Ralph James Woodford

This is the man for whom Woodford Square is named: Sir Ralph James Woodford, Trinidad’s longest-serving British Governor (1784-1828).
Woodford did much for the development of Port-of-Spain and the island, but he also maintained slavery and discrimination against non-white peoples.
He has variously been described as “one of the most progressive Governors” and “a vicious, racist early nineteenth-century leader”.
As Governor, Woodford was responsible for rebuilding the square (known as Brunswick Square) and much of the city after the 1808 fire. He improved trade by introducing a round-island steamer service (1818), initiated land reclamation which changed the Port-of-Spain waterfront (1823), and opened primary schools for elite children (1826).
He also bought the Paradise Estate and Hollandais Estates (1818), the former becoming the Queen’s Park Savannah, the latter to create a new Government House (now known as President’s House), the Botanical Gardens, and St Ann’s.
Both of the current cathedrals in Port-of-Spain have their origins in churches built by Woodford for the Anglican and Roman Catholic communities.
Woodford was also opposed to the abolition of slavery and created a system of institutionalised racism.
He enforced repressive laws against non-whites, created prescriptions against free black people, and sought to prevent marriages between white and black people.
Woodford felt that Trinidad’s free coloureds had too many freedoms, were too rich and too closely ingratiated to white society. He tried to set a legal limit on how much land they could own.
He even promoted the segregation of churches, cemeteries too, not wanting whites to mix with blacks even after death.
In an article published in Newsday on May 3, 2022, Shabaka Kambon, director, Cross Rhodes Freedom Project, said Woodford was the most notorious racist and white supremacist in T&T’s history.
He said, “(Woodford) publicly called on whites in this country to be exceedingly harsh with people of colour, and segregated everything from the pews of the churches to the cemeteries. Blacks and whites were never supposed to be equal or to sit together.
“And the work that Woodford did in his reign as the longest-serving colonial governor still affects the people of T&T up to today.”
Kambon said Woodford was opposed by Fr Francis de Ridder, the first coloured RC priest in this country, who set up the first desegregated primary school and church, in the time of Woodford. But T&T forgot and ignored him.
“The values that he represents we don’t think are worthy to be celebrated publicly. But the man who persecuted him to death, Governor Woodford, the litany of things Woodford did – that man is celebrated over the man who stood up for the values we say we celebrate today.”
Sources:
•National Trust of T&T https://nationaltrust.tt/contested-heritage-at-the-heart.../
•Caribbean History Archives: http://caribbeanhistoryarchives.blogspot.com/.../picton...
•Newsday: https://newsday.co.tt/.../cross-rhodes-freedom-project.../
(Dominic Kalipersad, May 7, 2022)