11 Facts About Hugh Wooding

Sir Hugh Olliviere Beresford Wooding was a lawyer and politician from Trinidad and Tobago.

Hugh Wooding was born in Trinidad and Tobago into a family that hailed from Barbados.

Hugh Wooding returned to Trinidad in 1926 and was called to the Bar of Trinidad and Tobago on 5 July 1927.

Hugh Wooding worked all over the Caribbean as well as in Trinidad.

Hugh Wooding became known as "Tiger " from his tenacity in court and would represent poorer people for a minimal fee.

Hugh Wooding was invested with a knighthood in the 1963 New Year Honours and made a member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom in 1966.

Hugh Wooding chaired in 1968 a commission of inquiry into rebellions in Bermuda, concluding that the authors of the uprisings were coloured youth who felt discriminated against by police and felt economically disadvantaged.

From 1941, Hugh Wooding engaged in politics, and in 1943 was elected mayor of Port of Spain.

Hugh Wooding was an active freemason and was involved in the promotion of the arts, as well as supporting, for example, the efforts of cyclists to establish an independent cycling federation.

On 14 January 1928, Wooding married Anne Marie Coussey, a British-educated African from a well-to-do Gold Coast family.

Hugh Wooding had previously been romantically involved with American poet Langston Hughes in Paris, and they had continued a long correspondence until she married Wooding.