Prime Minister Dr. Denzil L. Douglas and Premier of Nevis, the Joseph Parry will join platoons from the Royal St. Christopher and Nevis Police Force and the St. Kitts-Nevis Defence Force at the funeral service at the Spring Gardens Moravian Church on Friday, 4th March, 2011.
Sir Fred, the first black Administrator and Governor of St Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla, died at his Hodges Bay home, Antigua on February 21, at the age of 92.
A Special Sitting of the High Court will be convened on Thursday, the day before the funeral, when lawyers and members of the legal fraternity will pay tribute to Sir Fred, a barrister-at-law and Queen’s Counsel who practiced in Civil Litigation, Contract Law, Banking and Constitutional Law.
Sir Fred’s body will lie in repose at Government House for public viewing from noon on Friday, before being taken to Spring Gardens on St John’s Street for the 2 pm Service of Thanksgiving.
Antigua’s Bishop Kingsley Lewis will present the sermon while the service will be officiated by Reverend Dr. George Mulrain, Connexional President of the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and the Americas. The lessons will be read by Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister Dr. Baldwin Spencer and Archbishop Orland Lindsay.
Sir Fred will be interred at St John’s Public Cemetery. Sir Fred will be accorded a three-volley gun salute at the interment.
The late Sir Fred Phillips is perhaps best known to the public because he was the first Black man since the English took control of St. Kitts in 1650 to be appointed Administrator and then Governor of what was then known as St. Kitts-Nevis-Anguilla from 1967-1969
(Parts of this article were written with content submitted in a CUOPM press release)