Springer, Hugh Worrell

ENCAENIA, MAY, 1980
HUGH WORRELL SPRINGER
to be Doctor of Civil Laws

"As the year 1947 drew to an end, Grantley Adams was beset by a series of difficulties and troubles in the island of Barbados. By far the most serious of these was the departure of Hugh Springer when he accepted the post of Registrar of the newly established University College of the West Indies."

In a sense, these words of the biographer of Grantley Adams sum up the achievements of Hugh Springer. Always there seems to have been a sense of irreparable loss when he left an old job, and a sense of confident hope when he took up a new one. And he has, indeed, had many jobs.

Hugh Worrell Springer was born in the island of Barbados and, as a boy, attended Harrison College, the nursery of so many famous Barbadians. I am sure that he will forgive me if I slip into his citation what may appear to be an irrelevance to inhabitants of our northern climes, by mentioning that his second name conjures up to cricketers of all climes the name of Sir Frank Worrell, another illustrious Barbadian, who tired the sun with playing, who was the epitome of all that is elegant in West Indian batmanship and who, like Sir Hugh, did so much for the march of West Indian dignity.

From Harrison College, Hugh Springer went to Hertford College, Oxford, and then to the Inner Temple from whence he was called to the Bar in 1938; and, in those early days in London, he worked tirelessly for the cause which ultimately led to West Indian independence. Returning to Barbados in 1938 and, after a year as Professor of Classics at Codrington College, he practised at the Bar until 1947, during which years, as a member of the House of Assembly, member of the Executive Committee, as General Secretary of the Barbados Labour Party and Barbados Workers' union, he played an outstanding part in the history of the labour movement. In that year, 1947, he took his intellectual qualities and practical gifts to the University College of the West Indies.

The story of the thirty-odd years since 1947 is one in which Sir Hugh took the world for his stage. Like the chorus in Henrv V, our "rough and all un-able pen" cannot set forth his achievements on "this unworthy scaffold," so we must ask you to "piece out our imperfections" with your thoughts.

Smooth and efficient, tough and conciliatory, pragmatic and visionary, his level head and moderate voice leavened the councils of universities in the Caribbean, Canada, Great Britain, East Africa, the United States and the Far East. It has been heard in Federal Trade and Public Service commissions in the West Indies, and in educational foundations in Holland. In these days of over-used superlatives it is impossible to find words to do justice to his work as Secretary-General of the Association of CommonweaIth Universities, where, under his guidance, in a decade of many cracks in the fabric of political institutions in the Commonwealth, he has produced an unprecedented spirit of co-operation in the fabric of university fellowship.

As a former Professor of Classics, he will know that "non cuivis homini contingit adire Corinthum."

The University of New Brunswick, in the past, has honoured Dr. Eric Williams of Trinidad and Dr. Philip Sherlock of Jamaica, and now we honour Dr. Hugh Springer of Barbados and the World. Let one of our own past presidents, Dr. Colin B. Mackay, have the last word: "They don't come any better than Hugh -- from anywhere."

Insignissime Praeses, tota Universitas, praesento vobis Hugonem Worrell Springer ut admittatur honoris causa ad gradum Doctoris in Jure Civili in hac Universitate.

From: Honoris Causa - UA Case 70, Box 2