…in celebration of Georgetown’s 175th Anniversary

THE Mayor and City Council (M&CC) on Monday unveiled a commemorative stamp to mark the 175th Anniversary of Georgetown’s elevation from the status of a Town to a City.
The launching of the stamp seeks to remind the populace of all of the contributions of the “city fathers and mothers,” and their collective efforts over the years which have resulted in the growth and development of Georgetown.

Those who attended the ceremony at City Hall included Minister of Public Telecommunications Catherine Hughes, Georgetown Mayor Patricia Chase-Greene, Acting Town Clerk Sharon Harry, and Post Mistress General Karen Brown.

Speaking about the design of the new stamp which goes on sale at all post offices in Guyana on October 30, the Mayor explained that the four images depict historical landmarks representative of old and new Georgetown and is representative of the country’s people, various cultures and historical development.

Chase-Green offered that with the many plans on the table, she is looking forward to the time when the cleanliness, neatness and greatness of Georgetown are restored.

Minister Hughes, in her speech, recalled that earlier this month, the Guyana Post Office Corporation and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs unveiled a special commemorative stamp to observe 50 years of strong bilateral and diplomatic relations with neighbouring Brazil.
She observed that City Hall has hosted several activities to mark Georgetown’s 175th birthday as the commercial and financial center of Guyana; the seat of government; and at the last population census in 2016, the home of approximately 200,500 residents.

The Minister, in seeking to provide a glimpse back in time, related that Georgetown began as a small town in the 18th Century, a period when the French, Dutch, Spanish and British fought among themselves for possession of newly discovered territories in the West Indies, South America, East Asia, and even Australia. Guyana’s boundaries were not officially demarcated at that time until 1899.

This territory, according to Hughes, had separate colonies here, and the Demerara-Essequibo colony was first owned by the Dutch. When the colony was captured by the British in 1781, Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Kingston chose the mouth of the Demerara River to establish a town with boundaries between Plantation Werk-en-Rust and Plantation Vlissengen.

It was the French who made it a capital city when they captured it from Colonel Robert Kingston in 1782, just one year after he won the land in a battle for Britain. The Dutch got it back two years later and re-named it Stabroek after Nicolaas Geelvinck, Lord of Stabroek, and he was President of the Dutch West India shipping Company.
Over time, the boundaries of the capital city expanded to include Eve Leary in the North, and Le Repentir in the South.

The town was renamed Georgetown on April 29, 1812 in honour of King George III of England. “Today, we have a City Council but in the 19th Century, the governing body of Georgetown was a Board of Police with members selected by the governor and the Court of Policy. The Commissary of Police did not have a role on the Board of Police. The Board of Police was eventually abolished and an ordinance was passed to establish a Mayor and Town Council,” Hughes informed.

Georgetown was officially recognised as a City on August 24, 1842 during the reign of Queen Victoria. She was the granddaughter of King George after whom the city was named.

“You would notice that the names of the city’s wards and streets reflect the past presence of the Dutch, the French and the English who were the administrators of the town at different periods,” Hughes said.

She noted that since its beginnings 175 years ago, the boundaries of Georgetown have expanded on three of four boundaries. The fourth boundary is the Demerara River. Greater Georgetown was added with new wards laid out in a similar box pattern. These included Bel Air Park, Gardens and Springs; Lamaha Gardens and Subryanville; Turkeyen, Liliendaal, and Ogle.

South Georgetown incorporated communities to the east and south of Werk-en-Rust which included the Ruimveldt wards, Roxanne Burnham Gardens, Albouystown, Houston and Agricola.

The Garden City
Minister Hughes recalled that Georgetown was once called “The Garden City of the Caribbean”, and was glorified by tourists and the Caribbean because of its neatness; its cleanliness; the wide canals; double carriage-ways, and brightly flowering trees on nicely landscaped parapets.

“Those canals were built about three centuries ago by the Dutch to drain rainfall off the land, but several of them were filled in during the last century to function as avenues between double carriageways like Waterloo St. and Camp St.

“I have found out that much of the Tourism literature produced all over the world still list the Stabroek Market as a “sight to see”… Both the nation and the diaspora have been begging for that structure (Market) and this structure (City Hall), as well as the environs around one of our other attractions, Parliament Buildings, to be restored to their former pristine condition.”

The minister assured that the restoration of the Stabroek Market is underway, along with repairs to City Hall. “We owe it to ourselves, to our children, and to this nation that we love, to play the small roles that each of us have as citizens have, to bring Georgetown back, and our old nickname – The Garden City,” she charged.