Buxton will have a rebirth
Stabroek News
February 12, 2004

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Dear Editor,

In 1876 an Ordinance was passed in British Guiana to the effect that attendance at school should be compulsory up to the age of twelve in the rural areas and fourteen in Georgetown, New Amsterdam and Buxton. Why was the rural village Buxton equated with the two towns?

William Besson, a Trinidadian medical doctor, who was based in Buxton in the 1950s is recorded as saying in a book, Caribbean Reflections: "As a matter of fact Buxton was so well organised that one felt that it was possible for it to be elevated to the status of a town. For example, there were churches of all denominations, Roman Catholic, Anglican and the sectarian denominations..."

Fitzroy Philander, late Buxton Gas Station owner, grew up on nearby Plantation Lusignan.

He said that as a youngster in the 1920s and 30s he enjoyed visiting Buxton. He said that he grew up with an inferiority complex for Buxtonians. "They were an upright, dignified and no-nonsense people.

"They dug their inter-lot drains often. Their clothes were not dried on the grass as in Lusignan but were placed on some well-cultivated black-sage trees, and they went to church and school with passion and regularity."

Yes, there will be the deviants here and there as there are during all depressed eras, but the foundation is there; so believe me, the name of Buxton will rise again.

Yours faithfully,

Wayne Jones