THE CARIB HOUSE

What has been called “The Carib House,” and which lies on Carib Street in San Fernando, has in fact nothing to do with the Amerindian Caribs. Nor has it anything to do with either the Spaniards or Trinidad’s Spanish days, despite being cited as a Spanish governor’s house in a Trinidad Guardian special edition in 1945 marking the centenary of East Indians arriving in Trinidad.

This structure is one of the best known old houses in San Fernando, with Roman arches that contributed to it being described as a Spanish governor’s house. It was built by Barbadian builder-architect Samuel Edwards Atherley, the man who built the San Fernando Court House in 1874.

The Carib House stands on the northwestern corner of the intersection of Lower Hillside and Carib Street.

Samuel lived in the Carib House with his family until the early years of the 1900s and up to the 1980s two of his daughters were always to be seen looking down from the front gallery of the Carib House.

The last one of these ladies, Daisy, died at age 94 in 1994. Today the structure, once imposing, is in decline.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

THE CHAGUARAMAS CONVENTION CENTRE

What is now the Chaguaramas Convention Centre was built in 1941 as offices for personnel of the United States army who had come to build bases in Trinidad during World War II. The United States technicians, planners, and draughtsmen arrived in Trinidad on December 28, 1940, and shortly afterwards an advance guard of workmen, the CB’s or Construction Brigade, started to build accommodation for them.

The drama had begun since September 1940 when United States President Franklin Delano Roosevelt announced that he had concluded an agreement with the British for the United States government to establish bases in the British Caribbean. Trinidad was to be one of the territories and there was going to be a naval base and air station at Chaguaramas, an army air base not too far from the airport at Piarco, and there was to be Docksite, a dock area for receiving supplies.

The area for the air base was wild and forested at this time, but the Construction Brigade quickly cleared it and the military area was named Fort Read after World War I General Windle Read. The entire area was called Waller Field.

In Chaguaramas, the building now called the Convention Centre went up as the land was being cleared. Incidentally, the United States military had chosen Chaguaramas as a naval base because it possessed a natural deep-water harbour. They sited their administrative offices (the Convention Centre) just in front of this harbour.

There were a few villages in Chaguaramas at the time of the coming of the United States forces and the one nearest to the administrative offices would have been Pointe Gourde. But there was also Tucker Valley, where the Tucker Valley Road began, and of course far to the west there were the villages of Teteron, with a school, and to the north of this, Scotland Bay.However, as the administrative offices were built, all residents of the area, not only in Chaguaramas but the northwest peninsula as a whole, had to leave.

Following the arrival of men and material from the United States, work was started on the Chaguaramas site on March 1, 1941 by some 500 United States workers along with a force of about 5000 local workmen. The base was completed and formally commissioned on August 1, 1941.

The administrative offices were the home of all the personnel of the naval base, men like David Ogden, the district engineer in charge of base construction who gave his name to Camp Ogden; and beside him was Commander C.P. Conrad who was in charge of building the Chaguaramas base.

The governor of Trinidad at the time was Sir Hubert Young, who signed documents and urged the United States military to press on. But Sir Hubert was secretly bitter about the American presence and wrote many documents to the Colonial Office in London criticising them. In the end the governor was recalled.

The administrative offices, the well-loved Convention Centre of today, is a stately wooden building. It was probably the largest wooden building in Trinidad then, perhaps even now. It has hardly been touched so far as alterations or reservations are concerned, and stands as a witness to three Chaguaramases — the wild and green Chaguaramas, beautiful, unspoilt and forested, a peaceful nature reserve; the hectic, giddy, noisy Chaguaramas, the Chaguaramas of jeeps and Mack trucks, of rifle-shots and barges, of yelling and screeching; and the Chaguaramas of today, quiet, basking in decayed splendour, and unsure of itself.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

CHAMPS ELYSÉES

The Trinidad Country Club, which sits upon the property and former estate called Champs Elysées, came into being as a Great House some time after the proclamation of the Cedula of Population for Trinidad in 1783.

The land was granted to Philippe-Rose Roume de St Laurent by the Spanish Government in recognition of his work in devising the “Cédula.” Some sources say that the estate, Champs Elysées, was granted to Roume in 1779 for the work he had done, but in 1779 the Cédula was only an idea in Roume’s head, and in fact, it was only in 1783 that he went to Madrid to see the king of Spain. The king approved of the cédula and proclaimed it in November of that year.

