Role of Key Personalities in the Federal Movement of the British West Indies and contribution to National Politics:

Career and Role of Theophilus Albert Marryshow:
Early life and education
Theophilus Albert Marryshow was born on 7 November, 1887 and registered
as Theophilos Maricheau, son of P.I. Maricheau, a small planter, and Eugenia
de Souze. His mother died in 1890, and the boy was brought up by his
godmother, Christine, housekeeper and later wife of Antonio Franco, a
Portuguese merchant. After a brief apprenticeship to a carpenter, in 1903
Franco obtained a job for the young Marcheau in the printing establishment
of W.G. Donovan, initially to deliver newspapers. Donovan produced notably
radical newspapers, advocating representative government and a Federation
of Britain’s West Indian colonies. Marryshow (he adopted an Anglicized
spelling of his surname) demonstrated literary abilities that were soon
recognised by Donovan who became his mentor. ‘’Teddy’’ Marryshow was
soon involved in the whole range of journalistic activity, as well as becoming
an active participant in local politics and in the Grenada Literary and
Debating Society.
He is known as the ‘’Father of Federation’’. T.A. Marryshow made various
contributions to national politics and the Federal movement.
Career
T.A. Marryshow was one of the earliest advocates of universal suffrage. He
had been involved with politics and newspapers since his boyhood. At the
end of the 19th century, he worked as a newsboy.
After World War I, Marryshow was publishing newspaper articles pressing or
self- government through greater representation in the legislative councils
and federation of the British West Indies. Marryshow began as a reporter for
the Federalist and Grenadian People, then in 1911 he was editor of St.
Georges Chronicle and in 1915, he became editor of The West Indian.
In these periodicals and at political meetings in St. George’s he expounded
his views on the West Indian unity. He persuaded the Wood Commission in
1921 to suggest that elected members should be included in those
legislatures still bound to the ‘’pure’’ Crown Colony System. Marryshow went
further than other politicians at that time in feeling that all West Indies
should enjoy the right to vote, as it would make them more involved in their
own political affairs. Marryshow travelled to London and other Caribbean
countries to speak about federation and universal suffrage.
By 1930, the work of T.A. Marryshow had brought about a greater feeling of
unity among the West Indian political figures of that time. In 1932, political
delegates met in Dominica to discuss and plan the future of the West Indies.
Although Marryshow was absent, the Conference reflected his views.
Some of Marryshow’s fellow politicians did not agree on universal suffrage
and when talks about a federation came about in the 1930s, Marryshow did
not participate because he distrusted the politicians.
When politicians such as Sir Grantley Adams of Barbados who supported
universal suffrage and Norman Manley of Jamaica came about and talked
about a federation, Marryshow was now in favour and in 1945, Marryshow,
Adams and Manley urged the British government to establish a Federation in
the British West Indies, and they agreed.
Grenada was one of the colonies who joined the British West Indies
Federation without reservation. This was certainly because of the works of
their own local politician, T.A. Marryshow.
Due to his extensive work in the federal movement and also in national
politics, it is no surprise that T.A. Marryshow is known today as the ‘’Father
of the Federation’’. His support of universal suffrage helped West Indians to
gain the right to vote. T.A. Marryshow legacy remains and even a college in
Grenada is named after him.

Career and Role of Sir Grantley Adams:

Early life and education
Grantley Herbert Adams was born at Colliston, Government Hill, St. Michael,
Barbados on 28th April, 1898. He was the third child of seven born to
Fitzherbert Adams and the former Rosa Frances Turney.
Grantley was educated at St. Giles and at Harrison College in Barbados. In
1918, he won the Barbados Scholarship and departed the following year for
his undergraduate studies at Oxford University.
He was married to Grace Thorne in 1929 at St. John’s Church. Their only
child, Tom, himself won the Barbados Scholarship, attended Oxford and
became a lawyer. Tom Adams later became the second Prime Minister of
Barbados.
Career
As his vehicle for persuading the elitist power structure to accept the poor as
humans, Adams, a highly respected lawyer, used his election to the House of
Assembly as Member for St. Joseph in 1934 at the age of 36. His mastery of
debate on the floor of the House gave him the ideal launching pad for his
fight with the wealthy and privileged class, and earned him the respect and
admiration of Barbadians in all strata. He was returned to office in the 1935
and 1936 General Elections.
After the 1937 riots, triggered by the arrest, trial and deportation of Clement
Payne, a popular unionist born in Trinidad of Barbadian parents, Sir Grantley
became Payne’s attorney-at-law, and tried to restore order in Barbados.
Because of his professional and political standing, he was sent to England to
inform the Secretary of State for the Colonies, and was first in giving
evidence to the Dean Commission of Enquiry into the riots.
Adams was in his element. Putting forward a strong case for reform on behalf
of the masses, he pointedly declared that had there been social change
instead of continuing abject poverty, there would never have been any riots.
The flames of protest were rekindled into an idea for workers’ unity on March
31, 1938, when the Barbados Labour Party was launched. Such was the high
regard in which he was held, Adams was elected, in his absence from the
island on legal business, as the party’s first deputy leader. The following
year, he took over the leadership.
In 1940, under his leadership, the party (then known as the Barbados
Progressive League) won five seats in the House of Assembly. In 1941, the
Barbados Workers’ Union was formed and Adams was President until 1954.
In 1942, he was appointed a member of the Executive Committee.
In the mid-1940s Adams, together with Hugh Worrell Springer (later Sir
Hugh), wielded considerable power through their membership on the
Governor-in-Executive Committee. He either initiated or was otherwise
associated with the passage of various important pieces of legislation which
set the stage for widespread and fundamental changes throughout
Barbados; for example:
 Barbados Workmen’s Compensation Act,
 Amendment to the Barbados Education Act, modernising the system
and improving facilities,
 Establishment of a Wages Board and Labour Department,
 Reduction (in 1943) from 50 to 20 pounds sterling in the franchise
qualifying a Barbadian to vote in general elections and the ability of
women to vote on equal terms with men,
 Erdiston Teachers’ College was started in 1948,
 Old age pensions were increased,
 Improved working conditions came for shop assistants,
 Increases in the public service,
 Building the Deep Water Harbour,
 The Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
In 1946, Adams was Leader of the House and the Workmen’s Compensation
Act, passed in the early 1940s, was proclaimed. Adams, who dethroned the
plantocracy in Barbados, consistently took the case of the masses against
the ruling class. He has been reported by Theodore Sealy in his ‘’Caribbean
Leaders, as a figure challenging the past to build a new future …’’
In political life in Barbados, Sir Grantley combined the talents of a great
lawyer with those of a shrewd, visionary politician, in helping to change
Barbados into a new, more progressive country. And he did this at great risk
to himself physically and professionally.
Bullet holes in his home at Tyrol Cot bear testimony to the violence directed
against this great Barbadian.
Grantley and his lieutenants, first Hugh Springer, and then Frank Walcott,
built a unique trade union movement, says F.A. Hoyos in his ‘’Builders of
Barbados’’.
In the successful effort to bring about social change, the Barbados Labour
Party worked side-by-side with the Barbados Workers’ Union. That unified
effort was essential in those days to confront powerful forces arrayed against
workers and hostile to the emergence of Blacks on the political scene.
In his campaign against the old regime and in pursuit of true democracy, Sir
Grantley secured the introduction of Universal Adult Suffrage in 1951. Under
the Bushe Experiment, in 1946, he was invited to submit four names for
membership of the Executive Committee, and the island got a measure of
responsible government with a semi-ministerial system of government.
In 1950, Adult Suffrage became a reality, and in 1954 full ministerial
government was introduced, with Adams as first Premier. He had brought the
popular movement to the summit of political power, according to Hoyos, with
the attainment of the Cabinet system and full internal self-government in
1958.
In advancing the island’s Constitution, Sir Grantley led the new movement in
achieving social and industrial reform. Some of these measures were:
 improved health facilities,
 housing schemes,
 minimum wage legislation,
 benefits for plantation and industrial workers,
 social welfare.
While Sir Grantley fully understood and used his parliamentary office to
promote social and political improvements, he also persisted with his
commitment to workers’ causes.
He was elected President of the Caribbean Labour Congress in 1947 in
Jamaica. This was the peak of his work for the formation of this united labour
front, which brought together the political Caribbean.
For more than ten years afterwards, he worked on building the foundation of
the Federation of the West Indies; and were it not for extreme insularity,
selfishness and envy elsewhere in the region, these Caribbean states might
today be among the world’s mini power blocs.
A firm believer in the highest principles of democratic socialism, Sir Grantley
led the movement to sever Caribbean trade unions from the World
Federation of Trade Unions, according to Hoyos, and was instrumental in the
founding of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions. He was
elected one of its three vice-chairmen.
In 1954, Frank Walcott broke with Grantley Adams and the next year, some
BLP members, led by Errol Barrow, left that organisation and formed the
Democratic Labour Party. On his departure to lead the West Indies
Federation, Sir Grantley chose Dr. Hugh Gordon Cummins to head the party
and be Premier of Barbados in 1958.
By then, he had already achieved such astonishing social and political
changes in the island that Barbados was being hailed far and wide as a
model country lacking only the formality of political Independence from
Britain.
After formal dissolution of the regional enterprise on 31 May, 1962, Sir
Grantley returned home.
He was re-elected to the House of Assembly in 1966 and assumed the role of
Leader of the Opposition. Helped by new blood in the party, he brought the
BLP to the position of a powerful Opposition in the House of Assembly. In
1970, with his health declining, he resigned from public life and, while
remaining Life President of the BLP, handed over the responsibilities of
leadership to younger men such as H. B. St. John, and J.M.G.M. ‘’Tom’’
Adams, his son, who became Prime Minister of Barbados in September 1976.