Richard Lord

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says the Gov­ern­ment has agreed to "en­dow the Sir El­lis Clarke Chair in Com­mon­wealth, Par­lia­men­tary and Con­sti­tu­tion­al Stud­ies" at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, in his ho­n­our. Per­sad-Bisses­sar made the rev­e­la­tion while pay­ing trib­ute to Sir El­lis dur­ing yes­ter­day's state fu­ner­al for the for­mer T&T pres­i­dent at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA) in Port- of- Spain yes­ter­day.

Sir El­lis was lat­er buried at the Lapey­rouse ceme­tery in Port-of-Spain, af­ter a mil­i­tary pro­ces­sion along the streets of Port- of- Spain. Af­ter a 21-gun salute, the body was tak­en on a gun car­riage to the ceme­tery for bur­ial. The cas­ket was low­ered in the grave short­ly af­ter 3 o'clock yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. Per­sad-Bisses­sar, who was dressed in a fash­ion­able black en­sem­ble, said the de­ci­sion to es­tab­lish the chair was reached hours be­fore yes­ter­day's fu­ner­al ser­vice for Sir El­lis.

She said as Prime Min­is­ter and cur­rent chair of the Com­mon­wealth, she was "deeply con­scious on a per­son­al ba­sis of his vast con­tri­bu­tion to T&T and the Com­mon­wealth, par­tic­u­lar­ly in mat­ters re­lat­ing to con­sti­tu­tion­al re­form." Sir El­lis died on De­cem­ber 30, two days af­ter cel­e­brat­ing his 93rd birth­day. He nev­er re­cov­ered from a mas­sive stroke he suf­fered on No­vem­ber 24. "The chair will be a ma­jor cen­tre of learn­ing avail­able to, and serv­ing not on­ly T&T, but the en­tire Com­mon­wealth as well as stu­dents of con­sti­tu­tion­al stud­ies all over the world," the PM said.

Among the list of dig­ni­taries who at­tend­ed the state fu­ner­al were Pres­i­dent George Maxwell Richards, Chief Jus­tice Ivor Archie, cab­i­net min­is­ters, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, House Speak­er Wade Mark, Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Tim­o­thy Hamel-Smith, the on­ly sur­viv­ing for­mer Pres­i­dent Arthur NR Robin­son and the Gov­er­nor Gen­er­al of Grena­da Sir Car­lyle Glean. Sev­er­al school­child­ren and mem­bers of the pub­lic were al­so in at­ten­dance. The PM said based on the de­ci­sion to es­tab­lish the chair, "the pi­o­neer­ing work of Sir El­lis will be brought to bear on fu­ture gen­er­a­tions.

"This en­dow­ment will not on­ly ho­n­our his work in a ma­jor field of gov­ern­ment en­deav­our, but his lega­cy will con­tin­ue to ben­e­fit stu­dents, re­searchers and schol­ars from all over the world in a field of study that was lit­er­al­ly his pas­sion," she added. And Pe­ter Clarke, son of the late Sir El­lis, wel­comed the trib­ute.

"It is a fit­ting trib­ute to Sir El­lis," Clarke said in a brief com­ment.

Prin­ci­pal of the St Au­gus­tine cam­pus of the UWI, Prof Clement Sankat, said the ho­n­our was "a fit­ting trib­ute to Sir El­lis." He said the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to name an en­dowed chair at the UWI was an ex­treme­ly fit­ting trib­ute. "With this chair, the uni­ver­si­ty it­self will have a clear fo­cus on mat­ters per­tain­ing to con­sti­tu­tion­al law, con­sti­tu­tion­al is­sues and be able to sup­port think­ing and thought on our Gov­ern­ment and our coun­try," Sankat said.