MONTSERRAT-Sir Howard Fergus dies.

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BRADES, Montserrat, CMC Academic, author, and historian, Sir Howard Fergus, who served as acting governor of this British Overseas Territory on numerous occasions, has died. The Government Information Unit has confirmed. He was 85 years- old.

The Unit gave no details regarding his death late Thursday but said “the outstanding citizen.” Still, former government minister Claude Hogan said he “was an international icon rising from humble beginnings in Montserrat.

“May our heart ‘flags’ fly his depth of loyalty, devotion, commitment, dedication, intellect, and wisdom used by him in the founding and fostering of our modern-day Montserrat. It was a quest that took him a lifetime of work on earth as Montserrat was his only home and the University of the West Indies (UWI) his haven. May his Soul Rest in Perpetual Peace,” Hogan wrote on his Facebook page.

“Only very recently, he helped me prepare the annual St Patrick’s Day Lecture of which he was a Founding Father, as he was with so many Montserrat institutions of education, culture, the arts, science, legislation, and history of Montserrat, the region and the world,” Hogan added.

Sir Howard earned a doctorate from UWI in 1978 and retired from the University in 2004 as a Professor of Eastern Caribbean Studies.

He wrote and edited over 14 books, including several works on Montserratian history and society. His scholarly works have been published in several international journals, and he was also an established poet.

Sir Howard won The Caribbean Writer Poetry Prize in 1992 and the David Hough Literary Prize for an author residing in the Caribbean in 2002.

His most important work is the book Montserrat: History of a Caribbean Colony, published in 1994. Copious references to primary sources support that given historical account. It contains chapters on settlement, sugar, slavery, emancipation, cotton, limes and The Montserrat Company, politics, education, and arts and culture.

Fergus wrote the words for the national song of Monsterrat, “Motherland.” He was knighted as a Knight Commander of the Order (KBE) and received the Order of Excellence from the government of Montserrat in 2014.acc

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