Governor-General Welcomes Family Of Former Administrator

Basseterre, St. Kitts, March 21, 2023 (ZIZ Newsroom)

On Tuesday Governor-General Her Excellency Dame Marcella Liburd GCMG JP welcomed the daughter of a former administrator of St. Kitts and Nevis.

An administrator was responsible for effecting government policy in the districts and provinces of each territory and Douglas Roy Stewart served in that post from 1931 to 1939.

His granddaughter, Caroline Datsopoulos, paid a courtesy call on the Governor General where she chatted about her grandfather and his work in the country.

She told ZIZ that one of his more notable accomplishments was stabilizing the country’s finances.

“From what I have read he turned around the financial situation when he came here,” she said.  “I think the country was in debt for a few thousand pounds, which was a fortune in those days, and he got it back into the black, back into the positive.  He was very careful with money, he wanted to conserve money so it could be spent on the island for the benefit of island and for improving situations for the people living here.”

She also pointed out that Mr Stewart’s sons had a hand in what would eventually be ZIZ Radio.

“My two uncles, Roderick and Claude Stewart, the sons of Douglas Roy Stewart… they were interested in ham radio and radio communications and they started up this ZIZ, which I believe the name came from the code they were given to be allowed to go on the airwaves. And they started this, I believe there was even a little building up behind, I understand, Government House it started in,” she said.

Douglas Roy Stewart worked out of what is now Government House for 8 years. He died suddenly in February 1939.

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