Adams, Grantley

April 28, 1898
November 28, 1971

Grantley Herbert Adams was born in Barbados to Fitzherbert and Rosa Adams. Grantley was one of seven children and received his primary education at St. Giles Boys' School, where his father was head teacher. Thereafter, he was educated at Harrison College and won the prestigious Barbados Scholarship in Classics in 1918. After winning the scholarship, Grantley served for a year on the staff of his alma mater. That scholarship enabled him to receive his tertiary education and professional training at St. Catherine College at Oxford University and at the Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, London.

In 1925 Adams returned to Barbados and was called to the bar. It did not take him too long to establish his reputation as a formidable advocate and build up a reasonably thriving practice. He combined the practice of law with journalism as lead writer of the Agricultural Reporter, a daily newspaper owned and supported by the ruling class of merchants and planters.

In 1934 Adams won a seat in the Barbados House of Assembly, which he held until 1958 when he retired to contest the federal elections and serve in the federal parliament.

The conditions in Barbados at the time of his birth and up to the riots of 1937 and beyond need to be accurately described if Adams's contribution is to be fully appreciated and properly assessed.

The majority of Barbadians was black and had neither the right to vote nor any strength in relation to the elite. So severely restricted was the franchise that in 1932 only 4,807 persons were on the electoral register. According to Adams himself, "Power in the colony rests in the hands of a narrow, bigoted, selfish and grasping plutocracy." Color discrimination was "greatly practised" and it was a rare sight to see men of color holding positions in the civil service, the professions, or the church. Wages for all categories of workers were low and rarely exceeded one shilling, or twenty-four cents a day. Unemployment was high and living conditions were deplorable. Those who lived in the slums around Bridgetown were said to be existing under "horrible animal conditions." The society was semifeudal in character, highly stratified with little or no social mobility. Sugar, the mainstay of the economy, employed upwards of one quarter of the working population on a seasonal basis.

Generally speaking, these conditions were similar elsewhere in the English-speaking Caribbean, and by 1935 a wave of violent dissatisfaction broke out across the region, starting in St. Kitts. From July 26 to July 31, 1937 Barbados experienced "riotous disorders." Shop windows in Bridgetown were smashed and businesses were robbed and vandalized. In addition, police patrols were stoned and cars were overturned. A state of emergency was declared, and armed police and volunteers shot and killed some fourteen persons and injured forty-seven. In the rural parishes, potato fields were raided and shops broken into.

A local commission of inquiry, which came to be known as the Disturbances or Deane Commission, was established

one month after the riots. It found that although there was an event that triggered the riots, the underlying cause was "the large accumulation of explosive material" on the island. Put differently, the fundamental cause of the riots was "economic" and arose from what Adams in his testimony before the commission referred to as "the deteriorating social economic conditions" in the country.

Resulting from the testimony given to the Disturbances Commission and its recommendations, and from the expectation that a high-powered commission would be established by the British Government in relation to events across the English-speaking Caribbean, there was an upsurge of energy and expectations that needed be mobilized and channeled. The establishment of a political party was an urgent necessity. Adams and his supporters saw this clearly and by March 1938 a committee was formed that founded the Barbados Labour Party. An interim executive was put in place, and Adams was named vice president in absentia. By mid-April 1938 the name was changed to the Barbados Progressive League, but by 1945 it was again called the Barbados Labour Party.

Within a year of its launch there was a struggle within the newly formed party over ideology, tactics, and leadership. Adams triumphed in this struggle, and in the ensuing special general meeting Adams became the first president-general of the Barbados Progressive League.

As early as 1940 the Barbados Progressive League campaigned in the general election as an organized party, and Adams and his colleagues laid out a comprehensive and enlightened program which informed policy initiatives in Barbados for at least a generation. The program called for a living wage for all workers. It emphasized, too, a modern medical service, well-planned slum clearance, and housing schemes for the whole island. It committed the league to compulsory education, the establishment of free technical schools, and the provision of meals for schoolchildren. The program stressed the importance of old-age pension at age sixty-five and unemployment insurance for workers. Adult suffrage, the creation of new industries, and the conduct of an economic survey and census to provide accurate information on employment were at the heart of the program.

The Progressive League was to contest each and every succeeding election until it was renamed the Barbados Labour Party, and from then on the party, which was the party in office in 2005, has been a major political institution in Barbados and is the oldest party in the English-speaking Caribbean.

