Memoirs of a Caribbean Lawyer: The Autobiography of Lewis Stephenson Hunte, QC

By Lewis Stephenson Hunte QC

The life and times of Barbados born lawyer, Lewis Stephenson Hunte, Q.C., from his ancestral background to the pinnacle of his career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Oct 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543943245

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Copyright © 2018 by Lewis S. Hunte, QC

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Print ISBN: 978-1-54394-323-8

To my dear mother, Myrtle Hunte, that wonderful and resourceful lady. Without her love, support, and parental guidance this book would never have been written. And to my wife, Sheila, and family, whose love and dedication have been a constant source of inspiration.

Chapters

FOREWORD

PREFACE

I. MY ANCESTRY

II. THE FORMATIVE YEARS

III. SECONDARY SCHOOL DAYS

IV. FIRST TASTE OF THE WORLD OF WORK

V. AN EARLY TASTE OF THE LAW COURTS

VI. STUDENT DAYS IN LONDON

VII. RETURN TO BARBADOS

VIII. JAMAICA LEGAL SERVICE

IX. MAGISTERIAL APPOINTMENT IN BARBADOS

X. THE MAKING OF A LEGISLATIVE DRAFTSMAN

XI. COPING WITH POLITICS

AND CIVIL SERVICE ATTITUDES

XII. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE VIRGIN ISLANDS

XIII. ILLEGAL FISHING IN BVI WATERS

AND COURTROOM DRAMA

XIV. THE INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

COMPANIES ACT OF THE BRITISH VIRGIN ISLANDS

XV. FROM THE PUBLIC BAR TO PRIVATE PRACTICE

XVI. REFLECTIONS

EPILOGUE

FOREWORD

In many ways this work is much more than a recount of the life of the author. It is equally applicable to those of us who grew up in the Caribbean after emancipation, the generation that laid the building blocks of our countries for the independence movement that swept through the region in the 1960s.

Barbadians, in their National Pledge, promise to do credit to their country wherever they go. Mr. Hunte has travelled widely and, in addition to Barbados, has worked in the UK, Jamaica, Canada and the British Virgin Islands, having also acted as a High Court Judge in the Eastern Caribbean.

I have known Lewis Hunte since his boyhood, even before I was his Sunday school teacher. My reading of this work has taken me back in time and, naturally, it has provided me with many fond memories.

In the following pages the reader is presented with a vivid picture of country life in Barbados in the 1940s and ‘50s and of the discipline that was expected and enforced in the home and at school. He speaks of the cooperation that generally existed between the school and the home and the benefit that accrued to the child as a result of that cooperation, some of which is sadly lacking today.

We are given a glimpse of the effect of the plantation system as well as the enduring effect of the religious denominations on the educational and social life of Barbados. Throughout this journey, Lewis shows the work ethic that was instilled in us from childhood. He reminds us that each stage of one’s life is necessarily the foundation or launching pad for the next stage and that cheating one’s employer inflicts more lasting damage to the cheat than to the cheated.

The reader will also get a glimpse of the administration of justice and how our court system functions, as well as a picture of life at the public and the private Bar.

Mr. Hunte, in this work, gives a concise history of the famous International Business Companies Act of the British Virgin Islands in Chapter XIV, which should be of assistance to those scholars who wish to engage in research of the history of the financial services industry in the Caribbean.

Finally, let me say how honoured I am to have been asked to write this foreword. I trust that the reader will derive as much pleasure from reading the book as I have.

E F Belgrave, GCMG, KA, CHB, QC

Government House, Barbados

2017

PREFACE

The primary purpose of this book is to give an account of the life and times of the author. However, the reader is also provided with a picture of what village life and school life in rural Barbados were like during the late 1940s through the early 1960s. It also touches on the pernicious plantation system and the positive effect of the Anglican Church on education in Barbados, although it was the Moravians who built the first schools there, followed by the Methodists. It is to be emphasized that it was never the intention of the author to state in any detail the enduring influence of those institutions on Barbadian life. Any mention of them is merely to place what is being said in a proper context or setting.

The rest of the book is what a boxing announcer would describe as a blow-by-blow account of the author’s progress through elementary school; high school; the Teaching Service; the Civil Service; the Inns of Court in England; the legal services of Barbados, Jamaica, and the British Virgin Islands; and, finally, into private practice, with the occasional pause to note the landmarks he left behind him.

For the student and the researcher, a full and accurate account of the history of the International Business Companies Act of the BVI is given in Chapter XIV. This story is being told, as no other person will ever be able to tell it. It has been recounted in great detail as some persons, in attempting to write the history of this landmark piece of legislation, have twisted the facts and have thus rendered themselves ‘twistorians’ rather than historians! They have not done so with any mischievous intention; they simply did not know and it is time that the facts be published.

