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the stories of our proud and friendly people, our charming and colourful villages, our fascinating ruins, our intriguing rain forests,
and our traditions that span centuries.

Our People

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William Frederick Solomon

 

William Frederick Solomon was born in 1881. Little is known of his youth except that he had learnt the carpenter’s trade and in 1911 he was employed on the construction of the Basseterre Sugar Factory. He was dismissed form that job because of his anti-management attitudes. He had successfully attempted to manufacture and sell soap but eventually went into business as a building contractor and undertaker working out of Liverpool Row. By 1917 he had...

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Bronte Agatha Welsh

 

Bronte Agatha Welsh was born in Challengers Village on the 31st December 1918, the first daughter of Evan and Annie Welsh and the second of their six children.  Evan was a mason and Anne a seamstress so Bronte and her brothers and sisters grew up in a household were industry was highly valued. Her early education took place at a small private school. However, at eight years of age she was enrolled at the Basseterre Girls’...

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William Sendall ('Semblin')

 

William Sendall known as Semblin was born in Africa around the time when the slave trade was abolished. He was apparently captured as a slave around the age of 19. The exact details of his story are unclear but Sendall claimed that he had been born in Guinea, in Africa and that he had been taken along with about three hundred others off a privateer by a British war ship. He and his companions were...

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Our Places

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Challengers

 

Challengers Is a village in the Parish of Trinity. It was a rather small estates on sloping ground that once belonged to John Challenger. Challenger also owned a plantation in the Parish of St. Thomas, called New Invention. In his will he divided his property between his four sons and one daughter. To his son Clement, he left the small property he had in Trinity as well as one thousand pounds and 5 slaves. Clement Challenger...

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Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College

 

THE CUNNINGHAM HOSPITAL was located on the Western side of Basseterre on land that was now occupied by the the Clarence Fitzroy Bryant College and the Public Library. This was not the first hospital on the island. De Poincy had built one soon after his arrival in 1639 but it was destroyed during the wars of the 17th century. Health on the Plantation At a time when the lives of the many were at the mercy of...

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Fort Street

 

  Fort Street 2008 Basseterre was the main town of the French quarters of the island.  Just as Thomas Warner set up wooden forts in Old Road, Pierre Belain D’Esnambuc set up a Fort Pierre in Basseterre.  When Governor Phillippe De Longvillier De Poincy took over the administration of the French Caribbean Islands, he wanted something stronger and more permanent.  It is known that De Poincy took military architecture seriously.  He had books on the subject.  The...

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Our Events

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Treaty of Basseterre 18 June 1981

 

Treaty of Basseterre Historical BackgroundThe idea of unification within the Caribbean region gained the interest of the British Colonial Office in the late nineteenth Century mostly as a colonial administrative device designed to cut the cost of managing the colonies with failing economies and a growing reliance on Britain. The 20th century however saw a growing discontent with regards to the unrepresentative nature of the island governments. In 1914, T. Albert Marryshow of Grenada, founded the Representative...

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Carnival - New Years Day

 

In June 1957 Basil Henderson, Major L.N Alphonso, Tony Lawrence, Leroy Coury, Alexis Knight, E Vanterpool and Al Barker formed a temporary committee entrusted with the planning of St. Kitts’ first Carnival. It was felt that a Carnival along the lines of the Trinidad one would help the economy and give visitors something to look forward to. By the end of that year St. Kitts had its first queen show, Calypso Show and street parade...

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The Fire of Basseterre – 3 July 1867

 

On the night of the 3rd July 1867, one of the worst fires in St. Kitts destroyed the town of Basseterre. It started in an uninhabited house in Reeve Alley just behind the western side of the Pall Mall Square (now Independence Square). That side of the Square was destroyed. The Alley connected the Square and Fort Street and the fire made its way down both sides. The night was a breezy one and the...

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"In this  bright future, you can't forget your past"

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