Horace Mitchell who served as a judge both in Guyana and the Eastern Caribbean died last Tuesday in Antigua after a brief illness.
The Antigua Sun reported that Mitchell was hospitalised for a week before he was discharged last week Monday, but suffered another attack and died the following morning. He was 80.
The Guyanese-born judge served 35 years in the judicial service and more than nine years as legal consultant with the Antigua Government.
Mitchell was called to the Bar of England and Wales in November 1954. In 1956 he was appointed the youngest stipendiary magistrate in British Guiana, and was one of the youngest judges in the country of his birth.
It is understood that he was tapped to be the first President of Guyana, but Forbes Burnham changed his mind and appointed another judge, Arthur Chung to the top post.
Mitchell left Guyana and was appointed a judge of the OECS Supreme Court on June 1, 1979 where he served in nearly all the OECS states including British Virgin Islands, St Kitts, St Lucia, and Antigua. After his retirement as a High Court judge he was appointed as advisor to the Vere Bird government.
He also served as chairman of several commissions of inquiry and committees, and was made a grand officer of the Most Illustrious Order of Merit (GOM) for his services to the legal profession.
Retired senior OECS judge, Odel Adams, who served as DPP in St Kitts and Attorney General in Montserrat, who now lives in Maryland in a brief comment said Mitchell served Guyana and the OECS very well, and he would be missed.
He expressed condolences to his widow, Lucille and daughters Lisa and Lana.
No date has yet been announced for his funeral.
