The Extraordinary World of Albert Cavendish Shillingford (Pont Casse Press, 2014) by Dr. Irving W. André is a brilliantly crafted biography of Dominica’s most iconic businessman of his era. Shillingford, or “ACS” as he was more commonly known, was born at St. Joseph in 1882, the son of Albert Charles Shillingford and Anne Marie Pinard of Newtown.

He died of drowning on March 6, 1938 at Hatton Garden beach, on Dominica’s east coast. A March 9, 1938 Dominica Chronicle commentary on the tragic passing of ACS noted that: he was the foremost businessman whose premature death startled the island.

This magnificent biography, which is well illustrated by period photographs, informs us that during his fifty six years ACS was most industrious. As Longfellow opined, he did much toiling upward through the night, as his biographer André has done – having to juggle his work as a sitting judge, with his mostly night-time vocation of prolific author.

Through dint of wise effort, ACS became a successful planter, rum distiller, insurance company executive, and a trustee of the Dominica Grammar School. He was also a co-founder of the Dominica Tribune newspaper, a motor vehicle importer and a pioneer in the lime processing industry.

Even the ubiquitous Dominica Bay Rum aftershave/cologne still bears his company’s name. ACS did not restrict himself to Dominica. His work in lime production and processing at two factories (at Newtown and Loubiere) challenged the monopoly held by the British firm L. Rose & Co; in so doing local growers of yellow limes got better prices.

He expanded his commercial activities down the island chain and erected lime processing plants in Grenada and Trinidad- a unique achievement for a Dominican businessman of his time.

ACS’s life is set against the backdrop of the history of the Shillingford family. Of pioneering English stock from Devonshire, the early Shillingfords on Dominica have their genesis in the 18th century arrival on Dominica of three Shillingford brothers who were blacksmiths; Thomas, William and another whose name remains clouded by the passage of time.

The blacksmith was a vital cog in the apparatus of the sugar industry. Horses needed horseshoes; the sugar mills were in regular need of repair for the mechanical bric-a-brac of their moving parts; crystallization pans needed mending, and molasses barrels needed the metal banding to grab the wooden slats of its construction into one piece.

The Shillingford blacksmiths, from their headquarters at Newtown, hammered at their anvils and so shaped a singularly prominent name into the social architecture of the island.

The Shillingfords were white colonizers whose success depended on the intelligence and strength of captured Africans who had been forced into slavery. However, in the dark of night, when the blacksmith shop fell quiet, with quiet step and furtive glance, many a “massa” Shillingford would make a dash for that place where African beauties of the fairer sex lay at rest.

Racial hierarchy soon succumbed to the pull of human sentiment. Soon enough Thomas Shillingford became the first in his family to depart from the social mores of the time by marrying a black woman whose roots resided in Sierra Leone, one Felicite Dangleben.

Over the years the Shillingford family, evolved from white to colored, to more ebony hue, as they fell under the allure of the daughters of Africa.

Without being preachy, the ACS biography teaches that every nation needs to have a common heritage which pays due tribute to its greats – no less so Dominica or its other relatively young sister Caribbean nations.

Too often we have seen a disparaging of persons of achievement on the altar of that which is politically expedient. To grow in wisdom, we must appreciate that greatness is oft times built atop human imperfection – as with the Sphinx and Pyramids of Giza which were born of slave labor.

This biography on ACS’ compels us to recognize that societies are made up of successful families, which in turn breed durable communities from which spring forth dynamic nations. Every nation worth its salt must be possessed of a well woven narrative which speaks to the successes of those who reside within it.

Once that heritage of accomplishment is engraved on the national psyche, via literature, achievements in science, industry, song, dance, museums and institutions, we see the birth of that self confidence so necessary for our rise.

Aside from building a commercial empire, ACS had the self confidence to challenge the political supremacy of the British colonizer by supporting the Dominica Taxpayers Reform Association. He provided financial support to the 1932 Dominica Conference, attended by West Indian nation builders such as Captain Arthur Cipriani of Trinidad and Theophilius Marryshow of Grenada.

