National Assembly Records Date Back to 1883!
At the National Assembly on Tuesday, we had a first-hand view at the archives that date back to the colonial past of Belize. The interesting historical literature shows how the parliamentarians met and passed laws dating back to 1883. Hipolito Novelo takes us back in time when there was no Prime Minister but a Premier.
Hipolito Novelo, Reporting
Some of the greatest and most important historical moments are captured within the walls of the National Assembly Chambers. Most of us know of these events through video or audio recordings but long before there were cameras and audio recorders, the minutes of meetings were captured in writing, verbatim.
Eddie Webster, Clerk, National Assembly
“Here we have all the House stuff, Orders of the Day, House Sessional papers, the verbatim. One this side it is the same. This is the Senate. We have the Senate instruments, the bills, the verbatim of the Senate as well.”
Long before the House of Representatives and Senate met, the Honorable Members of the Legislative Council along with the Governor General met.
Eddie Webster
“People were represented by the districts at the time and so you had a representative from Corozal, Orange Walk and the Belize District. And then the governor four people as well. So that is the very same thing that we brought in to our constitution where we elect then we have senators and four senators can be members of cabinet from these days.”
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This was a time when Belmopan did not exist and when there was no Prime Minister but a Premier.
Eddie Webster
“This is a verbatim from 1980. This is pre-independence because independence was eighty-one. Some people around here weren’t even born yet. That was forty years ago. Statement by Ministers. So the Minister of Finance made a statement on that day. Premier and Minister of Finance. That was George Price. And right you can see it was type writer days and the different bills that were introduced on that day.”
These records hold almost all the bills introduced, statements by ministers made, verbatim recorded, house orders and sessional papers for more than a century.
The records held by the National Assembly go deep into the past when Belize was British Honduras. The oldest record is from February 1883.
Eddie Webster
“And of course it is British Honduras nineteenth of February 1883 and these are the people who were at the meeting. Because the names like James Brodie are in this book you know. So we have Henry Charles Usher, acting treasurer. Not the one we know. We have couple of names that are still around. We have a Price here. And this is not George Price. This is R. M. R. Price. There is a Robinson. There is a Fairweather. So there are names that have been around long time.”
Clerk of the National Assembly Eddie Webster in an effort to preserve the historical literature sought the assistance of the Belize Archives and Records Service. Records dating back to 2000 have been converted to digital form but there are two centuries of records left.
Eddie Webster
“When I first came to parliament the office of the clerk whenever evening came it will fill with water on the ground. I could not figure out what was going on. Of course there were clerks here before me. I started to find out what was going on and I realize that the air conditioner outside at the beginning of the day as it seeps, drips water the water seeps into the cement and eventually comes to the floor. So all these books were wet. So you can look at the books and you can see how it has water damage all along the edge. After I took care of it, I went down to archives and I said to them that we have these books, they are our history, we need to take care of them. What can we do? They said if they got wet, it will take about a year for them to get dry. I left it there for a couple of years before I started to read and so on. This is our history. We don’t, unfortunately in Belize, do a lot of research in finding out how we got where we are, where we came from. So these books are here and as we develop our educational system I am certain these books will become more and more important. We did up to 2000 so if somebody is listening today as we do this interview and they decide that they would want to help we have this part of our history and we really want to store.”
Reporting for News Five, I am Hipolito Novelo.
