Philip Rostant
Born
Philippe Rostant

1822 (1822)
DiedJune 14, 1904(1904-06-14) (aged 81–82)

Philip Rostant (1822–14 June 1904) was a Trinidad and Tobago newspaper editor and social activist.[1]

Early life and education

edit

Rostant was born in 1822, the second son of Léon Toussaint Rostant, a Trinidadian planter of French descent, and Marie Louise d'Angleberne, the daughter of a French army officer who had settled in Martinique in 1793 during the French Revolution.[1]: 189  He was educated in Ireland and Paris, before returning to Trinidad.[1]: 197 

Early political career and exile

edit

He left his father's estates and moved to Port of Spain where entered politics and was elected to the Port of Spain town council in 1848. In 1853 he was elected to the newly organised Port of Spain Borough Council. Having gone into debt to support his lifestyle, Rostant resigned from the council in 1855 after his father and brother agreed to provide security for his debts.[1]: 197–198 

In 1862, to escape Léon Toussaint Rostant's creditors and the threat of imprisonment, the family fled first to Venezuela, and then to Puerto Rico. In 1866 they moved to Dominica before returning to Trinidad.[1]: 192–194  Historian Anthony de Verteuil reports that Philip Rostant "apparently" returned to Trinidad in 1867.[1]: 198 

Newspapers and political reform

edit

Between January 1881 and October 1884 Rostant served as editor of the Port of Spain Gazette, before leaving to launch a rival paper, Public Opinion[2] which was financed by Hypolite Borde.[1]: 206  Rostant was editor of the paper until 1889[1]: 211  when it was sold to Joseph de la Sauvagère.[1]: 213  After the sale of Public Opinion Rostant launched a new paper, Reform.[1]: 206  Bridget Brereton also reports that he was involved with the San Fernando Gazette.[3]: 54 

Brereton says that despite his background, Rostant "stands out as the most radical political leader of the later years of the [nineteenth] century" and describes his hostility to British officialdom as "a kind of anti-colonialism".[3]: 56 

References

edit
  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j De Verteuil, Anthony (2010). "Philip Rostant: Newspapers". Trinidad's French legacy. Port of Spain: Litho Press. pp. 187–214. ISBN 978-976-95299-0-8. OCLC 754915109.
  2. ^ Will, H. A. (1970). Constitutional change in the British West Indies, 1880-1903: with special reference to Jamaica, British Guiana, and Trinidad. London: Oxford University Press. pp. 161–163. ISBN 978-0-19-822335-1.
  3. ^ a b Brereton, Bridget (1979). Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad 1870-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.