National Hero Sybil McLaughlin passes

Cayman’s last living National Hero Sybil Ione McLaughlin has died.

McLaughlin, 93, passed away peacefully on Tuesday morning at her East End home, her son Gordon McLaughlin has confirmed.

“We will all miss her. She lived a good life. She would have been 94 in August,” McLaughlin told the Cayman Compass in a brief telephone interview.

McLaughlin was the first clerk and the first Speaker of the House at the Legislative Assembly.

She also received an MBE in 1967 for organising the first Commonwealth Parliamentary Association regional conference held in the Cayman Islands.

She was declared a National Hero in 1996, the second individual to receive that honour, after the late Jim Bodden in 1994.

McLaughlin was the first living person and the first woman to be so honoured by the Cayman Islands government.

Government Information Services has announced that all Cayman Islands flags will be flown at half-mast Tuesday through Thursday in commemoration of McLaughlin’s life.

The brief GIS statement added that information on the official funeral for McLaughlin will be announced.

Life and history

Back in 2018, as she marked her 90th birthday, the Compass sat down with McLaughlin as she reflected on her career and community service.

McLaughlin was born in 1928 in Mobile, Alabama, where there were a large community of Caymanians, to parents Captain Charles Christopher Bush and his wife Lottie Verona Bush.

After her father died, her mother returned to Cayman with Sybil and her brother and sister.

They moved into their father’s family home in South Sound.

When her mother moved back to the US to work, McLaughlin and her siblings stayed in Cayman, where they were mostly raised by their aunts Annie and Rebertha, apart from a four-year period when she lived with another aunt, Ella, in Nicaragua.

When McLaughlin came back to Cayman, shortly before her 8th birthday, she attended George Town Primary School and later attended the Baptist College in Managua, Nicaragua, where she graduated, fluent in Spanish, and completed a commercial course.

In 1945, she returned from her studies overseas and found employment in the Commissioner’s Office as a clerk-typist.

In 1949, she married police officer Delworth McLaughlin of East End. The couple had two sons, Gordon and Chris.

In 1959, when Cayman received its first written Constitution, McLaughlin was appointed as the first clerk of the constitution committee.

She was also the clerk of the Executive Council, now Cabinet.

McLaughlin retired as clerk of the Legislative Assembly in 1984.

She became the first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly in 1991 and served in that capacity until she retired in 1996.

The story of her life was told in the 2015 book “Island Girl to National Hero,” written by author Heather R. McLaughlin.

Tributes pour in

Many have hailed the contributions McLaughlin has made to the Cayman Islands.

Premier Wayne Panton, in a video statement on McLaughlin’s passing, said she will be afforded the highest honours in the form of an official funeral, the date and time for which will be announced later on.

“Ms Sybil was truly talented and balanced an impressive career while raising two boys,
still making time for church and community service. Her time in the Legislative Assembly
from 1959 to 1996 allowed her to witness the development of and improvements to the Cayman Islands Constitution,” he said, adding, “I consider it an honour and a privilege to have known Ms Sybil and I will truly miss her friendship and wise counsel.”

The Cayman Islands, he said, has not only lost a national hero but “a daughter of the soil, a stalwart believer in democracy and an example of a life well-lived and a true friend”.

Governor Martyn Roper, in a statement on McLaughlin’s passing, pointed out that the 93-year-old had a long and distinguished civil service career and “made significant contributions to the development of Cayman’s parliamentary system”.

“I am grateful to have had the opportunity to meet her. Her determination broke many barriers for Caymanian women and opened the door for women to progress in the parliamentary field. She was the first woman in the Commonwealth to be appointed Clerk of the Legislative Assembly and was the Cayman Islands’ very first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly,” Roper said.

House Speaker McKeeva Bush extended his condolences and highlighted McLaughlin’s contributions to the Cayman community.

“She served nobly and honorably. She was a religious and strong principled family oriented person,” he said in a statement, noting in 1996, he was  a “proud minister to make Ms Sybil the recipient of the Cayman Islands highest honour of National Hero in recognition of her dedication and contribution to Cayman’s parliamentary development”.

He added, “She has presided over significant legislative changes for the betterment of our society. Undoubtedly, she was a dedicated and committed public servant who made sterling contribution to civil society.”

Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart, in a statement on Tuesday, expressed sadness following McLaughlin’s passing.

“Our Islands have been greatly blessed by her service and achievements. She was an inspiration to all and a true National Hero. Ms Sybil will be greatly missed. May her soul rest in peace, and may her memory be a blessing to all who knew her,” McTaggart said.

In his statement on behalf of the Opposition, McTaggart said, McLaughlin was a quiet but strong Caymanian woman who broke many barriers and rose to be recognised as a National Hero.

“She is a Caymanian of many firsts – The first Clerk of the Legislative Assembly (now Parliament); the first woman in the commonwealth to serve as a clerk in a Legislative Assembly or Parliament; and Ms Sybil was also the very first Speaker in the Legislative Assembly. Over the coming days, we will read and hear much about Ms Sybil and her remarkable life and contributions to her people and country. So respected was she that she assisted and worked in Parliaments elsewhere,” he said in the statement.

McTaggart said in the run-up to the 150th anniversary of parliamentary democracy in Cayman, McLaughlin’s expertise in parliamentary matters “made her the perfect candidate to Chair the committee to plan and commemorate that momentous occasion”.