to update the Jamesian analysis published a two-volume study of the rise and fall of West Indian international performance - “The Development of West Indies Cricket: volume 1: The Age of Nationalism; and Volume 2: The Age of Globalization (Pluto Press, 1999). This work was described in Wisden Cricket Monthly, August 1999, as “arguably the most important cricket book ever published”. To be published in 2017 is a study of the tragic demise of West Indies Test cricket: “Cricket with a Cause: The Fall of the Mighty West Indian Test Cricketers” (Ian Randle Publishers, 2017 Sir Hilary has edited and co-authored 13 books, the latest being a pioneering study co-edited with Professor Heather Russell, “Rihanna: Barbados ‘World-Gurl’ in Global Popular Culture (2016), that situates the rise of the Barbadian pop icon as one of leading global artists.
Sir Hilary has received numerous awards for his contribution: including the Degree of Honorary Doctor of Letters from Brock University in Canada; the University of Glasgow, in Scotland; his alma mater, The University of Hull, in England; the Kwame Nkrumah University for Science and Technology, in Ghana; and the Degree of Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from the University of the Virgin Islands. In 2007, he received a knighthood, Commander Knight of St. Andrew (KA), the highest national honor recognized in Barbados “in recognition of his distinguished service in the fields of Education, Sports and the Arts”. In 2015 he was honored by the Borough of Brooklyn, New York, for “extraordinary achievement, outstanding leadership, and contribution to the community”. He also received in 2015 the Second Global Community Healer Award for humanitarian work from the Community Healer Network, Washington DC, following the legendary Maya Angelou. In 2016 he received the Sisserou Award of Honour from the Government of Dominica “in recognition of his contribution to the Commonwealth of Dominica and the region in the field of Education”. In 2017, the Town of Hartford in the state of Connecticut, declared 21st March, Sir Hilary Beckles Day in recognition of his global contribution to social justice and human equality. He also received the prestigious Amistad Award from Central Connecticut State University, “in recognition of his outstanding contributions to historical knowledge and the struggle for human rights”.
Sir Hilary serves in multiple roles in the Caribbean private sector and is a long serving director of Sagicor Financial Corporation - the largest, international financial services conglomerate in the region. He is a director of British telecom giant Cable and Wireless (Barbados Ltd). He served as a director of the West Indies Cricket Board, and was a director of West Indies Cricket World Cup Inc. He is founder and director of the CLR James Centre for Cricket Research and was founder and Chairman of the West Indies Cricket Board’s Cricket High Performance Centre. He is Vice President of the Commonwealth Advisory Body of Sport and Development which advises Sport Ministers on the planning of the Commonwealth Games. Sir Hilary is Chairman of the Caribbean Examination Council. In 2013 Sir Hilary was invited to coordinate Caribbean governments’ policy positions on the global reparatory justice conversation. In this capacity he was asked to Chair the newly established Caribbean Commission on Reparations. Under his guidance The University of the West Indies has established “The Caribbean Centre for Reparations Research”. He served as an associate member of the London University Legacies of Slavery Project, and the University of Hull’s ‘Wilberforce Institute for slavery and Emancipation”. He is also member of the United Nations Development Program Advisory Panel for the Caribbean Human Development Report. Sir Hilary is also an accomplished playwright with six of his staged works receiving popular acclaim in the Caribbean. These plays bring to the stage seminal moments in Caribbean and Atlantic history and were written in consultation with the late Derek Walcott and Rex Nettleford. As Vice-Chancellor of The University of the West Indies he conceptualized and guides its internationalization agenda. There is now the UWI-SUNY Centre for Leadership and Sustainable Development, based in New York; The UWI–University of Lagos Institute for African and Diaspora Studies, in Lagos; and the UWI- Global Institute for Software Technology, in Suzhou, China. Under development is the UWI/ University of Johannesburg Institute for Global Africa.
Olive Senior is the prize-winning author of a seventeen books of fiction, poetry and non-fiction. Born in Jamaica, she has travelled extensively and has now settled in Toronto. She visits Jamaica frequently and the island and the wider Caribbean remain central to her work. She teaches writing internationally and has read her work and lectured at many international venues over the years.
Olive Senior was born and brought up in Jamaica and educated in Jamaica and Canada. She is a graduate of Montego Bay High School and Carleton University, Ottawa.
