Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Botanic Gardens

The Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Botanic Gardens is located in Kingstown, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. Established in 1765, it is the oldest botanic garden in the Western Hemisphere. It is one of the most visited sites in Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. A historic landmark of major national, regional and global significance, it currently occupies approximately 8 hectares (20 acres).

History

Establishment

If it ever existed, the garden's royal charter has neither survived nor yet been rediscovered. However, letters exchanged between General Robert Melville and the island surgeon botanist Dr George Young show that island commissioners were on 15 December 1765 directed to lay aside six acres of land as part of a 'steady plan' to facilitate botanical discoveries and encourage the cultivating of nutritional, medicinal and commercial 'improvements' for Saint Vincent's population. Accounts compiled later by Young's successor Dr Alexander Anderson are more detailed, affirming that the garden was created to facilitate the '[introduction of such] plants as might be of advantage' to the British West Indies and the 'nation at large'; namely in the provision of new 'foods, medicines or batches of commerce' that could not be cultivated in Britain's North American colonies.

The function of the garden therefore appears to have been congruous with the establishment of other eighteenth-century Caribbean Gardens at Bath and Liguanea in Jamaica, where superintendents were asked to 'explore indigenous plants, ascertain their values and uses', 'do the same with exotic plants', and import seeds that would 'prove beneficial to Britain'. In following the broader colonial programme of 'plant interchange', the Saint Vincent Botanic Garden was designed to cultivate new West Indian export markets by way of introducing foreign plant species from the East. Though a 'premium' had been offered by the Royal Society in 1760 for the cultivation of useful plant species, there is no evidence that Melville ever claimed a reward for the Botanic Garden.