The Unit­ed Work­ers Par­ty mourns the loss of an icon­ic St Lu­cian cit­i­zen, Wil­fred St Clair-Daniel, who served as the Speak­er of the House of As­sem­bly for 27 years, mak­ing him the longest to serve in the po­si­tion of House Speak­er to date. St Clair-Daniel was first elect­ed to the po­si­tion of Speak­er in 1967, on the rec­om­men­da­tion of the for­mer pre­mier of St Lu­cia, the late Sir John G M Comp­ton, and served con­tin­u­ous­ly un­til 1979.

Due to the sur­prise de­feat of the Unit­ed Work­ers Par­ty at the polls in 1979, a new SLP ad­min­is­tra­tion un­der Sir Al­lan Louis took the reigns of pow­er, which re­sult­ed in a new Speak­er be­ing elect­ed. Af­ter three dis­as­trous years of gov­er­nance, the Labour Ad­min­is­tra­tion of 1979 even­tu­al­ly fell apart, thus paving the way for gen­er­al elec­tions in 1982.

To no sur­prise, the Unit­ed Work­ers Par­ty was re­turned to pow­er and Sir John G M Comp­ton once again sworn-in as Prime Min­is­ter, and again St Clair-Daniel was re­turned as Speak­er of the House of As­sem­bly, where he then served for 15 years end­ing in 1997. St Clair-Daniel was born in June 1923 and was ed­u­cat­ed at the Methodist Pri­ma­ry School and lat­er at the Cas­tries In­ter­me­di­ate School.

Up­on leav­ing school he worked as a teacher and dur­ing the Sec­ond World War he served at the head­quar­ters of the Wind­ward Is­lands Gar­ri­son of the South Caribbean Force, to which in 1945 he was award­ed the War Medal. St Clair-Daniel al­so worked in the Cu­ra­cao in the oil in­dus­try with the Shell Oil Com­pa­ny for four years, but he was bet­ter known for his ca­reer in jour­nal­ism.

He start­ed out as the as­sis­tant ed­i­tor at the Voice Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny of St Lu­cia in 1952 and was lat­er pro­mot­ed to the pres­ti­gious post of ed­i­tor in 1962, where he served un­til 1969. St Clair-Daniel was al­so a found­ing mem­ber of the Peo­ples Pro­gres­sive Par­ty (PPP) along with the likes of the late Sir George Mal­let, Her­man Mc­Vain and Hunter J Fran­cois.

In 1957, he un­suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the Anse-La-Raye/Ca­naries seat against the SLP's Mar­tin Jn Bap­tiste. De­spite not win­ning a seat as a mem­ber of the PPP, St Clair-Daniel was of­ten ad­mired for his po­lit­i­cal plat­form per­for­mance at pub­lic meet­ings. Ac­cord­ing to his friend and for­mer col­league, Ira D'Au­vergne, "Crowds would gath­er just to hear St Clair speak.

This man was fas­ci­nat­ing. Just a fan­tas­tic speak­er!" This de­scrip­tion by Ira D'Au­vergne may have no doubt have been the im­pres­sion al­so left on Sir John Comp­ton by St Clair-Daniel's speak­ing skills, pos­si­bly lead­ing to Sir John's de­ci­sion to nom­i­nate him to the post of Speak­er.

But as it stands now, this is just mere spec­u­la­tion. Ira D'Au­vergne al­so opined that to date, no one has ever come near the lev­el of St Clair- Daniel's abil­i­ty as Speak­er of the House of As­sem­bly. "He served with ho­n­our, dig­ni­ty, ex­cel­lence and above all else im­par­tial­i­ty."

Aside from pol­i­tics, St Clair- Daniel served on the Saint Lu­cia Tourist Board for 18 years, in­clud­ing one term as its Chair­man; he al­so served as Chair­man of the East­ern Caribbean Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion from 1974- 1979, and as Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion. St Clair-Daniel was a found­ing mem­ber of the Ar­chae­o­log­i­cal and His­tor­i­cal So­ci­ety, in which he served as its Pres­i­dent.

A Found­ing mem­ber and vice pres­i­dent of the St Lu­cia Na­tion­al Trust, Chair­man of the Boys' Brigade Is­land Coun­cil and Chair­man of the St John Coun­cil of St Lu­cia. In his pri­vate life, he was a de­vout Methodist and served for many years as a Lay preach­er. He re­ceived sev­er­al dec­o­ra­tions dur­ing his life of ser­vice, in­clud­ing the Com­man­der of the British Em­pire and Com­man­der of the Or­der of St John.

Above all else, the Unit­ed Work­ers Par­ty will great­ly miss Wil­fred St Clair-Daniel, and look for­ward to more young peo­ple fill­ing the void left by the pass­ing of these icon­ic Saint Lu­cians. May he rest in peace!