She started her career as a journalist with the Daily Gleaner and later entered the world of publishing. She was editor of two of the Caribbean's leading journals - Social and Economic Studies at the University of the West Indies and Jamaica Journal, published by Institute of Jamaica Publications of which she was also Managing Director. She left Jamaica in 1989, spent some years in Europe and since 1993 has been based in Toronto.
The Caribbean nevertheless remains the focus of her work, starting with her prizewinning collection of stories, Summer Lightning which won the Commonwealth Writers Prize followed by Arrival of the Snake-Woman and Discerner of Hearts. Her novel, Dancing Lessons was published by Cormorant Books in Canada 2011 and The Pain Tree, a collection of stories in the spring of 2015. Her illustrated children's books are Birthday Suit and Anna Carries Water.
Her poetry books are Shell, (shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Award), Over the roofs of the world (shortlisted for Canada's Governor-General's Literary Award and Cuba's Casa de las Americas Prize), Gardening in the Tropics (winner of the F.J. Bressani Literary Prize), and Talking of Trees. A bilingual edition (English/French) of her poetry was published by Le Castor Astral in 2014 under the title Un Pipiri m'a dit/A Little Bird Told Me.
Olive Senior's non-fiction works on Caribbean culture include Dying to Better Themselves: West Indians and the Building of the Panama Canal (2015 OCM Bocas Literary Prize for Non-Fiction), the A-Z of Jamaican Heritage, Working Miracles: Women's Lives in the English-Speaking Caribbean and The Encyclopedia of Jamaican Heritage.
Her work has been widely taught in schools and universities internationally. Summer Lightning has been a literature textbook in Caribbean schools and Gardening in the Tropics has been a poetry textbook for the CAPE syllabus as well the International baccalaureate.
She is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes. Her work in recording and disseminating the cultural heritage of Jamaica was honoured in 2003 with the Norman Washington Manley Foundation Award for Excellence and in 2004 with the Gold Medal of the Institute of Jamaica. She is also the recipient of the Centenary Medal and the Silver Medal of the Institute of Jamaica for contributions to literature. She was named Humanities Scholar 2005 by the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados. She is also the recipient of Ontario Arts Council and Canada Council works in progress grants.
Olive Senior has worked internationally as a creative writing teacher and lecturer on Caribbean literature and culture. She is on the faculty of the Humber School for Writers, Toronto and has taught in the writing programmes at University of Toronto, St Lawrence University, and Barnard College, Columbia University, New York. She has also led writing workshops at the University of Miami, the University of the West Indies, and in the Bahamas, Bermuda, the USA, UK and France and other places.
Her writing residences have included Ecla Aquitaine Résidences de la Prévôté, Bordeaux, France; University of Adelaide, Australia; University of Alberta and Banff International Writing Studio, Canada;, at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica and Trinidad. She has been an Arts Council of England Visiting International Writer, a Hawthornden Fellow in Scotland, and Dana Distinguished International Writer at St Lawrence University.
Olive Senior's work has been broadcast on both sides of the Atlantic, including the BBC Book at Bedtime and the CBC Festival of Fiction. Her short story 'You Think I Mad, Miss?' was produced and performed as 'Mad Miss' by Theatre Archipelago in 2005 at Artword Theatre, Toronto. She wrote the radio play 'Window' for the CBC and was internet Poet-in-residence for the Commonwealth Institute in 1999. Her work has been included in the Best Poems on the Underground published by London Transport and she is a featured poet on The Poetry Archive.
Her work is represented in numerous anthologies worldwide and has been translated into several languages.
University Director of the Institute for Gender & Development Studies from 2012-2017, Professor Verene A. Shepherd, is a world-renowned historian, and one of the Caribbean’s pre-eminent scholars and advocates for gender justice, racial equality and non-discrimination, and reparation for the impact of European colonisation on Indigenous Peoples, Africans and people of African and Asian Descent; and the continuing harm of colonialism on African Diaspora communities. She has built her name around years of research and writing on the Caribbean in various areas, specialising in research on migration, human rights and social justice, gender and Jamaican Economic History – guided by the lens of subaltern studies.
In the academic and international space, Professor Shepherd has achieved several firsts: the first Jamaican and CARICOM citizen to be elected to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (of which she is now a Vice-Chair) and the first female to chair the board of trustees of the Jamaica National Heritage Trust. She was also the second woman to be made a professor in the Department of History and Archaeology at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, 40 years apart.
