Languages English 1958–1960 (last) Sir Colville Deverell Area 2,100 km² Date dissolved 1958 | 1952–1960 (last) Elizabeth II Established 1833 Founded 1833 | |
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Capital Bridgetown (1871–1885)
St George's (1885–1958)¹ Government Constitutional monarchy | ||
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 (the seat of the governor until 1885, when it returned to its former status of a completely separate colony), Tobago (until 1889, when it was joined to Trinidad), and (from 1940) Dominica, previously included in the British Leeward 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 until its dissolution in 1960.
The capital was Bridgetown on Barbados, from 1871 to 1885, and thereafter St. George's on Grenada. The islands were not a single colony, but a confederation of separate colonies with a common governor-in-chief, while each island retained its own institutions. The Windward Islands 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 united in maintaining certain institutions of general utility.