In the course of writing, I made an attempt to do justice to three Barbadians: AW Harper, a former lay magistrate, Sir William Douglas, a former Chief Justice, and Mr. George Moe QC, who at various times was a Senator in Barbados, Chief Justice of Belize, a Justice of Appeal of the Eastern Caribbean Court, and a Justice of Appeal in Barbados.

Very little is remembered today of AW Harper who, in my view, gave yeoman service to his country as a magistrate.

Sir William Douglas has always been considered a very controversial figure and many will be surprised to learn that there was another side to the man, different than what is widely spoken of him.

George Moe was as kind and magnanimous a man as there ever has been, but he, too, was largely misunderstood. In this connection, one will recall the famous words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: … Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and every pure and wise spirit that took flesh.

Thanks are due to my wife, Sheila, for her suggestion that I leave a record of my life and work for posterity and for encouraging me to try to finish these memoirs; to my children, Lesley Roberts, Ed. D and Laura Arthur, J.D., and to my brother Clyde, BBA who, along with my wife Sheila, RN offered much constructive criticism of the text.

I express gratitude also to my friend His Excellency, Sir Elliott Belgrave, former Governor General of Barbados, for graciously consenting to write the foreword to these memoirs.

Not to be forgotten is my editor, Ms. Rose Schreier, who performed an excellent task in editing this work.

And, of course, thanks are due to my dear mother to whom this book is dedicated.

Lewis S Hunte, QC

Hunte & Co. Law Chambers

British Virgin Islands

2018

I.

MY ANCESTRY

The British slave trade was legally abolished in the year 1807 by an Act of the British Parliament. Nevertheless, slavery continued in the British Empire until its formal abolition in the year 1834. In spite of the abolition of the slave trade, however, illicit slave trading continued.

There is, on the north-eastern coast of Barbados, a steep point called Pico Tenerife (pronounced Pico Tenerey by the locals who live in the area). It is named after Tenerife, one of the Canary Islands. Near to Pico Tenerife is a rocky inlet called Grant’s Bay, where the waves break violently against the rocks during high tide and in bad weather.

I frequently visited Grant’s Bay when I was a boy, and I was accustomed to hearing locals refer to a particular area of the Bay as the shipwreck or behind the beam. It never occurred to me at the time, though, to make any inquiries into the origin of those names—only much later in life did I learn that a ship was, indeed, once flung against that rocky shore. No captain would be foolish enough to attempt to bring a vessel ashore on the north-eastern part of Barbados; therefore, considering that the wreck occurred during the early 1830s, it is most likely that it was caused by the powerful hurricane of 1831 that devastated Barbados. That ship was a slave ship.

There was a single survivor from the wreck. He was an African. This sole survivor was rescued by the grandparents of my maternal grandmother. He was clothed and taken to live with them. There is no known record of the name of that survivor or of the names of his rescuers, but the rescued man demonstrated his gratitude by marrying one of their daughters.

Area of the shipwreck at Grant’s Bay

One of sons of the union bore the name Wellington Hurley. He was the father of my maternal grandmother, who was born on 26 January 1877 and died in November 1969. I, myself, never met Wellington Hurley, but some of my older siblings did. Although his name was Wellington, he was popularly known as Bubba. My mother, uncles, and aunts spoke fondly of Grand Bubba; but even then, I did not realise that Bubba was an African name.

It was when I was a student in London, during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s in the United States, that a Nigerian student by the name of Nicholas Udochi and I were discussing Malcolm X. The discussion was centred on the issue of surnames and the reason why black persons from British colonies bore English surnames, those from French colonies bore French surnames, those from Dutch colonies bore Dutch surnames and those from the Spanish and Portuguese colonies also bore the names of the colonizers. Incidentally, I mentioned the name Bubba. Udochi, with a startled look said, Lewis, that name is African!

The expression of Udochi’s face as he uttered those words piqued my curiosity. I then mentioned that my grandmother and great aunts were not addressed by their English names. My grandmother’s sisters and brother referred to her as Nawya even though the name on her birth and baptismal certificates was Helena. Her youngest sister was never referred to as Miriam, which was her first name—instead, everyone called her Tutu. Their brother, Thomas was known Tomtom. My Nigerian friend insisted that those were all African names and, thereafter, I began to ponder.

Later, when I heard of Bishop Desmond Tutu, the name was no longer new to me. My eyes became wide open, and I realized for the first time that my ancestor who was rescued from the waves in one way complied with colonial law by allowing his children and grandchildren to be given colonial names; but in another way, defied colonial law and custom by causing them to be addressed by their African names that we wrongly—and ignorantly—came to regard as strange nicknames. Unfortunately, that proud tradition seemed to have died with my great-great-grandfather because, after his grandchildren, none of his descendants were thenceforth known by African names.