Professor Shepherd is the host of the first-ever dedicated history programme on Jamaican radio, 'Talking History' on Nationwide 90 FM. This programme attempts to bridge the gap between academia and the public, helping to keep Jamaica’s history alive and make it engaging and exciting for students as well as the everyday listener.
Verene Shepherd’s was awarded the Bachelor of Arts (BA) and Master of Philosophy (MPhil) degrees in History from the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus; and the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) in History from the University of Cambridge, United Kingdom. She began her academic career as a social historian in 1988 as a member of the Department of History. She previously worked in the History Department while she was a graduate assistant studying for her Master of Philosophy degree. During her time in the History Department, in addition to being a lecturer for several undergraduate and graduate courses, she served in several capacities, particularly in support of the women’s movement and women’s interests. From 1989 to 1991, she was the Faculty Representative for the Women and Development Studies Group. She would later represent the Faculty of Arts on the Board for Gender and Development from 1996-1998. Shepherd also worked alongside Mrs Linnette Vassell to develop one of the first courses on women and gender in the History Department at The UWI, Mona, titled, 'Women and Gender in the History of the English-speaking Caribbean,' as well to organise the first symposium on women, gender and history in the Caribbean
Influenced by the work of Lucille Mathurin Mair and other gender history scholars, Professor Shepherd has distinctly identified herself with the movement to re-centre women in historical discourses and to work towards clarifying the roots of fractured gender relations in the Caribbean. In 1994, Professor Shepherd published her first academic work, Transients to Settlers: The Experience of Indians in Jamaica, 1845-1950. In 1995, she published Engendering History: Caribbean Women in Historical Perspectives, (co-edited with Barbara Bailey and Bridget Brereton). In all, she has published eighteen authored/co-authored/edited/co-edited books. Some of her academic works target the high school students who take the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC) Secondary School’s examinations, including Liberties Lost: Caribbean Indigenous Societies and Slave Systems (2004) and Freedoms Won: Caribbean Emancipations, Ethnicities and Nationhood (2006). Both books were co-authored with Sir Hilary Beckles, a Barbadian historian and the current Vice-Chancellor of The UWI.
Her other published works, inter alia, include Lucille Mathurin Mair: A Biography (2020); The Gibson Relays: History & Impact on Jamaica’s Sports Culture and Social Development (2017): Engendering Caribbean History: Cross-cultural Perspectives (2011): Livestock, Sugar & Slavery: Contested Terrain in Colonial Jamaica (2009); I Want to Disturb My Neighbour: Lectures on Slavery, Emancipation and Postcolonial Jamaica (2007) and Maharani’s Misery: Narratives of a Passage from India to the Caribbean (2002), among numerous other books, edited collections, journal articles and book chapters. Until recently, Shepherd was Professor of Social History at the UWI, Mona, and University Director of the Regional Institute for Gender and Development Studies, Regional Coordinating Unit. Since 2017 she has been the Director of The UWI’s Centre for Reparation Research.
She is currently one of the three vice-chairs of the CARICOM Reparations Commission. She also formerly served as chair of the Jamaican National Commission on Reparations (NCR) (2012-2016) and co-chair of the NCR (2016-2019). Shepherd has also been a member (2010-2015) and chair (2012-2014) of the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent and previously served as the President of the Association of Caribbean Historians (2006-2009).
Professor Shepherd has been the recipient of several awards and honours including Order of Distinction, Commander Class in 2013, from the Government of Jamaica for her work in History and Gender Studies as well as the Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Public Service, which was awarded to her in 2016. She was also the Saint Mary Homecoming Awardee for 2012 and was one of the recipients of the Kiwanis Women of Excellence Award in 2011. She was also one of the 70+7 Women honoured at the University of the West Indies’ 70th Anniversary celebrations in 2019. As a past recipient of the Cambridge Commonwealth Trust Scholarship, she also carries the title Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society. In 2019 she was made Honorary Fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge.
Lesley-Gail Atkinson is an archaeologist formerly with the Jamaica National Heritage Trust and is an adjunct lecturer at the Edna Manley College of the Visual and Performing Arts.
Sir Philip Sherlock was born at Manchioneal, Portland, on February 25, 1902. He was the son of a Methodist minister, the Reverend Terence Manderson Sherlock and Adina Sherlock. He married Grace Marjorie Verity on December 2, 1942 and together they had three children.
