The Development of the City Council and some Events, Port-of-Spain, 1840s-1900s

Port-of-Spain in the latter half of the 19th century, from about the 1840s to the 1900s, was becoming a prosperous town. 

Map of 1837

The business sector was located along the northern and southern sides of Marine Square (today Independence Square) from the foot of Picadilly Street in the east to the St. Vincent Street wharf in the west, with lower Frederick Street partially occupied with retail establishments. 

The colony’s economy was based on agriculture, and its principal exports were cocoa and sugar. There were the expected vicissitudes in the prices of these but, notwithstanding, the export-import businesses thrived. There were dozens of well-established merchant houses. There was the Colonial Bank (ancestor of today’s Republic Bank) ten or twelve steamship agencies, several insurance companies and  many well-appointed hotels. Interestingly, the first school of Port-of-Spain was the Mico Institution. It was one of the 300 “normal” schools established in the Caribbean during the post-Emancipation era. Beginning in 1835 elementary schools were established in the British Colonies in the West Indies, by the Lady Mico Charity. The building is still in existence, on the right hand side of Pembroke Street, just up from Knox Street. The first secondary school was founded in Port-of-Spain in 1836 by the Little Sisters of the Order of St. Joseph de Cluny, St Joseph’s Convent, a school for girls.

The first inland Postal Service came into being in 1851. The Meat Market was on Charlotte St. and the Central Market just behind it on George Street.

The tram on Marine Square crossing Henry Street.

THE TOWN COUNCIL 

1840-1853

The town had not merely grown since the disastrous fire of 1808, but had actually flourished, as the foundation for its development and management had been put into place in 1840 with an Ordinance for ‘regulating the powers and constitution, and settling the mode of election of the members of the Corporate Body called the ‘Illustrious Cabildo’ of the town of Port-of-Spain, and changing the name thereof to that of the ‘Town Council of Port-of-Spain’. On the 6th June, 1840, the new Council met for the first time.

Modernity was in the air when the first cargo of ice arrived on Boxing Day 1844, and large crowds went to see ice for the first time being delivered to the Ice House on Marine Square. 

Port-of-Spain’s growth also created the opening up of new residential neighbourhoods such as New Town. New homes, large and small, were built on streets named in the memory of past governors Woodford and Picton, and of colonial administrators Charles Warner, Attorney General, and Edward Marli. 

The Port of Port-of-Spain handled some 28,001 hogsheads, 3,157 tierces and 7,65 barrels of sugar amoun ting to 67,542,660 lbs; 10,709 puncheons, of 110 gallons each, and 121 tierces of molasses; 5,008,920 lbs of cocoa; 74,416 lbs of coffee; and also small quantities of cotton and indigo. The total value of these exports was £390,009. Imports amounted to £548,471, while the revenue of the colony was £95,733 and the expenditure £106,316. This was one of our earliest recorded budget deficits. (A tierce is an old measure of capacity equivalent to one third of a pipe, or 42 wine gallons.)

Trinidad’s first trial by jury took place in December of 1844. It was a matter of receiving goods under false pretences–an offence hitherto not punishable under Spanish Law. The jury, after retiring for a few minutes, returned an unanimous verdict of guilty and the guilty party received a sentence of twelve months. 

1845 saw the Cocorite Leper Asylum opened and a petition praying for direct representation of the people in the Legislature was addressed to Her Majesty Queen Victoria. Also in that year the first East Indians arrived on the Fatel Rozak. Later that year an earthquake caused the bells of Trinity Church to ring at 12.40 p.m. It was the 6th of September.

On the 1st of October, 1849, the Port-of-Spain Gazette reported that “a considerable crowd composing people of the lowest order assembled in front of the Government Buildings” (today the Red House). They were protesting a clause in the gaol regulations which, among other things, provided that debtors should have their hair cropped close, and wear a prison dress, and assist in gaol work. It soon became apparent that the police could not control the increasingly hostile crowd. The Riot Act was read, the order to fire was given, four of the five muskets were discharged, and four persons fell wounded, two of whom later died. Governor Lord Harris called in the 88th Regiment and a company of the 2nd West India Regiment. With the aid of some six hundred special constables and a volunteer horse patrol of seventy strong, they were soon able to restore order in the town. 

The first system of primary education in Trinidad emerged in 1851 when Lord Harris, having established the Wards system across the island, called on each Warden to open at least one school. The first Ward schools were established in districts around Port-of-Spain. 