Just imagine how easily that portion of my ancestral history could have faded into oblivion if I did not have that impromptu chat with Nick Udochi. Coincidentally, the middle name of my second daughter is Serwa, which is an African name meaning noble woman.

I did not know my father’s parents; they passed away before I was born. Consequently, I do not know any part of our African heritage passed on by his ancestors. Undoubtedly, there are many other families of African descent who have stories such as mine to relate and they should record them before they are lost.

My ancestors from my maternal grandfather’s side were of a different hue. They were descendants of a Spaniard by the name of Lopez, sometimes written Lopey, but they all originated from the same ancestry. It is only a style of handwriting that caused the letter z to be mistaken for the letter y, thus causing some of them to bear the name Lopey instead of Lopez.

The original Lopez is said to have been excommunicated by the Pope. He sailed from Spain during one of the later voyages of Columbus, which suggests that he could have been one of the Protestant supporters of Martin Luther during the Reformation Period—which most likely resulted in expulsion from Spain, as the Spanish Monarchy supported the Pope. Whatever the reason, he came to the Caribbean with Columbus and remained in the Caribbean. This bit of family history is obscure and it is unclear how Lopez came to live in Barbados, as Barbados was never settled by the Spanish.

The arrival of Mr Lopez (or Mr and Mrs Lopez) in Barbados would have occurred after the British colonized the island, since prior to that colonization it was completely uninhabited save for an abundance of wild pigs left behind by Portuguese explorers who visited the island in 1536. Barbados lies east of the island chain and so the Portuguese most likely stumbled on it on their way to or from Brazil, the fourth largest country in the world and their only colony on the South American continent. They, like the Spanish, were not interested in colonizing the smaller islands of the Caribbean.

The mother of my maternal grandfather was Georgiana Boyce. Her maiden name was Lopey or Lopez, acquiring the surname Boyce through her marriage to Joseph William Boyce Sr. on 29 June, 1880. Although I never met either of them, I often heard my mother speak of Grand Georgie, and judging from the fair complexion of the Boyce and Lopey side of the family, it was obvious that neither Grand Georgie nor her husband was of pure African descent, but rather of a European-African mix. One of their sons, Joseph William Boyce Jr married Helena Jane Nawya Hurley. My mother was their fourth child.

Grand Georgie’s brother, William Augustus Lopey, who was my grandfather’s uncle and a witness to his sister’s marriage in 1880, married Clara Greaves. That union produced one child, William Marcus Lopey, MBE, MA, who became the legendary principal of the St Vincent Grammar School.

Those earlier generations perpetuated certain names: William Marcus Lopey named his son Nathaniel Augustus and one of his daughters Clara. Nathaniel, affectionately called Nat, became a family physician but died in Atlanta, Georgia of a heart attack during the 1990’s while dancing with his wife. At the time of writing, his widow is still alive.

My ancestry, therefore, represents a merging of two cultures that seemed to have gelled well, considering the era during which the marriages took place.

II.

THE FORMATIVE YEARS

Mount Stepney, St. Andrew is a quaint country village in the northeastern part of Barbados. Bordering the village of Boscobel in the northern parish of St. Peter, it is situated on a terrace that affords a wonderful view of the picturesque east coast of the island: from Pico Tenerife in the northeast, where the parishes of St. Lucy, St., Peter and St. Andrew are said to meet each other, to Ragged Point in St. Philip in the southeast, where the second oldest of the four lighthouses in Barbados is located. It is in this village that my parents, Joseph and Myrtle Hunte, reared their ten children, eight boys and two girls.

View of the East Coast of Barbados

from Mount Stepney

Our nearest schools were Boscobel Boys’ School and Boscobel Girls’ School, in the parish of St Peter. Those schools were amalgamated and renamed Boscobel Primary School, now the Elliott Belgrave Primary School. They were the institutions at which we received our early childhood education. All of the children from the Mount and Boscobel walked to school. Travel on foot was safe at any hour of the day or night; there was no fear of attack by anyone. There was, however, always a fear of being late for school, as tardiness nearly always resulted in punishment.

The principal of Boscobel Boys’ was Mr. J K P Riley. Over six feet tall, Mr. Riley was the tallest person in the school and even on the hottest of days he wore a dark pinstriped three-piece suit or a plain dark three-piece suit and a grey felt hat. He was never seen clad in anything other than a three-piece suit, even when he was at home on weekends. His stature and attire easily distinguished him from other members of the staff, and any visitor to the school knew immediately who the principal was. Everyone feared Mr. Riley, including staff members, while he himself feared no one. He placed great emphasis on discipline, punctuality and the ‘three Rs’ (reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic ).