What became well-known as the Trinidad Country Club, a building with an unusual and distinct type of architecture, is believed to have gone up shortly after Roume’s mother got the land. It is known that Roume’s mother, Rose de Gannes, expanded the estate by acquiring five other pieces of property adjoining Champs Elysées. And indeed, the name Champs Elysées seems to have come from Rose herself. She was very enthusiastic about it as “The Elysian Fields,” or “The Heavenly Fields,” which is what the name Champs Elysées implies.

The Great-House also took on the name Champs Elysées. It appears that the first structure caught fire, but when, we do not know. It could hardly have been before the 1800s came in. Parts of the history are sketchy. Although Rose lived on the property and deeply cared for it, the venture did not prosper. Funds for its maintenance were borrowed on mortgage from Jean de Boissiere. There came a period when these funds could not be paid back, and Jean de Boissiere foreclosed on Rose and took the property.

It must have been just before 1816, well into the British days, that the governor, who was Sir Ralph Woodford, saw and liked Champs Elysées House, and wanted to buy it as it was then for sale. Woodford had problems with the then Government House, called Belmont, and wanted to move away. But unfortunately the Treasury had no money with which to make such a purchase and the governor had to let Champs Elysées slip by. Not much that was eventful happened in the course of the 19th century, and the property, Champs Elysées, remained in the hands of the de Boissieres for over a hundred years.

The last of the de Boissieres to live in the great house was Poleska. There is a well known photograph of her, with coach and horses driven by an austere-looking gentleman (with tophat) reputed to be Lebruin Constantine. The time seems to have been the middle 1920s, when Lebruin, then recently retired from cricket, may have been as famous as his son Learie. After Poleska died the property began to disintegrate. Much of the land was sold out in lots.

In 1931, the great house and some acres around it were purchased by Cannings and Company, and a few amenities added, such as a ballroom, a dining room and a swimming pool, and the property turned into the Trinidad Country Club. That was the point at which it began to make its name as the bastion of segregation and race prejudice, perhaps the most disliked venue by the non-white section of Trinidad. In 1955 both the Trinidad Country Club and the Queen’s Park Hotel were purchased by J.B. Fernandes, but as there was no change in policy, it did not quiet the storm.

During the Black Power riots of 1970 the Trinidad Country Club was invaded by demonstrators, yet apart from a great deal of publicity nothing of significance took place.

Today, nearing the end of the first decade of the 21st Century, the storm is over. Still owned by the Fernandes family, the historic Champs Elysées is now a place for all.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

COPPERHOLE - AND THE OLD HOUSE AT MONOS

The old house at Copperhole, Monos was once part of the old whaling station and therefore a place of action during the great whaling days. The name Copperhole is evocative, as “coppers” were those huge pots or cauldrons in which the whales were processed into whale-oil.

The great whaling days in the northern Gulf of Paria are long past, for they stretched from 1880 until just after World War I (1914-1918). But for Copperhole and the old house there are many memories.

So the nostalgia will certainly go back to that period. It may go back even further than that and cross the lives of people like William Morrison, the Scotsman, and his Trinidadian wife and numerous children, who the English writer Charles Kingsley met here on his visit in 1869. Kingsley said of him: “A gallant red-bearded Scotsman with a head and a heart, a handsome Creole wife and lovely brownish children with no more clothes on that they could help. An old sailor and much-wandering Ulysses he is now coast-guardsman, water-bailiff, policeman, practical warden, and indeed practical viceroy of the island and an easy life of it he must have…”

Kingsley served to introduce Morrison to us, the Scotsman who named Scotland Bay, and when Kingsley left nothing more is heard of Morrison, whose name is given to Morrison Bay. Morrison Bay is not far from Copperhole, and the ruins of the Morrison house can still be seen. Could it have been Morrison who was behind the whaling industry? We do not know. All we know is that a little more than 50 years later - in the early 1920s - a certain “Miss Morrison,” undoubtedly one of the brownish children Kingsley referred to in 1869, or maybe a child of one of those children, was offering accommodation at her guesthouse in Monos.

Today there are several Morrisons around, grand-children and great-grand children of William “and his handsome Creole wife.” Do they ever re-visit Monos?

