Born in 1925, in what was then British Guiana, Elsa Vesta Goveia
gained her PhD in history at the University College London. She
joined the staff of the then University College of the West Indies
in 1950 as Lecturer in the Department of History. In 1961, she
was appointed Professor of West Indian History. She was the first
female Professor at the University of the West Indies. A brilliant
lecturer and outstanding scholar, she was the author of seminal
works on West Indian history the major ones being: A study of
the Historiography of the British West Indies. (American Institute
of Geography and History), 1956 and Slave Society in the British
Leeward Islands. (Yale University Press), 1965 She died in 1980.
