He was formerly of Island Harbour and the first child of sea captain the late Joseph Randolph Webster and Melvina Webster, the latter of whom recently celebrated her 100 birthday.

The former Teacher at the East End School, and a trained Minister of Religion, arrived recently in Anguilla from Maryland, United States, where he was receiving medical attention. He made a Herculean effort to come for his mother’s March 25th birthday and remained on the island for the next three weeks during which he battled with his illness. He passed on shortly after 3 o’clock on Tuesday, April 17, at the residence of his sister, Noreen and brother-in-law Nat Hodge at Stoney Ground. It was only eight days before that he had reached his 76th birthday on April 9.

“Teacher Max” or “Pastor Max”, as he was fondly called, began his teaching career at the age of 15 in 1946 at the East End School. He left there in 1967 for St. Lucia where he was appointed Principal of the Adventist Elementary School in Castries. He served there until 1970.

That year he entered the Caribbean Union College in Trinidad and graduated in June 1974 with a Bachelor of Theology Degree. His first pastoral posting was in Antigua, where he had responsibility for five Seventh-day Adventist Churches in the outhern District.
In 1978 he completed the Master of Divinity Degree in Theology at Andrews Univeristy in Berring Springs, Michigan.

In 1980 he was transferred to Montserrat and remained there until 1983. He then moved to Tortola and stayed there until 1985.

From there, Pastor Webster was moved in 1985 to St. Croix where he served as Religious Teacher at the Seventh-day Adventist School until 1990. In 1991 he was appointed Pastor of the Philadelphia SDA Church in St. Thomas, a position he held until he retired from the Ministry in 1995.

He spent much of his retirement in St. Croix until he left there in March 2006 for Maryland, where he had been residing with his daughter Meridith and receiving medical attention.

Pastor Max, known for his humility and simplicity of life, bore his illness with grace and told his family not to weep for him as he had committed “everything to Jesus”- an assurance which has helped them to bear their terrible loss.

The family members are grateful to all the nursing and medical personnel in the United States and Anguilla for their kind care, including Anguillian Dr. Rona Hodge who attended him during his final days. Thanks also to many other persons for their words of condolence in a very difficult time.

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