Ian McDonald (born 18 April 1933) is a Caribbean-born poet and writer who describes himself as "Antiguan by ancestry, Trinidadian by birth, Guyanese by adoption, and West Indian by conviction." His ancestry on his father's side is Antiguan and Kittitian, and Trinidadian on his mother’s side. His only novel, The Humming-Bird Tree, first published in 1969, is considered a classic of Caribbean literature.
Early years and education
Ian McDonald was born on 18 April 1933, in St Augustine, Trinidad, where his mother, Thelma McDonald (née Seheult), and her parents were born and where his father, John Archie McDonald (who was born in St. Kitts and whose parents were born in Antigua), was Agricultural Director of Gordon Grant Limited. His uncle was Air Marshall Sir Arthur McDonald of Royal Air Force. He has four sisters – Heather Murray, Gillian Howie, Robin McDonald and Monica Purkis – and one brother, Archie McDonald.
He received his secondary education at Queen's Royal College (1942–51) in Port of Spain, where he obtained distinctions in History and English in the Higher School Certificate. He attended Clare College, Cambridge University (1951–55), where he obtained a BA Honours Degree in History and later received his MA. He was elected President of the Cambridge University West Indian Society.
Career in Guyana
Sugar industry
In 1955 he went to the then British Guiana with the Booker Group, working first as secretary of the Bookers BG Group Committee, then secretary of Bookers Sugar Estates, where he rose to be Administrative Director. When Bookers was nationalised in 1976 he remained with the Guyana Sugar Corporation where he held the post of Director of Marketing and Administration from 1976 until retirement in 1999. He represented Guyana and CARICOM on innumerable occasions at international conferences and forums on the sugar industry.
At the regional level he was involved with the Sugar Association of the Caribbean as Chairman of Marketing from 1990, then CEO from 1999 until retiring in 2007. In November 1995 he delivered an address and presented a paper on "The Sugar Industries of the English-Speaking Caribbean" to the International Sugar Organization in London. He was also Chairman of Demerara Sugar Terminals, which exports Guyana’s sugar. For 35 years he was a member of the Sugar Industry Labour Welfare Fund Committee, which provides land and housing, water supply, and welfare facilities for sugar workers.
Guyanese business and interest
McDonald was a member of the Guyana National Advisory Committee on External Negotiations.
He holds directorships in the Hand-in-Hand Fire and Life Insurance Companies, the Hand-in-Hand Trust Company, Woodlands Diagnostic & Imaging Centre Inc, the Institute of Private Enterprise Development, St. Joseph Mercy Hospital (2000–2006), and a Trustee of the St. John Boscoe Orphanage for Boys.
He is a member, since 2009, of the Council of Schoolnet Guyana, dedicated to the computerization of schools in Guyana.
In 1991/92 he held the position of Editorial Consultant with the West Indian Commission, chaired by Sir Shridath Ramphal. His job was to assist in drafting and producing the Commission’s report, Time for Action. To assist in the work of the Commission he prepared a monograph, Bedrock of a Nation: Cultural Foundations of West Indian Integration.
In 1996 he was selected as an inaugural member of the West Indies 2000 Group, a "think-tank" of 40 West Indian personalities that had no agenda except to encourage the reality of a West Indian identity and the strengthening of the values of a West Indian heritage.
Sporting activities
McDonald was junior tennis champion of Trinidad and Tobago for many years and first represented that country at the senior level at the age of 16. He played at Wimbledon in the 1950s (the only player from Trinidad or from Guyana to do so). He captained Cambridge University in 1955. He represented Oxford-Cambridge against Harvard-Yale in the Prentice Cup in America in 1952 and in England in 1954. From 1956 to the early 1970s he was champion of Guyana and captained the Guyana Lawn Tennis team. In 1957 he was Guyana’s "Sportsman of the Year" with George De Peana. He also represented and captained Guyana in Squash. He represented the West Indies in its first ever Davis Cup team in 1953 and went on to play for and captain the West Indies Davis Cup team later in 1950s and in the 1960s. He also served as Secretary of the Commonwealth Caribbean Lawn Tennis Association for a number of years.