Copyright NALIS, 2010

THE FIRST GOVERNMENT HOUSE IN BRITISH TRINIDAD

The first Government House in British Trinidad lay at the corner of Charlotte Street and King Street (now Independence Square North) and was occupied by the first British Governor of Trinidad, Sir Thomas Picton. It was a house made noteworthy by Picton himself, mainly because of two episodes: firstly, Picton, the most ruthless of the governors, and administering Trinidad shortly after the British conquest, erected gallows in his yard to warn anti-British revolutionaries that the gallows would not rust for want of use. He is said to have carried out summary executions against those just suspected of wanting to overthrow his government.

The other well-known case is that of 14-year-old Luisa Calderón, the companion of someone suspected of having a lot of gold locked in a trunk. Picton, having heard about this trunk, could locate neither the trunk nor the companion, so had St. Hilaire Begorrat, a leading member of his Council of Advice, torture the girl to make her divulge the details.

It was this incident, in fact, which plagued Picton and blighted his life. For at the same time the war between Britain, France and Spain was over and Picton, who was governor from 1797 to 1802, had now to be confirmed in his post. But he was not confirmed on the grounds that there were too many reports against him. Instead his government was placed in Commission, with William Fullarton as First Commissioner, Picton as Second Commissioner, and Commodore Thomas Hood as Third Commissioner. The fact that Fullarton reported him on the torture, which was illegal in British law, and the fact that they quarreled over the matter, made the British government recall Picton. He was tried, and the case took many years, but because of his military valour in the meantime, he was pardoned.

Picton had been recalled from the government in 1803 and the Government House he occupied went to his successor, Sir Thomas Hislop. But this house was destroyed by the Great Fire of 1808 which almost wiped the slate clean for Port-of-Spain. The house was re-built in 1810, according to a plaque it displayed, but at that time it was no longer Government House.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

THE FIRST HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY IN TOBAGO

The first House of Assembly in Tobago was erected in a period when there seemed to be peace at last, following the long, bloody session from the time the island was first settled in 1628 up to the British conquest of 1762.

After the British wrested Tobago from the French in 1762 a large number of settlers from Barbados came to Tobago to make it their home. Even more followed when the Treaty of Paris of 1763 confirmed Tobago as British.

These settlers called the bay “Barbados Bay.” They founded a town near to Lampsinsburgh, headquarters of the defeated Dutch and they called the settlement Georgetown, for the reigning British king, George III.

In October of that year, 1763, Tobago was declared to be an independent and self-governing territory, and a General Council was formed to administer it. Shortly before this council was formed Governor Robert Melville, head of the Grenada government, which now included Tobago, sent Alexander Brown to govern the island. He gave Brown the authority to establish a House of Assembly when he thought fit.

Governor Alexander Brown arrived in the island in November 1764. He saw that Tobago had already been divided into parishes and that a great deal of land had been sold and that the settlers were getting organised. He therefore deemed Tobago ready for a General Council. He selected 11 men to head the Legislative Council and General Assembly.

The Legislative Council and Assembly held its first meeting in Georgetown on April 16 that year, 1764. But matters were still unsettled, especially in the choice of a capital, for the House of Assembly could not be anywhere else. Since the British settlers from Barbados had given the name “Barbados Bay” to the bay where they came in, it was clear they wanted to remain close to the little town of Georgetown, but it seemed that the greater number of them preferred the Dutch-built Lampsinsburgh and wanted to settle in it. Since the Dutch had been defeated, and left, the British settlers even wished to change the name. Some of these settlers might have originally come from Scarorough in Yorkshire, for they changed the name of Lampsinsburgh to Scarborough. The Council and Assembly, which had met at Georgetown in April, 1768 now transferred this body to Scarborough in 1869, thereby making Scarborough the capital of Tobago.

But we have been hearing of the meeting of the Legislative Council and Assembly, but what about the physical House of Assembly? Maybe that could have waited, for there were a lot of other things to do. For instance after Scarborough was made the capital the members of the House of Assembly took steps to ensure its safety from attacks by ordering the building of Fort King George on high ground overlooking the town. They also introduced measures for the functioning and management not only of Scarborough but the whole of Tobago, and of course introduced laws for good governance of the people. This little period seemed to generate optimism for it coincided with an upsurge in the production of the main crops: sugar, rum, indigo, and cotton.

And Scarborough, the old Lampsinsburg, knew a sudden lease of life. It was only a small settlement with few people when the British captured it in 1762. Now it had a bustling population of about three thousand people.

