The University of the West Indies is a public university system established to serve the higher education needs of the residents of 18 English-speaking countriesand territories in the Caribbean: Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, The Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, and Turks and Caicos Islands. The university was founded in 1948, on the recommendation of the Asquith Commission through its sub-committee on the West Indies chaired by Sir James Irvine.