Centenarian Esther Lilian Wickham celebrated her 100th birthday on Sunday, July 26, with family and friends at her home in Grazettes, St. Michael.
President of Barbados, His Excellency, The Most Honourable Jeffrey Bostic, paid an official visit to Mrs. Wickham as part of the celebration.
President Bostic commended Mrs. Wickham on earning a Bachelor of Arts degree and a Bachelor of Education degree during her lifetime, saying she is “very special”.
He said Mrs. Wickham is the first centenarian he has visited to have a bachelor’s degree, and he described it as a “very special” achievement.
Mrs. Wickham stated that she invested much of her time in academic pursuits and had similar expectations of her children, especially when it came to completing their homework.
Noting that she spent her youth in Barbados and Trinidad, she said life back then was relatively “quiet” and they “had a lot of freedom to move around”, which she doesn’t think “we have today”.
In a tribute to his wife, Edcil Wickham said: “I was a professor from 1971 and Esther was a treasure. I knew the literature and Esther knew how to deliver it…. I became a good professor because of Esther…I’m grateful to her.”
He credited Mrs. Wickham with enhancing his problem-solving skills and strengthening him to take on the inaugural role of President of the Wilfred Laurier University Faculty Association Union in Canada.
Mr. Wickham remarked: “She was an inspiration to me as a teacher…I got several awards, but I gave them to her. She was the one who did the work.”
Mrs. Wickham was born in Holetown, St. James and attended the Alexandra School, in St. Peter.
After attending secondary school, she taught at St. Giles Primary School, St. Clement’s Junior School (now Ignatius Byer Primary School) and at her alma maters, the St. James Primary School and the Alexandra School, where she taught art.
She earned her bachelor’s degree in education at the University of the West Indies, Mona.
She left Alexandra to pursue a Bachelor of Arts degree in Bristol, United Kingdom. Upon completion, she returned to Barbados and taught at the Erdiston Teachers’ Training College, where she rose to the position of Deputy Principal, and retired in 1978.
Also in 1978, she married her current husband, Edcil Wickham, and emigrated to Canada, where she worked briefly in the retail industry until she fully retired. By 2025, the husband-and-wife team returned to Barbados.
Mrs. Wickham’s hobbies included cooking and fine art painting. She has three children, two stepchildren, three grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.
