WINDWARD ISLANDS  , a

group and colony in the West Indies . They consist of the British island of St Lucia, St Vincent and Grenada, with a chain of small islands, the Grenadines, between the two latter islands . They are not a single colony, but a confederation of three separate colonies with a common governor-in-chief, who resides at St George's, Grenada . Each island retains its own institutions, and they have neither legislature, laws, revenue nor tariff in common . There is, however, a common court of appeal for the group as well as for Barbados, composed of the chief justices of the respective islands, and there is also a common audit system, while the islands unite in maintaining certain institutions of general utility . The Windward Islands, which, as a geographical division, properly include Barbados, derive their name from the fact that they are the most exposed of the Lesser Antilles to the N.E . Trade, the prevailing wind throughout the West Indies .