But it did not yet have its House of Assembly. The building was started in 1821, and it was completed in 1825 during the administration of Governor F.P. Robinson. It was originally constructed as a Court House and Public Office, but since its business so much resembled matters pertaining to a House of Assembly, when it was completed it was called the House of Assembly.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

THE FIRST NON-NATIVE BUILDING IN TRINIDAD

When Domingo de Vera assaulted northern Arawak forces in Trinidad in 1592, he sailed up the Caroni in his small craft and he and his men discovered a certain “vega” of the Caroni, which he must have seen as ideal for he did not hesitate to start the founding of a town. He marked out the sites for the buildings no Spanish colonial town could be without, namely, the church, the cabildo, the prison, and the casa real. And what would he call the town? Being St. Joseph’s Day (March 19) he knew it had to be San José, and since he had come to Trinidad to found the settlement in the name of Don Antonio de Berrío y Oruña, he added “Oruña” to the name, making it San José de Oruña.

The first building constructed would have been the church, although nothing is said about the development of the early San José de Oruña. Nine months after its founding, the governor, Antonio de Berrío, appears there. He had asked the King of Spain for the governorship, declaring that he was mounting an expedition to El Dorado and that Trinidad's proximity to El Dorado and its abundance of natives, who would bear the weight of the gold, were important to him. The king appointed him governor forthwith! De Berrío wrote to the King of Spain on New Year’s Day, 1593, saying: “I went to Trinidad as it was of great importance to me to see and examine it. I remained there several days…the land is very productive but the best thing is its nearness to El Dorado.”

Incidentally, at that point the first Casa Real or Government House would have been constructed as the home and office of de Berrío. But de Berrío, far from thinking of an abode, was dreaming of searching for the bright gold of El Dorado in the wilds of Guyana.

For clearly it was this fabled gold that dazzled de Berrío and made him so restless. He never wrote about San José de Oruña itself, and it took one of his rivals, Sir Walter Raleigh to make mention of it. Raleigh had intended to capture de Berrío in order to take revenge on him for a past slight, but the crucial thing for him was to forestall de Berrío’s expedition to El Dorado. When Raleigh’s ship had arrived at Puerto España he sent to call de Berrio, who refused to come. Raleigh then marched to San José de Oruña, with the help and support of thousands of natives who, hollering and shrieking, joined Raleigh and his men. Describing what happened when they arrived at San José de Oruña, Raleigh said: “I set upon the guards in the evening, and having put them to the sword, sent Captain Caulfield onwards with 60 soldiers, and myself followed with 40 more. They abode not any fight after a few shots, and all being dismissed but only de Berrío and his companion, I brought them with me aboard, and at the instance of the Indians, I set their new city of St. Joseph on fire.”

That was the occasion when the first non-native structure in Trinidad was destroyed — not counting the temporary shelters erected by Sedeño and the other few conquistadores that passed along the coast.

All we know of this first Roman Catholic Church of San José de Oruña was that it was a thatched, insubstantial building like all the rest in the settlement, and that it is the site of the present Roman Catholic church of St. Joseph, which was built in 1815.

And of course the Casa Real was the first Government House in Spanish Trinidad.

Source: Discoverie of the Beautiful Province of Guyana by Sir Walter Raleigh

Copyright NALIS, 2010

THE FIRST “REST” HOUSE

Rest Houses in Trinidad (and later, Trinidad and Tobago) came into being in the 1860s and were first conceived as places where government traveling officers might rest when their duties took them to far and remote places. There the officer might spend the night (or nights), have meals, relax and rest, all at government expense. For the officer could not have been expected to have the money deducted from his salary since he had no control of his assignments.

What happened to become the first Rest House was constructed in 1850, when there was no need for rest houses. Chief Surveyor, St. Luce D’Abadie, was constructing a little road to Mayaro when he decided he needed to construct a house of rest for himself when he got somewhere like halfway to Mayaro. On Lord Harris’ direction he began easterly of the old Amerindian mission, still called Mission, and prolonging the 8-mile strip from San Fernando out to the east coast.