The mid-19th century saw some dangerous health threats to the population of Port-of-Spain. In the 1850s the population of Port-of-Spain was 18,501. An outbreak of Asiatic cholera in the months of August to October 1854 affected some 4,200 people or almost 25 percent of the city’s population. The deaths from cholera were 2,112. In the space of nine weeks from the 13th of August to the 27th of October, 57 percent of the infected populace died.

The young ladies of St. Joseph’s Convent circa 1880s.

The convent admitted girls from various backgrounds 

including those from distinguished coloured families 

such as the Philip of Philipine Estate, the Romain, 

Rosseau and Dick families of the Naparimas.

St. Joseph’s Convent circa 1880s was the home 

 the d’Heureaux family of 18 Kent Street. 

THE BOROUGH COUNCIL

1853-1898

The population of the colony in 1853 was estimated at 76,500. The Town Councillors presented a petition to the Governor-in-Council (Lord Harris) praying for a new constitution based on the same principles as those embodied in the English Municipality Corporation Acts. This was granted, and by Ordinance No. 10 of 1853, which provided for the ‘’Regulation of Municipal Corporations in the Island,’’ the name ‘Town Council’ was changed into that of the ‘Borough Council of Port-of-Spain.’ 

The new Council met on 31st August, 1853, with Louis A. A. de Verteuil, M.D., as Port-of-Spain’s first Mayor (De Verteuil Street in Woodbrock is named in his honour). 

Michael Maxwell Philip returned to Trinidad on the 2nd of January 1855 to practice at the local bar, he became the first Mayor of Port-of-Spain who was not of European descent, 1867-1870. He was Solicitor-General, 1871-1888 and acted as Attorney-General in 1873 and in 1885. Maxwell Philip Street in St. Clair is named for him. 

Secondary education for boys commenced in 1859 when the  Queen’s Collegiate School was started, and in 1863 St. Mary’s Collage opened its doors.

Under the auspices of the new Borough Council a lecture on “Electricity and Magnetism”, a novel topic at that time, was delivered by Mr. Humphrey at the Town Hall.  The Race Stand on the Queen’s Park Savannah was built and the Port-of-Spain Water Works inaugurated to bring water to the town from the Maraval Reservoir. A system of sewerage for Port-of-Spain was commenced but not completed, only one district being connected with pipes. 

To deal with perennial flooding of the town during the rainy season the Wharf Extension project was commenced to counteract the heavy silting along the Port-of-Spain seashore. It was completed under the direction of Mr. Sylvester Devenish. Flooding is a problem in Port-of-Spain that somehow has never been solved! 

The fountain in Brunswick (Woodford) Square was presented to the municipality of Port-of-Spain by Gregor Turnbull in March of 1865. At its inauguration, the Creole Band performed under the auspices of Leon D. O’Connor, then Mayor of Port-of-Spain. A street in Woodbrock is named for him. The 1880s saw the City’s carnival celebrations turn riotous resulting in almost all the oil lit street lanterns being broken.

Mr. and Mrs Guppy, of Queen’s Park West going out for a drive. 

Robert Lechmere Guppy sent specimens of this local species

 from Trinidad to the Natural History Museum in London, 

where the fish were named in his honour. 

The little fishes are called “millions” in Trinidad,

and made us famous in the world along with 

Angostura Bitters and the Pitch Lake.

THE TOWN COMMISSIONERS

1899–1907   

On 18th January, 1899 as the outcome of a long controversy between the Council and the Government, Ordinance No. 1 of 1899 was passed in London abolishing the Borough Council of Port-of-Spain, and substituting it with a new corporation under the name of the ‘’Town Commissioners,” the four members of which were all nominated by the governor, Sir Hubert Jerningham, K.C.M.G. Jerningham Avenue is named in his honour. 

The railway, which first made its appearance in 1846, was in 1876 extended to include Arima, followed by a tram service in Port-of-Spain that made its appearance in 1883. Modernity was in the air, or should I say in the ear as the first telephone rang in the city in 1885.

The original Town Hall building on Knox Street 

was once the home of Don Ramon Garcia LL.B., died 1869, 

father of the Hon. George Garcia, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, 

Puisne Judge & acting Chief Justice (served from 1849-1874) &

 grandfather of Hon. George Lewis Garcia, Solicitor General, 

Attorney-General (served from 1888-1897). 

It once contained a private chapel.

