As International Women’s Month continues, the Cayman Islands Postal Service has issued new stamps featuring four female national heroes.
The postal service, in collaboration with the Cayman Islands Protocol Office, Cayman Islands National Archives and Compass Media, created the commemorative stamp issue depicting the women who have helped shape the islands’ history.
The stamps, issued on 2 March, are valued at 20 cents, 25 cents, 30 cents, $2, and there is also a $3.55 first-day cover.
Mary Evelyn Wood
Mary Evelyn Wood, who passed away in 1978, and was declared a national hero in 2011, features on the 20 cents stamp.
Wood was the first woman elected to the Cayman Islands Legislative Assembly, now Parliament, and the first to serve on a jury.
In her early 20s, she started a small school in her father’s home and served as the sole teacher. Several years later, after training as a practical nurse, she changed vocations, and worked as a nurse, serving during the typhoid epidemic of the late 1930s.
By 1957, her interest in women’s rights led her to join hundreds of other women in signing a petition for female suffrage.
By 1962, she had become Bodden Town’s Legislative Assembly representative.
The image of Wood featured on the stamp comes from the Cayman Compass archives.
Sybil Ione McLaughlin
For more than quarter of a century, Sybil Ione McLaughlin was Cayman’s only living national hero. She was granted the accolade in 1996 and passed away in 2022 at the age of 93.
The title of national hero was bestowed on her for her contributions to parliamentary development and to the local community.
She joined the civil service in 1945 and was appointed clerk of the Legislative Assembly in 1959, the first woman in the Commonwealth to hold this post. She was also the first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly, from 1991 until her retirement in 1996.
McLaughlin features on the 25 cents stamp.
Leila Elberta Ross-Shier
Leila Elberta Ross-Shier, writer of Cayman’s national song, ‘Beloved Isle Cayman’, who passed away in 1968 at the age of 81, was declared a national hero in 2021.
Ross-Shier throughout her life was a librarian, writer, composer, musician, poet, songstress, storyteller, community historian and cultural icon.
She composed the lyrics and music to ‘Beloved Isle Cayman’, in 1932.
She was also one of the signers of the 1957 women’s suffrage petition, that led to voting rights being granted to women in Cayman in 1959.
Ross-Shier features on the 30 cents stamp.
Sybil Joyce Hylton
Sybil Joyce Hylton, Cayman’s first probation and welfare officer, and a lifelong advocate for disadvantaged people, was named a national hero in 2011.
She passed away in 2006, at the age of 93.
She became the islands’ first probation officer in 1963, before going on to serve as the first head of the Probation Welfare Department until 1982.
She received the Cayman Islands Certificate and Badge of Honour in 1968 and was named a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1978.
Among the issues for which she advocated was the creation of a separate court for juveniles. She helped to develop the scouting movement in the Cayman Islands and played a vital role in establishing the Lions Club of Grand Cayman’s Christmas programmes for underprivileged families.
Hylton features on the $2 stamp.
Cayman’s only living female national hero, Francine Jackson, does not feature on the stamps, as the process for launching the issue began before she was awarded the accolade in 2025.
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