He built the house, which was no temporary “hut-like” structure, but a big sturdy building with a gallery, an almost imposing place in the wilderness, made out of the hardwoods of the forests. It was constructed near the banks of a stream Spanish surveyors had called “El Rio Claro”, about half-way along the road referred to as the Mayaro Trace. From there, D’Abadie continued his journey along the Mayaro Trace, a strip of about 30 miles from where he had started extending to Mayaro Beach.

The house was so appealing that those passing along the Mayaro Trace spoke of it, but the first record of someone “resting in it” must have taken place sometime after D’Abadie had departed. For the year was 1870 when two Englishmen knocked at the door. Knocked at the door, yes, for there must have been a care-taker by then.

Knocking at the door was the governor, who at that time was Sir Arthur Hamilton Gordon, and in his company was a man whose name was known here long before he had arrived — the English writer, Charles Kingsley.

Kingsley, who had come to Trinidad to spend the Christmas with Gordon, his boyhood friend, had been returning from a trip to Mayaro along the Mayaro Trace. The men and accompanying party must have been on horse-back of course, for it was the only means of travel, unless one walked. It was a breezy night and Gordon was anxious to show Kingsley the historic Halfway House, still in the wilderness.

The party got to the Halfway House and it must have been its pleasantness that made Kingsley want to spend the night. The moon was up, and through the trees its light was like enchantment. Kingsley was enthused. His words seemed to say he had never seen any place like that.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

THE FOUNTAIN IN WOODFORD SQUARE

The fountain in Woodford Square dates back to 1866 when Gregor Turnbull presented the Borough of Port-of-Spain with this outstanding work of art.

Gregor's firm, located in what is today the Furness Withy building, was one of the successful enterprises of the time. It occupied a much smaller building, though, very much after the size and style of the buildings which remain immediately at the back of the main building on the northern side of Lower Richmond Street.

On receiving the ornate fountain the Borough Fathers installed it in Marine Square, at that point just where Frederick Street led to the Almond Walk — in fact on the spot which the Captain Andrew Cipriani statue occupies today. Thirty years later came the age of the electric tram in Port-of-Spain, and around 1900 the fountain, as beautifully sited as it was, was seen to be blocking an area of crucial tramcar movement, and had to be removed.

It was then placed in Brunswick Square, the name of which changed to “Woodford Square” in 1917.

Gregor Turnbull was a Scotsman who came to this country in 1831, when he was only 22. He came to take up the position as a clerk in a firm called George Reid and Company. Plantation affairs soon occupied his attention as Emancipation came just three years later, and soon afterwards he could have been considered an expert in the field. But despite the fact that he bought two sugar estates, St Helena and Santa Margarita, both in the Naparimas, and later, Brechin Castle, near Couva, he returned to Scotland, where he soon became interested in the ship-building business.

His business flourished. He developed a fleet of ships which enhanced his sugar trade between Britain and Trinidad, and enabled him to transport sugar equipment and machinery for the other estates. He soon dominated the sugar and shipping industries, and by 1845, the year indentureship began, his was the principal name in shipping. His crafts were instrumental in moving indentured immigrants from place to place on coastal estates.

Around the middle of the century he pioneered shipping to the smaller islands such as Grenada and St. Vincent, and later his steamers plied the Gulf of Paria, providing a passenger service from Port-of-Spain down to Icacos.

He was already a greatly esteemed man in Port-of-Spain in 1866, but so great was his own esteem for Port-of-Spain, the springboard to his success, that he presented the borough council with the fountain.

Source: Taken from “Under the Furness Flag,” a Furness Withy magazine

Copyright NALIS, 2010

GRANT MEMORIAL SCHOOL, SAN FERNANDO

Towards the end of July, 1876, one read the following notice in the San Fernando Gazette: “J. Frost Maitland begs to inform the inhabitants of San Fernando and the Naparimas that he has removed to number 52 Coffee Street, lately occupied by the Reverend John Morton as a school house, and is prepared to carry on his business as a cabinet maker.”

This was significant, not because J. Frost Maitland was prepared to carry on his business as a cabinet-maker, but because it meant the beginning of Grant Memorial School.

“Grant” was Kenneth Grant, who, two years after Reverend John Morton was appointed to Trinidad as Canadian Missionary to the East Indians (1868) was brought by Morton to Trinidad to work beside him. When J. Frost Maitland had referred to the premises “lately occupied by the Reverend John Morton as a schoolhouse,” it was really occupied by Reverend Grant to whom Morton had given charge of the Southern Field.