Sir Philip was educated at Calabar High School. He began his teaching career at his alma mater at the age of 17 as a junior master. In 1927, by private study, he gained the degree of Bachelor of Arts from London University, in England, the first achievement in a long and distinguished career in education.
He also taught at Manchester High School for two years, followed by Wolmer’s Boys School in Kingston where he was the headmaster in 1932, making him the youngest in the island at the time.
Philip Sherlock worked for 20 years in the schoolroom before leaving the teaching profession to enter directly into the cultural mainstream of Jamaica. In 1938 he took up an appointment as Secretary of the Institute of Jamaica, the national centre for the promotion of Literature, Arts and Science. His years at the Institute were characterized by his desire to bring the institution to the service of the educational needs of Jamaica. Among his achievements were:
The revival and development of the Science Programme
The development of a lecture hall, art gallery, science museum and archives
The opening of the Junior Centre at East Street in 1940 and a centre in Half-Way-Tree in 1941
Among his many experiments, Sir Philip describes as “the biggest course in education” he ever took was his tenure as Education Officer with the Jamaica Welfare Limited. This was a philanthropic organization he joined in 1945 on the invitation of National Hero, Norman Manley where he was able to work at the grassroots to develop leadership in the community.
His crowning achievement came in 1964 when he succeeded Sir Arthur Lewis as the Vice-Chancellor of the University of the West Indies, having previously served as Pro Vice-Chancellor. Under his brilliant leadership, the UWI grew in importance and prestige, and stands today as his lasting monument. In this capacity, Sir Philip had also brought with him several years of service to an institution that he had served since the time of its inception in 1948. He had been the first Director of Extra Mural Studies, Vice Principal and Acting Principal of the University College of the West Indies as it was called prior to 1962. He was the founding principal of the new campus at St. Augustine, Trinidad, and undertook the establishment of the Faculty of Engineering as well as transformed and incorporated the Imperial College of Tropical Agriculture into that Campus.
Blessed with quiet dignity, wit and easy charm, Philip Sherlock also had the gifts of oratory and poetry, at both of which he excelled. He was internationally recognized as a leading Caribbean scholar, lecturer and author. His interest in the history, literature and folklore of the region made him the author of many publications.
Some of his publications include “West Indian Story”, “Land and People of the West Indies” and “West Indian Folk Tales”. In 1976, he produced “Shout for Freedom”, a poetic tribute to Sam Sharpe, one of Jamaica’s National Heroes. He was also a regular contributor to the Gleaner with his articles of historical and cultural interest.
Sir Philip completed his life of scholarship with the writing of the epic work “The Story of the Jamaican People (1997) which he did in partnership with Dr. Hazel Bennett.
Sir Philip Sherlock died on December 4, 2000 at the age of 98.
Honours and Awards
Pelican Award from the Guild of Graduates of the University of the West Indies, 1991
Order of Merit (O.M.). October 16, 1989. Bestowed on persons who have received international distinction
Government of Venezuela’s Band of Honour of the Order of Andres Bello, in recognition of the success of the Association of Caribbean Universities and Research Institution (UNICA) of which he was the General Secretary, 1978
Honorary degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of Miami, 1971
Commander of the British Empire (C.B.E.), 1956
https://nlj.gov.jm/project/sir-philip-manderson-sherlock-1902-2000/
There is an old Jamaican saying ‘every mickle mek a muckle’. It means every experience – no matter how small – counts, because together they form a greater whole. There is another old Jamaican saying: ‘one one cocoa full basket’ which means that parts of things slowly combined make a whole. Pieces of the Past: A Stroll Down Jamaica’s Memory Lane is as much a combination of both meanings as it is an exploration of a deep-rooted interest in Jamaica’s rich history and culture.
As the title suggests, the stories included in this volume are but pieces of Jamaica’s very rich past. Since all the defining moments of Jamaican history and culture could not be covered, the book brings together interesting people and events from the nation’s past to the general public. Stories range from the strictly historical, such as the founding of the nation’s two political parties, to reminiscences of service in World War II, to the exploration of place names and proverbs.
The book is divided into eight sections namely: Places; People; Cultural Heritage; A Nation Emerges; Trials: Natural and Manmade; Jamaicans Who Served; Famous Visitors; and Things Jamaican. Pieces of the Past is written in a clear and accessible style and is a must for lovers of Jamaican history, and anyone interested in the culture and heritage of the island.
https://ianrandlepublishers.com/product/pieces-of-the-past-a-stroll-down-jamaicas-memory-lane/