THE TOWN BOARD

1907–1914

On 1st of May, 1907, the then three local authorities of Port-of-Spain, viz: The Town Commissioners, the Water Authority and the Sewerage Board, were by the Port-of-Spain Town Board Ordinance 1907, merged into one body known as “The Port-of-Spain Town Board,” also a wholly nominated Corporation. At an Extraordinary Meeting of the Legislature held on 22nd August, 1913, the governor, Sir George Le Hunte laid on the table a dispatch, No. 286 of 29th July 1913, from the Secretary of State for the Colonies, approving of the resolution passed by the Legislature on 25th June previously to the effect that the nominated system be gradually superseded by some measure of election of members by the rate-payers; and the governor then announced the appointment by him of a committee of sixteen members to consider the details of the proposed change in the construction of the Town Board.

CONSTITUTION OF THE CITY

By the Port-of-Spain Corporation Ordinance, No. 24 of 1914, (now Chap. 224 of the Revised Edition of the Laws of Trinidad and Tobago), Port-of-Spain is constituted a Municipal “City,” and its inhabitants are declared to be a body corporate under the title of The Mayor, Aldermen and Citizens of the City of Port-of-Spain.”

This group, comprising members of the City Council in the 1930s, 
include at least six ex-mayors of Port-of-Spain: 
Enrique Prada (front row in dark suit. On his left is Audrey Jeffers), 
Garnet McCarthy (front row, third from right, white suit), 
Gaston Johnson (front row, second from right), 
George Cabral (second row, second from left), 
T.P. Achong (second row, third from left), 
Captain Andrew Cipriani (second row, extreme right), 
Victor Gormandy (tall man far right). 
Among others shown here are: 
A.P.T. Ambard, Charles Lastique, Murchison Rigsby, 
Leo Pujadas, H.A. de Freitas, and L.B. Thomas.

The Educator

by Jean de Boissiere

When Ferdinand de Lesseps retreated from the swamps of Panama among his engineers was a young French Creole who was a wizard at Mathematics.

This young Martiniquan, Raoul Boulanger, looked at a splendid future when he had joined de Lesseps who was then planning to repeat his triumph over Suez at Panama. He had emerged from his studies at the Sorbonne covered with honours. His tutors had begged the young Boulanger and his father to abandon the idea of engineering and let the scholar continue his work  in pure science.

But the father had already formed connections with de Lesseps and saw success for his son only in terms of money. The salary offered at Panama would make anyone rich who worked on the canal for the duration of its construction. All Raoul could hope for in the musty corridors of a university was honour. And that kind of honour did not stand very high in the scale of human values with the late 19th century businessmen of the West Indies.

Panama was very different from his native Martinique with its cool towering mountains swept with the Atlantic tradewinds. Here it was dull swamps infested with fever and crocodiles. All enthusiasm and faith he had arrived with soon disappeared in the fight against disease.

For relief from the dreadful monotony he and his fellow engineers turned to the hectic pleasures of the Panamanian cabarets. Here he met a dusky brown girl called Carilla by everyone because her laughter had the clear simple tones of a bell. Night after night he forgot de Lesseps’ canal and the terrifying loneliness in her gay company.

Then he fell a victim to the fever that was strewing corpses from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Carilla left her cabaret to nurse him. For weeks she looked after him with the care that will defeat a disease where the finest doctor has failed.

As he convalesced, he grew very attached to her. Before he left the hospital he married her because of the gratitude he felt for her for having saved his life, fully aware that he could never take her among his own people to Martinique, who possessed all the negrophobia of the white peoples of that time. He planned on staying on in Panama when the canal was finished.

Circumstances however, worked against the project as a whole. Boulanger went to Trinidad. On his arrival here he sought a job in his profession, and found that all the engineering being done in the place was the construction of roads. He was told by the administration here that they had all the qualified English engineers they had use for.

He decided to go back to France. But he had not enough money to do so. To make it he began giving lessons to college boys in the evening. He had such a success with his pupils, that within six months every ambitious father in the island wanted Boulanger to take his son as a pupil. Unable to have them all in the evenings, he opened a full-time school.

There was a rush of boys from the Roman Catholic College to come to his school. To offset this there began a whispering campaign against him. It was said that his pretty wife corrupted the morals of the boys, and that he taught them atheism.

Boulanger paid no attention to the tales and depended on his high standard of teaching mathematics to bring him pupils. Apparently, that was the proper technique for dealing with the ‘mauvais langue’. If you ignored it, the public did likewise; if you engaged it, you set a thousand more in motion instantly.

He gave up all idea of going to France and settled permanently in Trinidad. Pupils came to him all over the Caribbean from Venezuela, Columbia and every West Indian island. Boulanger's school became the West Indian prelude to the European education of any young man who was going there to take a profession.

