Port of Spain.
Dame Hilda Bynoe, Grenada’s first -ever native head of state has died in Trinidad after a prolonged illness, at the age of 91.
“Grenada considers the passing of Dame Hilda as a great loss, not just to Grenada but to the Caribbean as a whole. She came from a rural place and maintained her love for the people,” said Prime Minister Dr Keith Mitchell.
Her son Roland Bynoe described her as a “Caribbean woman. She grew up in an era when the unity of the Caribbean was important”.
The first few years of her adulthood were spent as a Teacher at the St. Joseph's Convent in San Fernando and at Bishop's Anstey High School in Port of Spain, Trinidad, as a Science Student; and afterwards at her Alma Mater as a Teacher.
In 1944 she left for Europe to study Medicine and graduated from London University, Royal Free Hospital, then the London School of Medicine for Women in 1951. While still a student, she met and married Peter Bynoe, a Trinidadian, R.A.F. Officer and student of Architecture; and it was there that her two sons Roland and Michael were born.
The Bynoes returned to the West Indies in 1953 and Dr. Hilda Bynoe served in various disciplines of Medicine in Guyana and in Trinidad and Tobago for the next fifteen years.
She was appointed Governor of the Associated States of Grenada, Carriacou and Petite Martinique when it gained associated statehood status from Britain in 1968 and was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in 1969.
In 1974 she returned to Trinidad to resume her medical practice and her community service. In 1990, she retired to continue her writing and to assist in the care of her grandchildren.
She remained a patron of organisations that included the Caribbean College of Family Physicians, the John Hayes Memorial Kidney Foundation and the Caribbean Women’s Association. She was also a member of the academic board of St George’s University, Grenada.
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