Although the idea of a federation of the English-speaking Caribbean was discussed for many years, it was not until the Montego Bay Conference held in Jamaica in 1947 that the concept was given practical definition and significant momentum. The conference was organized by Labour leaders in the region, and Adams's proposals called for a strong central federal government. They were accepted, and he was thereafter seen as the "architect" of the federation, although it was not formally established until 1958, with its capital in Trinidad.

Following the federal elections in March 1958, Adams assumed the office of Prime Minister of the first West Indies Federation, which comprised the countries of Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados, St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Montserrat, Grenada, St. Lucia, and St. Vincent.

Many factors contributed to the dissolution of the federation on May 31, 1962. To begin with, the federal constitution was colonial in character, with considerable discretionary powers given to the governor general. Further, Her Majesty's government was granted reserve powers to legislate in matters relating to defense, external affairs, and the finances of the federation.

On the question of the powers of the federal government, there was a sharp division of opinion between the two biggest territories participating in the federation, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago. Dr. Eric Willams, Premier of Trinidad, favored a strong central government. He argued that "only powerful and centrally directed coordination and interdependence can create the foundations of a nation." Jamaica on the other hand wanted the powers of the federal government, already weak, to be further restricted.

There was doubtful support for the federation in Jamaica, and the matter was tested in a referendum on September 19, 1961, following which Jamaica, and soon thereafter, Trinidad and Tobago withdrew from the federation.

Adams returned home, and by 1964 he was active in Barbadian politics. In 1966 he led the Barbados Labour Party in the general election and he was again elected to the House of Assembly, where he served as opposition leader. In October 1970 he was forced to retire from the House of Assembly for the second and final time. His long tenure in politics and his disappointment over the collapse of the federation had taken a toll upon his health.

After Adams's death in 1971, he was accorded a state funeral and is buried in the churchyard of the Cathedral of St. Michael and All Angels in Bridgetown. Buried there, too, are his wife, Grace, and their only son J. M. G. "Tom" Adams, who followed his father in law and politics and was the second prime minister of Barbados (1976 to 1985).

Adams held many positions of public trust and responsibility, and he achieved many firsts in his lifetime. He was the first president-general of the Barbados Progressive League. He was also the first chairman of the Barbados Labour Party. He was the first premier of Barbados and the first and only prime minister of the ill-fated West Indies Federation. His most enduring contribution rests on the large role he played in wresting power from the old ruling elite of merchants and planters in Barbados and locating it in the hands of the masses. His campaign and that of his party to win adult suffrage—one man, one woman, one vote—in September 1950 moved the black masses of Barbadians from the periphery of national politics to the center of the political process. This, combined with the transformation he realized in improving the living standards of Barbadians, in providing them with economic opportunities and in laying the infrastructure for a modern country, earned him the sobriquet of "Father of Barbadian Democracy and of the Social Revolution." He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1957 for his contribution to Barbados and the West Indies through public service. He has, too, been admiringly referred to by the masses as "Moses." Of equal importance was his strategy of incorporating the old ruling class into the national development effort by accommodation rather than confrontation. It has been followed by successive leaders and governments and helps to account for the stability and cohesion in the Barbadian society.

See also Barbados Labour Party; West Indies Federation

Bibliography

Beckles, W.A., comp. The Barbados Disturbances 1937, Reproduction of the Evidence and Report of the Deane Commission. Bridgetown: Advocate Co. Ltd., 1937.

Cheltenham, Richard L. "Constitutional and Political Development in Barbados: 1946–66." Ph.D. diss., University of Manchester, England, 1970.

Hoyos, F. A. Builders of Barbados. London & Basingstoke: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1972.

Hoyos, F. A. Grantley Adams and the Social Revolution. London & Basingstoke: Macmillan Education Ltd., 1974.

Lewis, G. K. The Growth of the Modern West Indies. New York & London: Modern Reader Paperbacks, 1969.

Mark, Francis. History of Barbados Workers' Union. Bridgetown: Advocate Commercial Printery, 1966.

Mordecai, J. The West Indies, the Federal Negotiations Epilogue by W. Arthur Lewis. London: Allen & Unwin, 1968.

Worrell, D., ed. The Economy of Barbados 1946–1980. Bridgetown: Central Bank of Barbados, 1982.

r. "johnny" cheltenham (2005)