• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

THE House of Assembly Debates (OFFICIAL REPORT) FIRST SESSION 1999 – 2004 HOUSE OF ASSEMBLY Prayers were taken by Canon Father Ivan Harewood. Tuesday, October 17, 2000 Mr. SPEAKER: The House is now in session. Pursuant to the adjournment, the House of Assembly met at 11.15 a.m. on Tuesday, October 17, 2000. MINUTES PRESENT Mr. SPEAKER: The Minutes of Tuesday, October 10, 2000. His Honour I. A. ROETT, B.A., Dip. Ed. (Speaker) Hon. D. A. C. SIMMONS, Q.C., LL.M. (Attorney Hon. D. A. C. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, I beg to General and Minister of Home Affairs) (Leader of the move that the Minutes for the Honourable the House of House) Assembly for its meeting of Tuesday, October 10, 2000, Mr. D. J. H. THOMPSON, LL.B. (Hons.) (Leader of which Minutes have been circulated, be taken as read. the Opposition) Hon. Sir HAROLD St. JOHN, K.A., Q.C., LL.B. Hon. R. N. GREENIDGE: I beg to second that, Sir. Mr. L. R. TULL, Q.C., M.A. (Oxon.) Hon. Miss B. A. MILLER (Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. SPEAKER: If there are no corrections or Minister of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade) observations, then let these Minutes stand confirmed. Mr. G. W. PAYNE, LL.B. Hon. R. N. GREENIDGE, B.A., LL.B. (Minister of Labour, Sports and Public Sector Reform) PAPERS Hon. R. C. EASTMOND, J.P., B.A. (Hons.), Dip. Ed., LL.B. (Hons.), L.E.C. (Minister of the Environment, Energy Hon. Miss. B. A. MILLER: Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am and Natural Resources) commanded to lay the following: Mr. D. CARTER (Chairman of Committees) Hon. G. A. CLARKE, B.Sc., Dip. Ed., J.P. (Minister Barbados Economic and Social Report, 1999. of Housing and Lands) Hon. H. F. LASHLEY, (Minister of Social Hon. D. A. C. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, I am Transformation) commanded to lay the following: Hon. R. St. C. TOPPIN, LL.B. (Minister of Commerce, Consumer Affairs and Business Development) The Annual Report of the Chief Medical Officer for Mr. D. St. E. KELLMAN the years 1997 to 1999. Hon. Miss M. A. MOTTLEY, LL.B. (Minister of Education, Youth Affairs and Culture) On behalf of the Ministry of Public Works & Mr. M. Z. WILLIAMS Transport, I beg to lay the following: Mr. D. T. GILL, B.Sc. Hon. A. P. WOOD, J.P., B.Sc., M.Sc., M.Phil. The Annual Report of the Transport Board for the (Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development) years 1995 to 1996. October 17, 2000 2 ORAL REPLIES TO QUESTIONS publications and photographs of what Bridgetown used to look like a century ago would have some understanding of the importance of Bridgetown as a capital in the many years Hon. D. A. C. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, I am to advise in these centuries before our time. In fact, Mr. Speaker, Sir, that the replies to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 5, 6, 7 and it is fair to say that Bridgetown is one of the oldest cities in 19 are ready. this region and in this hemisphere in which we live. 11.25 a.m. SUSPENSION OF STANDING ORDERS I never tire of making the point in this House and everywhere else that I go and I love to make it in places like Hon. D. A. C. SIMMONS: Mr. Speaker, I beg to Canada and the United States which were settled many years move that the following Standing Orders Nos. 6, 16, 18, 20, after we were settled here in Barbados. They are celebrating 42(5), 43 and 44 be suspended for the balance of today’s bicentenaries. Bridgetown is a city in excess of 360 years sitting. old. Hon. R. N. GREENIDGE: I beg to second that. There was a time when Bridgetown was a thriving and The question was put and resolved in the affirmative vibrant and a lively capital to which people would come. The without division. streets were full of shops. In many years gone by there were hotels, taverns and restaurants partly because in Barbados we Mr. SPEAKER: Government Business is now the order hosted a massive Garrison which was barracked at St. Ann’s of the day. Fort, we now call it the Garrison. That is the genesis of it. GOVERNMENT BUSINESS What is now the Savannah was the parade ground and other activities were carried out there. The old main guard, ORDER NO. 6 – THE PIERHEAD which is sorely in need of restoration, was a focal point at DEVELOPMENT BILL, 2000 those barracks. What is not so properly understood, Mr. Speaker, Sir, is that Barbados also hosted a massive naval Hon. Miss B. A. MILLER: Mr. Speaker, I am delighted installation. In those days travel was by sea. I am talking that the