That conference sought a federation of the British West Indian Territories. He wanted Dominica to be run by, and for the benefit of Dominicans. Therefore he became an early ally of Dominican self government advocate attorney Cecil E.A. Rawle and legendary planter, banker and legislator John Baptiste “JB” Charles. His allies included Pan Africanist and Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) organizer JR Ralph Casimir.

ACS was noted by the local British Governor as having protested the poor treatment meted out to West Indian soldiers who had rushed to defend their “Mother Country” Britain in World War I. ACS felt that the Negro soldier had been unfairly treated by being relegated to harsh conditions in labor battalions.

In an amazing acknowledgement of what was considered the radicalism of Dominica’s self government advocates, the Administrator of the colony one Bowring notes in a July 17, 1933 letter to Sir Reginald Johnson, Governor of the Leeward Islands that “I do not think I am alarmist but bad influences are at work, possibly backed in the beginning by Soviet influence.”

It is clear that while ACS was born of a privileged family, he was possessed of a social conscience which sought to better the condition of the ordinary Dominican. Such a revelation of progressive thinking amongst what passes as Dominica’s elite was lost on many of the intellectuals of my generation who saw the island’s commercial class as a mere repository of pro-colonial exploiters.

André, in exploring the gross anatomy of ACS’ success, does so with an elegance and charm. The biography on ACS reveal that the Shillingford men take quite a delight in the opposite sex, be they of what passes for Dominica’s upper class, or the modest servant plying her vocation in the pantry. They are all dealt with, in what would seem equal measure.

In that fashion, they generously seed the island with offspring. ACS himself had children with both Theresa “Mama Teez” Robinson and Roseau socialite Idiline Johnson. In his will ACS made sure his offspring were well cared for; he had sent his oldest son Edward and daughter Leta to the well respected Hampton Institute in Virginia at the time of his death in 1938.

In affairs of the heart, there is even a hint at the comical, as in when a scorned paramour of one gallivanting Shillingford planter unhitches his horse while he lays asleep in her bed. She wants to know where he mysteriously escapes to, on other nights.

She follows the horse as it wends its way to the village of Layou. The horse dutifully comes to stand at the door of the other girlfriend and truth is revealed.

An honors graduate in history from the University of the West Indies (Mona, Jamaica) and a sitting judge of the Ontario Superior Court, Dr. André has done yeoman service in providing Dominica, indeed the world, with a series of magnificent biographies.

Be it his work on Dominica’s first Chief Minister Frank Baron, the island’s first surgeon, Dr. Desmond McIntyre, or first premier Edward Oliver LeBlanc, no literate Dominican, or student of Caribbean history can claim ignorance as to the nature – or quality – of our leadership.

André, by this effort, resurrects for posterity an important segment of our island’s heritage so it may yet be a noteworthy guide to those unborn. He tells us much of the origins of the Shillingfords; a family name that still resonates on the island, whether it be in the field of cricket, in the arena of agriculture, the sciences, the professions, in civic life or in business.

Grayson and Irving Shillingford made it to West Indies test cricket in the 1970s; cricketer and industrialist Clifton “Dense” Shillingford carries on the family tradition of rum making with the Machoucherie Rum brand. And, as of 2014, Shane Shillingford (the first Dominican to play test cricket on his home turf) is arguably the best spin bowler on the West Indies cricket team since Lance Gibbs in 1966.

Dr. Dorian Shillingford is head of the local medical board; Dr. Hazel Shillingford-Ricketts is a respected eye surgeon; botanist Dr. Clayton Shillingford was founding President of the Dominica Academy of Arts & Sciences www.da-academy.org , while Dr. Davison Shillingford manages the Dominica Botanic Gardens website of the DAAS at http://da-academy.org/dagardens.html .