Ucill Cam­bridge

Dame Hil­da By­noe, the first na­tive-born gov­er­nor of Grena­da, passed away yes­ter­day morn­ing in Trinidad, af­ter ail­ing since De­cem­ber. She was 91.By­noe was the first woman gov­er­nor in the British Com­mon­wealth and the first na­tive gov­er­nor of Grena­da.Grena­di­an Prime Min­is­ter Kei­th Mitchell has laud­ed her ac­com­plish­ments, call­ing her a "pa­tri­ot­ic Grena­di­an."

Mitchell took time out from a Cab­i­net meet­ing yes­ter­day to speak with the Sun­day Guardian and to send his con­do­lences to the By­noe fam­i­ly, thank­ing them for the time he said they loaned her to Grena­da and the wider Caribbean in ser­vice."Grena­da con­sid­ers the pass­ing of Dame (Hil­da) By­noe as a great loss, not just to Grena­da but to the Caribbean as a whole."He said her love for the cit­i­zens of Grena­da spoke to the "qual­i­ty of per­son" she was.

"She came from a rur­al place and main­tained her love for the peo­ple."He said he al­so ad­mired that she man­aged to main­tain her in­de­pen­dence, say­ing al­though she was ap­point­ed gov­er­nor by the Queen, there were in­stances when she had to re­move her­self from and stand in­de­pen­dent of the very peo­ple who ap­point­ed her, in preser­va­tion of the of­fice.

"Over the years we have been in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion and she would have host­ed me on oc­ca­sions that I vis­it­ed Trinidad. Hers is a dif­fi­cult loss for Grena­da and al­so for the wider Caribbean."Mitchell said his gov­ern­ment was in the mid­dle of bud­get prepa­ra­tions, but if it was at all pos­si­ble he would at­tend the fu­ner­al.Her son Roland By­noe de­scribed her as a "Caribbean woman."

"She was my moth­er and a great woman. Two things she tru­ly loved were Grena­da and my fa­ther (Trinida­di­an Pe­ter By­noe), who passed in 2003. She was a Caribbean woman. She grew up in an era when the uni­ty of the Caribbean was im­por­tant. It was im­por­tant to both her and Dad­dy when the Fed­er­a­tion and then the Lit­tle Eight failed. She in­tro­duced my broth­er (Michael) and me to a lot of Caribbean per­son­al­i­ties. We worked at keep­ing those con­nec­tions and de­vel­oped some of our own.

"She was al­so a strong be­liev­er in fam­i­ly, not just the nu­clear fam­i­ly but the ex­tend­ed fam­i­ly. She will be buried in Trinidad, be­cause she is not leav­ing Dad­dy," he said.

Speak­er Wade Mark, who met By­noe when he at­tend­ed a Com­mon­wealth Par­lia­men­tary Re­gion­al Con­fer­ence in Grena­da in 2001, where women in pol­i­tics were cel­e­brat­ed and By­noe was recog­nised, de­scribed her as "an out­stand­ing fe­male schol­ar in Caribbean pol­i­tics who for a long time had stood in the fore­front of the strug­gle for women's recog­ni­tion in pub­lic af­fairs."He added that she served with dis­tinc­tion and would long be re­mem­bered by the Grena­di­an peo­ple for her self­less ser­vice.

About By­noe

Hil­da By­noe went to Eng­land in 1944 to study med­i­cine and grad­u­at­ed from Lon­don Uni­ver­si­ty's Roy­al Free Hos­pi­tal, then the Lon­don School of Med­i­cine for Women in 1951.

Ac­cord­ing to the Com­mon­wealth Sec­re­tari­at Web site, By­noe's life was to ser­vice in the teach­ing and med­ical pro­fes­sions to fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty. She was ap­point­ed Gov­er­nor of the As­so­ci­at­ed States of Grena­da, Car­ri­a­cou and Pe­tite Mar­tinique 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.

Her book I Woke at Dawn was pub­lished in 1996.