On the removal of Grant’s school from number 52 Coffee Street it went to a building erected only four years before, but already well-known. This building was “Oriental Hall,” and was sited at the corner of Coffee Street and Carib Street, close to the centre of the town.

This building was owned by Dr William Kelaart, and strangely, although Dr Kelaart was known to have strong Presbyterian sympathies, soon after its construction Oriental Hall became known as a home of whe whe, a form of gambling then very much prohibited in San Fernando.

But whe whe in Oriental Hall could not have been with the blessing of Dr Kelaart!

In July 1876, when Reverend Grant moved out of 52 Coffee Street and went to “Oriental Hall” whe whe did not stop, but neither did he. Despite occasional police raids on Oriental Hall, Grant struggled hard to establish and expand his school.

Grant School remained in Oriental Hall and prospered and must go down as the first significant school left behind by Reverend Grant. For although Reverend Grant’s work in education was spectacular — his having founded institutions like Naparima College and Naparima Girl’s High School, these emerged many decades after his arrival here in 1870. Grant School, or to give it its proper name today, Grant Memorial School, has become one of the most vibrant and celebrated schools, because of Grant’s initial work and inspiration. The other remarkable thing about it is that it occupies the same site today as it did when it moved out of number 52 Coffee Street in 1876.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

THE HALL

The Hall was where the eminent Charles William Warner brought up his family, and where his two boys, Pelham, who became Sir Pelham, and Aucher, who followed in his father’s footsteps, saw the start of distinguished careers.

Charles William Warner built that house in 1873, and at the time “The Hall” was regarded as the most splendid home south of the Queen’s Park Savannah. Pelham, who was born in that very year, 1873, and who is generally regarded as the father of West Indies Cricket, wrote in his memoirs of playing cricket with his brother along the marble halls of the mansion. “The Hall” and its grounds took up the entire block, bounded on the north by what is now Keate Street, but which did not exist until the early years of the 1900s; on the south there is Barrack Street, named for British Army barracks where the hospital is now, and the roadway came straight from the barracks.

In 1902 the name Barrack Street was changed to Gordon Street (after Governor Arthur Gordon). On the east, it was bounded by a footpath, which was an extension of Abercromby Street to the Queen’s Park Savannah, and which now takes the name of Abercromby; and on the west by Chancery Lane. On those grounds, comprising several acres, Charles William Warner had one of Trinidad’s first swimming pools and a boat pond where the children sailed their boats. He also had a lovely garden.

What featured the house was a large and impressive hall downstairs, and this may have inspired the name.

In 1886, with his children growing up, Charles William Warner sold “The Hall” to Carlos Siegert, one of the proprietors of the Angostura Bitters concern. The other two Siegerts who had bought the firm from Angostura in Venezuela (1875) and who ran the business were Luis and Alfredo. Carlos kept up the beauty of his house, and it came into the 20th century as one of the most splendorous homes in Port-of-Spain.

In 1903 Carlos died, followed by Luis in 1905, and the house fell to Alfredo. Alfredo might not have been as astute as the other two, and he took a series of financial risks. In 1911 financial constraints forced him to sell Woodbrook Estate, which he and his brothers had bought in 1899. He sold it to the Port-of-Spain’s Town Board, but this was no solution. Financial chaos continued. When he died in 1919 there were not enough assets to settle his debts and his creditors sold “The Hall” as a result. Then came the man of the moment, Bishop Arthur Henry Anstey, who was at the time looking around for a place to start a high school to educate Anglican girls. Bishop Anstey, who came to Trinidad from England in 1918, started his high school in 1920 in All Saints Memorial Hall, Marli Street, Port-of-Spain. Hearing of “The Hall,” then empty, he moved swiftly and obtained it, and he moved his high school there on January 13, 1921.

It is still there. Of course little of the old stately mansion of the Warners is in evidence. Until lately one could still have glimpsed the stables and other things that reminded of the 19th century days. There is still a little. A few years ago a new Bishop Anstey structure was started, and this grand building, a mansion in itself, was officially handed over on St. Hilary’s Day in 2004. That day, 13th January, recalls the day Bishop Anstey High School was established in 1921. The school officially moved into the new building a week later.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

HANUMAN HOUSE AT CHAGUANAS 

One might well call Hanuman House the Vidya Naipaul House for it is his association with this house that has made it famous. One is not sure when this house was built, and it is a fact that the writer never lived in it, except for a brief period as a child. The house belonged to his uncle and he frequented it. Yet the fact that it was in his family, and that he knew it from both without and within, makes it culturally important. And of course the most important thing about it is that it has figured in one of Naipaul most famous works, A House for Mr Biswas. These connections with Naipaul have given it the stature of a monument.

