On this day in 1974, Dame Dr Hilda Louisa Bynoe, Grenada’s Governor from 1968, resigned. Bynoe was a medical doctor who became the first native-born governor of Grenada and female head of state in the region—signalling the changing politics in the region.
She was born in the parish of St David to Louisa and TJ Gibbs. A graduate of the Saint Joseph’s Convent, Bynoe obtained a medical degree from the Royal Free Hospital Medical School, UK in 1951. She practiced medicine in London before returning to the Caribbean in 1953. She took up her appointment as governor of Grenada in 1968.
During the civil unrest in 1973-74, Bynoe was instrumental in appointing the Duffus Commission. On 11 January she offered to resign, but later that day, however, Premier Eric Gairy “dismissed” her for “insubordination.” She officially resigned on 14 January and left Grenada on Bloody Monday for Trinidad where she had a private medical practice until her retirement in 1989. She is the author of I Woke at Dawn, a collection of vignettes, short stories and poems of her life. In 2013 Merle Collins published an official biography, The Governor’s Story. Bynoe died in Trinidad on 6 April 2013, aged 91.
From A-Z of Grenada Heritage by John Angus Martin (Gully Press, Brooklyn, 2022)
Available in Grenada at Art & Soul Books, and online at Amazon.com