Every pupil stood erect and spoke correct English when addressing Mr. Riley, or any other teacher for that matter. Every pupil also spoke proper English when Mr. Riley was around, regardless of whether that pupil was at play or casually addressing another pupil. If, in the course of playing a game of marbles, you found that your playmate suddenly stopped using the local slang and spoke proper English, you could be sure that Mr. Riley was nearby and a quick glance about you would soon confirm it.

Mr. Riley was truly monarch of all he surveyed. When he referred to Boscobel Boys’ School as MY SCHOOL, it was obvious from the tone of his voice that he meant every word he said. His principle instrument of correction was the tamarind rod, and he was never sparing in the use of it. Because of this, some of the boys referred to him as Wackford Squeers, a reference to that fearsome headmaster in the Charles Dickens novel Nicholas Nickleby. In many ways, there was some resemblance between Mr. Riley and Mr. Squeers, given the way in which they dealt with their pupils—except that Mr. Riley’s spelling was impeccable and his grammar was above reproach.

Not only did the children of Boscobel Boys’ and Boscobel Girls’ walk to school, there was no canteen at either school. Only a handful of children brought their lunch to school; the vast majority, including the Huntes, went home daily for lunch and had to return in an hour’s time for the resumption of school. Mr. Riley himself lived on the premises and so did the principal of the girls’ school. Unlike today, there was no need for the posting of security guards at the schools. Moreover, the school premises were completely unenclosed. The community was a disciplined one, and any act of vandalism would have been regarded as an act of sacrilege. All pupils wore caps to school, as parents did not allow their children to travel bareheaded in the hot tropical sun. In Barbados, situated approximately 14 degrees north of the equator, the sun is hot all year round; the months June through October being the hottest months of the year. There was a large cap rack in the school where children hung their caps. Sometimes a child took the wrong cap because of how closely many of the caps resembled each other.

One afternoon, a clever youngster was late in returning from lunch. He knew that if he was seen with his cap, everyone would immediately know that he was late and that he would certainly have felt the smart of Mr. Riley’s tamarind rod. He immediately hit upon what he considered a brilliant idea: if he could dispose of his cap by tossing it through the window and pretend that he had left his class for a drink of water, he would escape the consequences of being tardy.

With this plan in mind, he crept up to the school building where the children had already settled down to their lessons and threw his cap through the window—except immediately, the cap returned through the window at twice the speed it went in! Unfortunately for the young rascal but to the extreme amusement of everyone else, a gust of wind caused the cap to land on Mr. Riley’s desk, where he happened to be sitting at that very moment. You can easily imagine what happened after that. Mr. Riley, in true Wackford Squeers style, simply taught that miscreant to be more clever the next time.

* * *

Our parents, cousins, aunts, and grandparents were staunch Anglicans. St. Philip-The-Less Anglican Church was our regular place of worship. It is situated midway between the Mount and Boscobel, on the main road to Boscobel. Like all churches in Barbados at the time, it was open daily for public or private prayer. No security was needed, as a church building was regarded by all as a sacred place.

St. Philip-The-Less Anglican Church

St. Philip-The-Less was consecrated in 1861 by Bishop Thomas Parry, the second Anglican Bishop of Barbados. The cornerstone was provided by my great-grandfather, Wellington ‘Bubba’ Hurley, the father of my maternal grandmother. My brother Leroy and I sang in the choir, although as 11 and 13-year-old boys, respectively, we had no knowledge of the history of the building. St. Philip-The-Less was one of the historic edifices in the area; the others were St. Nicholas Abbey, the Rectory, where the Anglican priest lived, and the two elementary schools.

My father seldom attended church, though he was a firm believer in the Almighty. Our mother’s father did not often attend church either, although the priest used to visit our grandmother regularly and administer Holy Communion to her. Blindness, as a result of glaucoma, had confined her to her house for as long as I had known her, but she was a regular worshipper at St. Philip-The-Less for as long as she was able to attend.

On one occasion, the priest summoned the courage to ask our grandfather why he did not come to church even though all of the rest of his family did. Our grandfather, a man of great wit and humor, retorted that the priest did not go to church either. The priest, startled by that reply, sought to know what it meant, whereupon our grandfather said: You see, the congregation goes to church but you, the priest, go to work. Needless to say, the topic of the conversation then changed abruptly.

My father was employed by the Government of Barbados in the Department of Highways and Transport, as it was then known. Highways and Transport was abbreviated with the letters H & T, which were cynically termed Hell and Torment. After our father’s retirement, the Department of H & T fell under