British Windward Islands

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British Windward Islands
British colony
1833 – 1958

Coat of arms of Windward Islands

Coat of arms

Motto
I pede fausto
Anthem
God Save the Queen
Capital St. George's¹
Language(s) English
Government Constitutional monarchy
Monarch
 - 1952-1960 (last) Elizabeth II
Governor
 - 1958-1960 (last) Sir Colville Deverell
History
 - Established 1833
 - Federation 1871
 - Barbados left 1885
 - Tobago left 1889
 - Dominica joined 1940
 - West Indies Federation 1958
 - Federation dissolved May 31, 1962
¹ Bridgetown was the capital before 1885

The British Windward Islands was a British colony existing between 1833 and 1960 and consisting of the islands of Grenada, St Lucia, Saint Vincent, the Grenadines, Barbados (seat of the governor to 1885, when it became a separate colony), Tobago (to 1889 when it was joined to Trinidad), and Dominica (from 1940, when it was transferred from the British Leeward Islands to the Windward Islands).

The colony was known as the Federal Colony of the Windward Islands from 1871 to June 1956, and then as the Territory of the Windward Islands to its dissolution in 1960.

Its capital was Saint George's on Grenada (originally Bridgetown on Barbados, 1871-1885). They were not a single colony, but a confederation of separate colonies with a common governor-in-chief, while each island retained its own institutions, and they had neither legislature, laws, revenue nor tariff in common. There was, however, a common court of appeal for the group as well as for Barbados, composed of the chief justices of the respective islands, and there was also a common audit system, while the islands unite in maintaining certain institutions of general utility.

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