Hugh Hastings Wynter was born in Spanish Town, St Catherine, on 5 February 1933, son of medical practitioner T. A. P. Wynter and Theresa Selene Grant-Wynter. He was educated at Wolmer’s Boys School and the University College of the West Indies (Gleaner Who’s Who). After registrar and tutor posts at Hammersmith Hospital, London (1963–65), he returned to UWI as lecturer (1965), senior lecturer (1970), and professor of obstetrics and gynaecology from 1974.

In 1979 he founded the Advanced Training and Research in Fertility Management Programme at UWI Mona and directed it for 24 years. The United Nations, presenting him the 1998 Population Award, described him as one of the most creative family-planning leaders in the Caribbean, then also chairman of Jamaica’s National Family Planning Board. The same statement said the 1979 programme had already trained more than 4,000 doctors, nurses, educators and social workers. On 17 July 2008 the unit was renamed the Hugh Wynter Institute for Reproductive Healthcare & Endoscopic Surgery.

Jamaica honoured him with the Order of Distinction, Commander class, and later the Order of Jamaica. The Who’s Who prints both. He was a JP, a trustee and board member of Wolmer’s Schools, and Jamaica’s champion elocutionist in 1949 and 1950. He married Professor Sheila Dorothy King-Wynter on 28 December 1959; they had two sons and one daughter. He was laid to rest in August 2025.

Sources

Sources: Gleaner Discover Jamaica Who’s Who, Hugh Hastings Wynter, Who’s Who; UN press, DSG/SM/12, POP/676, 9 July 1998; Hugh Wynter Institute, About, UWI; Jamaica Observer, Give old-time media, 6 October 2025.