responsibility should fall to me this morning in this about 300 years ago and more. It was in the Caribbean Sea Honourable Chamber to be the person to introduce and pilot that many European inspired battles were fought. this Bill known as the Pierhead Development Bill, 2000. More than 24 years ago when I was a younger, greener, parliamentarian, I spoke to a vision for the restoration and Bridgetown used to be full of soldiers and sailors. From rehabilitation of the City of Bridgetown and I was thought to time to time members of the British Royalty would visit here. be speaking as one who was young and green and did not Sugar was king, in the centuries to which I refer, and there know any better. I took it then that I was young enough to were huge sugar plantations all over Barbados. Unlike Fiji, dream. The late Tom Adams once said to me, “You know Barbados was divided up into massive plantations rather than Billie, in the end, you do what you want to do.” I said to him, small peasant farmer lots. Many of the absentee and resident “Prime Minister, I thought you always understood that.” plantation owners, established town houses in and around Bridgetown and the remnants of those town houses are still to be found on River Road – there is only one left, the old Mr. Speaker, Sir, I am one who believes that God helps Grotto owned by the Channery family. We see that George those who try to help themselves. When I first came as a Street, Pine Road and the area known as Belleville have representative for the City of Bridgetown, I saw Bridgetown undergone radical change moving from residential to holistically, as a City in the full and true sense of the word, commercial in the past 20 years or so and still going in that as an urban development which would have me as its direction. I believe that in the not-too-distant future it will be representative to address, not only the needs and the almost exclusively commercial. priorities of that part of our capital City of Bridgetown where my constituents lived, worked and had their being, but Bridgetown as a capital city. We see, indeed, Bridgetown as a sprawling city. Bridgetown, like London, was not a city set out on a grid, as Mr. Speaker, those who would pursue Robert you would see in Trinidad and Martinique. In any of the Shromberg’s ‘History of Barbados’ and Warren Alleyne’s countries where the French and Spanish were once the writings about Barbados, those who would look at colonial masters, you will notice that the capital cities are set 3 October 17, 2000 out on a grid. There are streets moving north west crossed The slave aspect should not be surprising to anybody. by streets moving east west crossed by streets moving north The slave ships for the most part called here first and then south. It is not so in Bridgetown. slaves were transshipped to other colonies. It has that aspect of its history as well. It was to Bridgetown that sugar came to be shipped when sugar was king. Bridgetown is really a patchwork of villages which somehow grew into the town and the city as we now call it. London was developed in much the same way. Districts like As I was saying about the name, Sir, there was a Chelsea and a whole bunch of other small areas somehow bridge. Ligon text, he describes the area just across National grew together and came to be called the City of London. So Heroes Square as a bog more than a sea. He suggested, way too in Bridgetown districts like the New Orleans, back in 1649, or there about, when he was writing, that if Greenfields, Fontabelle, which was another area where town planners and other such persons were going to plan a middle class Barbadians of two centuries ago lived, even capital city for this island, the last place they would areas like Reed Street, Chapman Street and King Street, normally have looked, would be just where Bridgetown finds those were streets with really nice, typical Barbadian houses itself today. It just so happens that, in the history, that is where the middle class used to live. So Bridgetown was the where the trade began and it used to be called the Bridge. place to come. When the town began to form around it, it came to be called Bridgetown. History books will tell you that this was a town where silks, satin, fine wines and cheeses were to be bought in the Many years ago, some may have heard me say this shops and where people lived the life. Bridgetown was the before but I will say it again for the record, a Major of only capital city outside of Kingston, Jamaica where there Bridgetown, which is a town in Nova Scotia, came to see me.

Load more

  56

Copy Link