Salem | |
---|---|
Town | |
Coordinates: 16°45′N62°13′W / 16.750°N 62.217°W | |
Country | ![]() |
Overseas territory | ![]() |
Population | |
• Total | 1,140 (2,011) [1] |
Time zone | UTC-4 (Atlantic) |
Salem is the most populous town in Montserrat, a British overseas territory in the West Indies, situated on the western coast of the island, in St Peter Parish.
Salem was evacuated on 16 August 1997, after the 1997 eruptions of Soufrière Hills on the island, but was resettled in October 1998. [2]
Beatles record producer George Martin lived in Olveston House, which is in the town of Salem, and set up the renowned AIR Montserrat studios [3] nearby on Friths Road in 1979. The studio is now in ruins, after it was destroyed by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, but Olveston House operates as a guest house. [4] [5]
The Montserrat government operates Salem Daycare and Salem Nursery. [6]
The island's only pre-16 years of age secondary school, the government-operated Montserrat Secondary School (MSS), is in Salem. Montserrat Community College (MCC) is a post-16 and tertiary educational institution in Salem. [7]
In the pre-1997 period it was served by Salem Primary School, [8] and Salem Junior Secondary School. [9]
Montserrat is a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean. It is part of the Leeward Islands, the northern portion of the Lesser Antilles chain of the West Indies. Montserrat is about 16 km (10 mi) long and 11 km (7 mi) wide, with roughly 40 km (25 mi) of coastline. It is nicknamed "The Emerald Isle of the Caribbean" both for its resemblance to coastal Ireland and for the Irish ancestry of many of its inhabitants. Montserrat is the only non-fully sovereign full member of the Caribbean Community and the Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States, though it is far from being the only dependency in the Caribbean overall.
Plymouth is a ghost town and the de jure capital of the island of Montserrat, an overseas territory of the United Kingdom located in the Leeward Island chain of the Lesser Antilles, West Indies. Plymouth is still the de jure capital of Montserrat, making it the only ghost town that is the capital of a political territory.
The Soufrière Hills is an active, complex stratovolcano with many lava domes forming its summit on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. After a long period of dormancy, the Soufrière Hills volcano became active in 1995 and continued to erupt through 2010. Its last eruption was in 2013. Its eruptions have rendered more than half of Montserrat uninhabitable, destroying the capital city, Plymouth, and causing widespread evacuations: about two-thirds of the population have left the island. Chances Peak in the Soufrière Hills was the highest summit on Montserrat until the mid-1990s, but it has since been eclipsed by various rising and falling volcanic domes during the recent volcanic activity.
Brades is a town and the de facto capital of Montserrat since 1998 with an approximate population of 1,000.
John A. Osborne Airport is a small airport located in the village of Gerald's on the island of Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory in the Caribbean Sea.
The Montserrat Championship is the top association football division in Montserrat. It was created in 1974 but has been competed-for only sporadically, partially as a result of the Soufrière Hills eruption causing widespread devastation to the island in 1997. Between 2005 and 2015, no league was played. The league restarted in 2016, but has been stopped again in 2018.
Associated Independent Recording (AIR) is an independent recording company founded in London in 1965 by record producers George Martin, John Burgess, Ron Richards, and Peter Sullivan. In 1970 the company established its own professional audio recording facilities, AIR Studios.
"Volcano" is a song performed by American popular music singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett. It was written by Jimmy Buffett, Keith Sykes, and Harry Dailey and released as a single on MCA 41161 in November 1979. The song was first released on his 1979 album Volcano and reached No. 66 on the Billboard Hot 100, as well as peaking at No. 43 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks chart.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Montserrat:
Music for Montserrat was a benefit concert held on 15 September 1997 at the Royal Albert Hall. The event was organised by Sir George Martin, former producer for The Beatles and founder of Associated Independent Recording, to raise funds for the Caribbean island of Montserrat after a major volcanic eruption by the Soufrière Hills volcano earlier that year.
Education in Montserrat is compulsory for children between the ages of 5 and 14, and free up to the age of 17. The Government of Montserrat developed an Education in the Country Policy Plan for 1998–2002 in conjunction with the United Kingdom. Under this plan, the government is supporting initiatives in the areas of curriculum development, student assessment and evaluation, professional development for teachers, post-secondary education expansion, and educational infrastructure and information technology.
Agriculture in Montserrat, a British Overseas Territory, is a small industry that is heavily influenced by the volcanic activity of the Soufrière Hills. Historically a major producer of sugar and tobacco, the eruptions of the Soufrière Hills between 1995 and 1997 severely damaged infrastructure across a large part of the island. Much of the arable land was destroyed during eruptions or now falls within an "exclusion zone", leaving only limited sections on the northern region of the island usable for cultivation.
Donaldson Romeo is a Montserratian politician. He is currently a member of the Legislative Assembly and served as the island's Premier from September 2014 until November 2019.
Sir Howard Archibald Fergus was a Montserratian author and historian. He was born at Long Ground in Montserrat. He attended Bethel Primary School, Montserrat Secondary School, Erdiston Teachers College in Barbados, the University College of the West Indies (London), the Universities of Bristol and Manchester, and finally the University of the West Indies (UWI), earning a PhD in 1978. He retired from the University in 2004 as Professor of Eastern Caribbean Studies.
The Montserrat Secondary School, often referred to for short as MSS, is the only secondary school which also has students younger than 16, on the island of Montserrat. The school's campus is in Salem on the western coast of the island. Prior to 2004 it was responsible for Montserrat's sixth form education (post-16); currently Montserrat Community College (MCC) offers Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examinations (CAPE) sixth-form classes.
Montserrat Volcano Observatory Tremors, are a professional football club based in Salem, Montserrat. They compete in the Montserrat Championship, the top flight football league in Montserrat. Their colours are green and red.
Yvonne Weekes is a British-born Montserratian writer, theater director, and educator. She was Montserrat's first director of culture before being forced to move to Barbados during the eruption of the Soufrière Hills volcano in the 1990s. Her work deals with issues of displacement and isolation due to environmental and cultural forces beyond our control.
Radio Montserrat, known by the callsign ZJB, is a Montserratian public radio station broadcasting to the British Overseas Territory of Montserrat. The station broadcasts from studios in the Davy Hill area of the island. The station broadcasts a mixture of music, news and religious programming with some content provided by the BBC World Service.
Geoff Wadge is a British volcanologist, best known for his work on the remote sensing of volcanoes and volcanic eruptions, and for his 1987 work anticipating the hazards of a future eruption of the Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat. Wadge was awarded the Murchison Medal of the Geological Society of London in 2015.