But the Hanuman House is not only to be written about, it is to be seen. To see it, go to the Borough of Chaguanas. Whether you come from Toco, Diego Martin, Princes Town, or Icacos, or even from abroad, Chaguanas is one of the most accessible places. From north or south the Solomon Hochoy highway leads to it. At the Chaguanas fly-over take the Chaguanas Main Road and go westerly. It will not be long before the Hanuman House comes into view. It is called “Hanuman” because of the Hindu motif for Hanuman, which is on this house, but it is also known as the Lion House, because of the lion sculpture upon it.

Copyright NALIS, 2010

THE HOUSE IN THE BOTANIC GARDENS

One of the finest structures to go up in the second half of the 19th century went up in the Royal Botanical Gardens in Port-of-Spain, and the ceremony for the laying of its foundation stone took place on the 24th July, 1873.

The ceremony united certain leading personalities, for it was not an easy period in Trinidad. It was a time when the cry for reform had become shrill and desperate but it was not the same sort of reform that came to issue later, it was reform involving the Anglicans and the Catholics.

The governor of the day was Sir James Robert Longden (1870-1874), and Longden must have upset the secretary of state for the colonies by deciding that if the governor before him, Sir Arthur Gordon, did not mind living in a little cottage, he, Longden, had to insist on having something worthy of a governor. The treasury was said to be empty but Longden felt it would never be full enough to do what was necessary. Having moved into Gordon’s Cottage in 1870, by 1873 he was having the Foundation Stone laid for the first Government House in Trinidad that in his mind fitted the status of a governor.

The first Government House was in an upstairs apartment on King and Charlotte streets, where Picton lived. Then there were Hislop’s quarters, burnt out by the fire of 1808; then there was the ramshackle and leaking Belmont House, near to the Queen’s Park, and then there were those two cottages in the Botanic Gardens, the earlier one the seat of Governor Woodford, the other, the seat of Governor Gordon.

Now there was going to be a true and dignified Government House.

The site was not far from Gordon’s Cottage, nor from St Ann’s Cottage, where Ralph Woodford had resided. Just that it was deeper in the Botanic Gardens, and was going to be a lot more palatial and was going to occupy a lot more space than the former cottages.

The laying of the Foundation Stone by Longden provided one of the truly glittering ceremonies of the time, and it was interesting for bringing together powerful men who walked in obliquely opposite paths. For example, there was the eminent Sir Louis de Verteuil, leader of the Roman Catholics, and therefore leader of the majority French-speaking population, and there was the arch-Anglican Attorney-General, Charles Warner, his bitter political foe. Also in the gathering was the controversial police chief, historian, and supporter of the English faction, Lionel Mordaunt Fraser.

Longden encased in the Foundation Stone, amongst other articles, every contemporary coin of the realm, and a scroll with the words: God Save the Queen. He had the building designed in the shape of an “L” for Longden, and very much looked forward to the completion of this new home. But unfortunately for him his five-year term ended long before the building was ready, and the governor who got the prize of this delightful residence was Sir Henry Turner Irving, who arrived in Trinidad on December 19, 1874.

Irving moved into the grand palatial building at Easter in 1876, shortly after the building was opened to the public.

The building is of the style associated with Indian Colonial official buildings and was designed by an architect called Ferguson. There is a western wing, a central block, and an eastern wing with a stone parapet. In architectural terms the western wing has a hipped roof, a feature of the central block is its gabled roofs, with dormers, and the eastern wing, tower-like, has a stone parapet. Slate is used for the roofs.

Perhaps the pride of this house is its grand staircase, and then there is the long room (just called the Long Room), and there is the Great Hall, often used for receptions.

Twenty-two British governors entered this house, but W.W. Cairns, who spent just a few months here in 1874, and Sir Frederick Barley, who died shortly after his arrival here in 1884 and was replaced briefly by Sir Arthur Havelock in 1885 — these three governors, Cairns, Barlee and Havelock, are usually “forgotten.”

Copyright NALIS, 2010