From the spacious courtyard all the boys streamed into the old Spanish building. On the two sides of the hall were the classrooms. The desks looked as if they had been salvaged from a fire. By comparison, the old bentwood chairs looked new. When they were all seated, the aging Frenchman came into the classroom. Slightly hunched, with a greasy flannel suit hanging on the thin frame of his body, he shuffled in with his two feet pointing at right angles.

As he lifted his head to greet them with a "Bonjour!" the deep blue eyes shot forth shafts of an intense light. When he began the day's works by asking them for their homework ,a light cynical look played over his face.

"Carlos, where is that equation I gave you to do?" he demanded of an indolent Venezuelan pupil whose father was the dictator of an area larger than Great Britain. He had been sent here to study morals rather than mathematics. But was incapable of either.

"I did it but I cannot find it." Carlos lied.

"Did you?" Boulanger hissed as he always did when in a French rage. "Well you are a thief who steals the rotten money your brigand father gives me to pretend that you will learn anything, Blockhead! Canaille!"

With a shrug of contempt he turned to the next boy. Their work collected, he gave them a few minutes of conversation while he prepared the day's lesson.

'The preen-ceeple--" he began in his halting English when suddenly he stopped. Over the tops of his glass he was glaring at a fat boy of 14 in an open-collared sport shirt.

' Lou—ees," he hissed. "What do you mean by coming into my classroom with all your fat lee-tle breasts showing like that, huh? Go home and put on your brassieres before you put all the boys in my class in a grand chaleur." Louis, mortified, went into the hall and buttoned his shirt collar.

Episodes like that made the boys more attentive than ever.

Next to mathematics, Boulanger's favourite subject was philosophy. With the philosophy he handed out pure 19th century atheism to the pupils, and made an agnostic out of many a good son of a devout Roman Catholic.

One day in the midst of talk on Voltaire he began one of his usual tirades about the superstitions of the very religious people of Trinidad.

"The poor fools, they believe that by wearing holes in their stockings, kneeling before plaster images they will cure all their ills. Idiots - if they used their pennies to buy food instead of candles, they would not meet with hell so quickly!"

He shouted.

"The dam foo-"

At this point there was a knock at the door. "Entrez!" called Mr. Boulanger with a snap. The door opened and a humble black-robed priest entered the room.

"Good morning, Father. What can I do for you?" Boulanger asked sheepishly.

“A list, Mr. Boulanger. To help with the building of the new wing of the Cathedral." the priest said supplicantly. "We hope you will put something."

"But certainly, Father," the educator said, delving his hand in his pocket and extracting two dollars.

Before Boulanger had time to return to Voltaire after the priest had departed, one of pupils took a swift opportunity to take advantage of the difficult position he had the old Frenchman in.

"But Mr. Boulanger,” he launched off, "just a few minutes ago, you were telling us what fools people were to give priests money, and the first one that walks into your school, you give him two dollars."

"You imbecile!" screamed the annoyed man. "It is to keep ignorant savages like you from chopping off my head that I pay that blackmailer to keep you in the ignorance you were born."

With this delivered, he turned to Voltaire with added vigour.

When the prescribed school hours were over, Boulanger would sit in his court yard with his brightest pupils grouped around him. While his mulatto grandchildren crawled and bawled at his feet, he would talk, and the most gifted educator in Trinidad never lacked for pupils who sat enthralled while he spoke of  history, mathematics and philosophy in the brilliant clear sentences that would be impressed upon them profoundly.

As the years went on, he taught generation after generation. At 80, his capacity for teaching was as great as it had been when he first arrived in Trinidad nearly 50 years before. But while the soul of the school; his teaching remained at its high level: its body declined.

His school was the most famous in the West Indies, and he always had more pupils than he could house. He placed more importance on a pupil who could learn well than one who could pay well. This kind of economic pressure drove him from bad to worse. At the age of 80, he was teaching in a four-room shack that housed his pupils, his numerous descendants and himself.

And when Raoul Boulanger, who had given the whole Caribbean some of its finest doctors, engineers and teachers, died, 20- odd children and grandchildren of every hue and shade were all that followed the mortal remains of the finest educator of the West Indies to their resting place.”

José Dessources, most likely subject of this essay was one of the great educators of a bygone time. In his wake came Randolf Allan Young, Mr. de Four and E. Blizzard, to name a few who maintained the high tradition of teaching as a calling in Trinidad and Tobago.